In the early 2000s, search algorithms became a more critical part of digital marketing than before. Major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing began to incorporate signals from other websites to determine a site's relevance to the keywords on their web page. Google compiles this information from websites by using web crawlers. This process is called SEO stands for search engine optimization. 

In the last few years, SEO has become even more critical. The amount of content available online has exploded, and sites that fail to optimize their content and web pages risk getting penalized by search engines. This reason makes it essential for website owners to understand SEO basics. No matter where you are in your digital marketing career, you should keep up with the latest trends and changes in this field. 

You do not have to be a software engineer or a marketing pro to understand SEO. We will help you learn SEO to feel better confident in your knowledge and keep up with the latest trends in the field. Check out this guide to seo of the most critical elements of SEO, and you'll be on the right track to understanding the basics of this digital marketing strategy.

Who is this SEO guide for in the first place?

This SEO guide is for those who have basic SEO knowledge, some understanding of SEO strategy, basic link building practices, and have made some SEO efforts already on their site. For example, you should know how search engines work and the role of search engine marketing in improving keyword rankings. You should know the primary search engine guidelines in how the search engine algorithms use relevant content to rank your web page higher in the SERPs.

You also need to understand how search engines discover your web page. We also assume that you want to increase the traffic to your site by optimizing your content. After all, if your content isn't getting the clicks and visits it deserves, how can you expect to earn any revenue? All businesses have to have a plan for growing their traffic, and SEO success is key to achieving that goal.

Tell me the importance of SEO?

In the early 2000s, Google's search algorithms weren't nearly as important as today. SEO was a new concept, and it wasn't considered crucial to ranking well on search engine results pages (SERPs). However, the situation has changed over time. Now, Google uses many signals to determine the relevancy of a site. Many of these signals come from the websites that rank well in Google's results, so SEO has become essential to rank well in Google.

In the early days of Google, SEO wasn't necessary because Google didn't use many of the signals it operates today. Therefore, SEO has become even more important to rank well on Google. Now, with the ever-changing Google algorithm, it's essential to regularly audit your Google rank to ensure your website stays relevant. Keep track of your Google traffic trends and keep an eye on monthly and annual rankings. If you notice a decrease in traffic or a drop in your Google rankings, you need to rectify the situation as soon as possible. 

Google's algorithm is constantly changing, and it isn't easy to keep up with all of the updates. Google may decide to alter the algorithm or introduce a new ranking factor. These changes can have a significant impact on your website's rankings.

Google's algorithm has over 200 ranking signals. Google determines how authoritative your website is and serves your page for relevant queries. Google uses many factors to determine the authority of your website. Google may look at the quality of your content, how many backlinks you have, and the age of your site.

Google considers a site to have higher authority when assessing its trustworthiness. Google also considers a site to have higher authority if it has more backlinks, if it is older, and if it has a large number of PageRank values. Google also looks at the quality of your content. Google may give more authority to a site with a high PageRank value, a large number of backlinks, or many unique visitors to your site. 

Google drives over 70% of web traffic to websites. Google has nearly 80% of the search engine market, so if your website is not optimized for Google, you could be losing valuable web traffic to your business. Website owners need to have a clear SEO strategy for their site's pages to get organic traffic from Google.

There are different ways to tell search engines about your blog post. You need to understand how people search for content in the search engines. One way is to use keyword research tools to discover target keywords related to your industry.

The importance of the volume of searches for keywords cost per click that it would cost if you did PPC to obtain the keyword will help you better understand the importance of SEO to your business. A good keyword tool is Ahrefs. You can use a keyword tool to find what keywords people search for to find relevant content for their questions.

How does Google rank a web page?

The whole point of SEO is to improve the ranking of your web page in Google's search engine results. You want your website to show up often in the organic search for relevant queries. However, how does Google know where to place your page in the SERPs? The answer is that they don't simply click a button and say, "here you go!" Instead, Google has an exceptional team of software engineers that scour the web.

They take the information you have on your site, like your text, images, and links, and they use that information to construct a web model that represents the content on every page. From that model, the engineers then use artificial intelligence to evaluate the web pages on the Internet and determine where they should rank based on relevant keywords. When this is complete, the software engineers then make the changes to the algorithm so the search engines understand how to better rank results.

What is on page SEO?

On-page SEO improves your website's rank on Google by adding quality, relevant, and well-written content. It can be done manually by publishing blog posts, updating your website's content, or using a content management system. To increase the rank of your website in Google, you need to have a solid strategy of on page optimization.

There are many on page optimization strategies that you can use to improve your website's ranking, but you need to choose those that are best suited for your website's topic.  You also need to choose the best keywords for your website and avoid using highly competitive keywords. You can use a good keyword research tool to find your core keyword and other related keywords for your website. You want to pick good keywords that match your your user's search intent in google search.

One popular one page SEO technique is to add keywords in the title tags. You can add a few relevant words to your main topic to help your page get ranked in SERP. You can perform keyword research to find the right keyword to add to your website copy. This approach will also help make sure that your website does not show up for any irrelevant searches that would waste your website visitors' time. If you have an existing site, you can audit your content to ensure that you are using the best seo practices to get your site ranked.

Another seo technique that is often forgotten, is to use internal links connecting your content together. When you use internal links it sends a signal to Google in describing what your content piece is about. The internal links have an anchor tag associated with the URL. One example, is that you could be selling "pet food." You can use an anchor tag "pet food" to link to your internal blog post. The blog post could show up in the organic search results for "pet food" because of the anchor that tag that you added to your web link.

