Before embarking on our tutorial there are a few SEO prerequisites which you will need to
know so that you understand and can start learning about what we are talking about in our search engine optimisation guide. You need to know a little bit about
each of the following :-
If you are just beginning your SEO journey then you have a mountain to climb starting with this introduction guide - and you're in the dark too.
Don't be fooled by people saying it's easy, because it is not. SEO is a HUGE topic which deserves the
attention to detail you will need to get an advantage and climb to the top of the search engine rankings.
Many SEO experts have spent decades studying various search engines such as Google and Bing and the knowledge they
have has taken just as long to accumulate. So please pay attention, and understand that this is an introduction
of the basics - no matter how fantastic this guide is - you will not get to number one overnight.
Choosing keywords to build your content is probably the most important part of your SEO journey. Understanding what people
are searching for which is relevant to your business is the key to success with search engine
marketing. It is a given that you're an expert at what you do and the services your business offers, and you have to let the search
crawlers know that, and at the same time, you have to match your expertise with what surfers are
keying into the search bar to try and find you. Start by making a list of all the most relevant
keyword and key phrases you can.
To help you build a list you can use keyword seo tools to help you choose. There are many of these
we like to use the browser toolbar called Keywords Everywhere which gives you lists of words
and also similar words which relate to your business strategy. There are other fantastic resources for
doing keyword research aswell, covering many techniques and sources.
Avoid keywords which are basically your brand at this point, because (if you are a new business)
nobody will know the brandname and so won't be searching for it. Try to find phrases which
have a moderate number of monthly searches and are not too competetive. You can establish
these SEO metrics using Keywords Everywhere and performing Google searches for you key phrases.
For the moment - envisage that each page on your website will target only one single word. So
for each piece of content (web page) choose a word and stick with it.
White hat SEO tips are the best to follow as they shouldn't get you in trouble with Google. White hat means going by the rules and
not spamming or doing things to artificially manipulate the search engines algorithms. Things like keyword stuffing and hidden text
are common pitfalls and are considered black hat SEO.
a) Organise your content into a SILO structure. This means that when you create a page about a specific topic, also create some pages
which are about different areas of the topic, and link to these from the main page you make. Have each of these child pages link back to the main page and the home page of your site.
You must make these pages differ, to avoid content cannibalization.
b) Get a fast host - the reason is that speed has influence as a ranking factor and a slow response website may harm your rankings for search engine marketing.
c) Use tools to find extra terms to try and rank for - remember keyword research is a major part of your growth hacking through SEO.
d) Perform link building - because links from other websites with the right level of quality and authority will boost your rankings all the way to the top.
e) Learn some coding, because to make small changes this is essential, it's not wise to rely on wordpress or other CMS to contain the
level of superb SEO you will need.
f) Read up on JSON-LD and schema markup. Google likes these and gets data from them.
g) If wordpress is your thing - then look into Yoast SEO or get an agency to do it for you.
h) SEO tools are your friend - buy as many as you can afford.
i) Ranking does not happen overnight so wait after making changes to make sure that googlebot has been to visit.
j) Reduce the quality of JPG images to reduce their byte size and loading speed.
k) Learn about keyword densities because they are still effective, at least to avoiding keyword over use.
l) Advanced students could study NLP (natural language processing) and entities for an extra opportunity to gain rank.
m) Avoid link farms and bad neighborhoods.
n) Do not use the same anchor text from links from external domains - these will hurt in the long run.
o) Avoid the rich text snippets - they give google a help but you get virtually nothing in return.
p) Image search is useful if you have lots of pictures, place words and name your photographs carefully.