In summary, learning about SEO involves a lot of theoretical and practical knowledge of Search Engine Ranking Factors. This article teaches you how to do that.
We'll provide you an outline of the SEO basics in this guide and offer helpful advice on how to learn SEO independently. If you want to get a book on this topic, check out Selar for the simple guide on Search Engine Optimization written by Ottah Kelvin.
Let's get going.
Go Over The SEO Basics First
First, let's take a quick look at the SEO Fundamentals.
To help you learn more about a particular topic, each section of this article includes links to other highly researched and valuable information.
What Is SEO?
The term "search engine optimization," or "SEO," refers to any methods and procedures that enable you to rank higher in Search Engines (like Google).
You will get more visitors to your pages the higher you rank. Thus, increasing Organic (non-paid) Web Traffic from Search Engines is the main objective of SEO.
Learn How Search Engines Work
You must have a fundamental understanding of How Search Engines Work in order to comprehend how to do SEO.
The Search Engines must first find your Web Page. To find new pages, they employ Programs (sometimes referred to as Crawlers or Bots) that follow Links from well-known pages. It's known as Web Crawling.
An Index is a massive Database of pages that contains all of the pages that the Search Engine has found and analyzed. It is known as Indexing.
Lastly, the Search Engine selects the best and most important pages from its Index using a variety of Algorithms and presents them to users as sorted search results for their Search Queries. Ranking is the term for this.
Ensuring that Search Engines are able to Crawl and Index your pages and demonstrating to them that your material is the best for users in terms of quality, relevancy, and user experience are the two main goals of SEO.
Learn The Two Types of SEO
According to research, SEO has historically been split into two main types:
On-page SEO:This refers to all of the improvements you perform on your website, such as technical SEO, internal linking, title tag optimization, and content production.
Off-page SEO:This refers to all SEO-related actions that take place off of a website, such as Link Building, getting Social Signals, content syndication, managing reviews, managing listings, and so on.
Learn Important SEO Skills
SEO is a multidisciplinary field that calls for a number of hard skills. The following are the four key skills for SEO:
Keyword Research: The process of locating, evaluating, and selecting the keywords to target with your content is known as Keyword Research.
A good keyword research tool is required in order to do Keyword Research. It will assist you in analyzing factors such as the keywords' Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty, or Search Intent.
The latter is a crucial component of Keyword Research and SEO in general—finding the Search Intent underlying the Search Queries. It enables you to deliver pertinent, excellent information and to please users.
Creating and Optimizing Content: An essential component of SEO is producing excellent, keyword-optimized content.
Search engines make every effort to rank the most relevant and excellent material because meeting user wants is one of their main objectives. This implies that if you want to score well, you must produce material that is thorough, original, and reliable.
You must take into account elements like internal linking, URL slugs, image SEO, title tags, and meta descriptions when optimizing content.
Technical Optimization: [Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website's numerous technical features](webfx.com/blog/seo/what-is-technical-seo/#:... Making sure search engines can appropriately crawl and index your website is the aim.
This covers items such as:
Having a XML Sitemap for the Website
Replacing broken code
Using Structured Data
Enhancing the user experience and performance of websites is a major component of technical SEO through improving Mobile-friendliness, Page Speed, HTTPS etc.
Link Building:Backlinks are External Links pointing to different websites. Search Engines employ them as markers of reliability and Quality.
- The concept is straightforward: A page is deemed authoritative if numerous Authoritative Pages link to it. For this reason, Link Building—a collection of techniques meant to raise your quantity of Quality Backlinks—has always been a crucial component of SEO.
Study SEO by Doing
Practicing what you've learned about SEO is the greatest method to learn it.
You could choose to use what you've learned about SEO on a website that you already own. Here are some alternatives in case you don't:
Create a blog on any subject you are enthusiastic about and aim to rank for a few keywords.
Launch a side project that has the potential to become a second source of income, like an affiliate website.
Give a friend or family member free website optimization assistance.
Additionally, each niche is slightly unique. Therefore, managing a personal project where you may experiment freely may be beneficial even if you have a corporate website. The more you work on websites, the more you will learn SEO.
Study How to Use SEO Tools
Without SEO tools, some SEO tasks are not possible. Because of this, mastering the usage of the fundamental SEO tools is a crucial component of studying SEO.
Investing in a high-quality suite of SEO tools is an excellent decision if you manage a commercial website. It will save you a ton of time in addition to assisting you in making defensible SEO decisions based on actual data.
Not to mention, they provide you with a competitive edge over rivals that utilize free SEO tools or none at all. Examples of these include Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog, Yoast etc.
Make sure your SEO toolbox includes these essential tools, at the very least:
Research tool for keywords
Competitor link analysis tool (Backlink Checker)
Tool to track keyword rankings (Ranking Checker)
Get Advice From Reputable Sources
Regretfully, a lot of false SEO tutorials is available. Thus, you should exercise extreme caution and limit your selection of educational materials to those that offer precise, dependable, and current information.
Furthermore, trustworthy sources assist you in staying current with SEO trends and modifications.
Google Official Sources:The biggest search engine in the planet Earth is Google. You can obtain knowledge straight from the source when you study SEO from their official sites.
SEO Blogs:Trustworthy SEO blogs can keep you informed about current events, teach you the fundamentals of SEO, and offer you tried-and-true tactics. Examples of good SEO blogs include Backlinko, Search Engine Journal, Neil Patel, SEOTesting etc.