So, please keep this tactic in mind when you start your next seo campaign. Also please remember to add your core keyword in your meta descriptions for your blog page. This tactic will allow your core keyword to be bolded when the meta description shows up in the SERPs when someone uses the keyword to search in Google. The bolded keyword can help increase the click thru rate of your listing in the SERP. 

What is off page SEO?

Off-page SEO is the process of increasing the ranking of your website in SERP by increasing its visibility of it in Google, Bing, or other search engines by increasing traffic to your website. Building external links to your site through guest blogging is a popular off page SEO technique. The method requires the guest blogger to reach out to other web admins to see if they would like to have your content hosted on their site.

It helps to improve the ranking of your website in Google by pointing out the details of your website in the content of articles that have been published on other websites. It works best when posted on a website with high authority. The more authority your website has, the more likely it is to be indexed in Google.

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is the process of increasing the visibility of your webpage on search engines through the use of keywords and other technical elements. It encompasses all the processes before a user is shown a webpage. Technical SEO can be broadly defined as optimizing a website for search engines. It is usually defined as the combination of keywords, optimizing the HTML, and including other elements to assist in providing search engine crawlers with helpful information.

The Benefits of Technical SEO

• Increased Page Weight - This is the physical size of the pages on your site. A page weight of 1.2 MB is the "ideal" for most websites. A page weight below 1.2 MB will decrease the page's ranking on the search engine results page (SERP). A page weight above 2.4 MB will increase the page's ranking in the SERP.

• Higher Page Authority - Page authority is a value assigned to pages on your website that indicates how authoritative they are. This value is typically measured on a scale of 0 to 100, with the most authoritative pages having a page authority of 100. A page with a page authority of 50 is considered a "very popular" page, while a page authority of 0 is not very popular.

• Faster Loading Time - All search engines have their unique algorithms that determine how much weight to place on different web pages. Optimizing your HTML page will generally increase the speed the search engine loads your webpage.

• Higher Bounce Rate - Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that exit your site after viewing only one or two pages. A high bounce rate is generally a sign that your content is not compelling enough to compel visitors to view more pages.

• Longer SEO Life Span - SEO algorithms are constantly changing and evolving. This means that SEO practitioners must stay on top of current SEO best practices and regularly implement new SEO strategies to ensure that their efforts are still relevant.

• Potential for More Traffic - Having a technical solid SEO strategy can help you attract new visitors to your website. The more people that visit your site, the more likely it is that they will click on a link to another site that you have created.

What are the risks?

The risk of performing SEO is that a bad technical strategy can negatively impact your rankings in the search engines. When you do SEO incorrectly, your site's load time and page weight can become too heavy and slow down other visitors' computers. Additionally, bad technical SEO could negatively impact your site's page authority, which signals search engines that it's not worthy of ranking.

What is International SEO?

International SEO is ranking your site in SERPs of other countries. It is not only about ranking your site in the United States but also China, Canada, and India. It is essential to have a global presence on the web. It is necessary to be present in the U.S and other countries, which we call International SEO.

There are many ways you can rank your website in other countries. You can use Google's website for that. For example, if your website is about traveling to India, you can put the keyword "trip to India" in the title tag, meta description, content, and meta tags, and it will appear in the SERPs.

You use this search engine optimization technique to get your content to show up in the search engines for a particular country. Other factors such as the server location where your website is hosted, country domain, language, backlinks, etc., will affect your rankings in the search engines for global searches. You can check your google search console to check for international web traffic. 

Even though you might think that SEO is only relevant for search queries for particular countries or regions, that's not true! As we mentioned above, Google uses several different ranking factors to determine the relevancy of a blog post for search queries.

If you want to rank your website well, your site needs to be optimized for the web in every country where Google has access to search engine results. You need to optimize your website for users in the United States, Canada, Australia, and more than 100 other countries.

There are no resources on the web that you can search for to understand international SEO better. There is quite a bit of SEO work involved in getting a web page ranked for an international country. You can look at other websites that are multi-national companies with customers worldwide to get an idea of how you can implement some of these practices for your site.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is the process of increasing traffic to your website from local search results. Incorporating strategies into your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan that focuses on increasing traffic from local directories will help you increase your brand awareness, improve your search ranking, and grow your business. A good rule of thumb is that the more local search results on your website, the better your SEO.

Local SEO expands beyond the technical aspects of your website's content, navigation, and architecture. It also includes the type of content you choose to publish on your site, how you structure your site, and how you present information to your audience.

SEO Strategies: Black Hat Vs. White Hat

The best way to describe the difference between black hat and white hat SEO is to say that black hat tactics are against the rules and white hat is within the rules. Marketers often use Black hat tactics to get extra traffic from Google by using scrupulous link building practices. Since these SEO tactics are against the rules, Google can penalize websites and remove them from search results. White hat SEO, on the other hand, is safe and guaranteed to work. It's the type of SEO Google prefers and will not penalize websites. We'll explain each of these SEO strategies below to understand better how they work.

You're doing nothing wrong when pursuing one of these white hat SEO tactics. You're improving your website's SEO and increasing your chances of appearing in the organic results. On the opposite side of the spectrum is black hat SEO which we do not recommend. These are the worst things you can do to rank your website on Google. Avoid them like the plague, and you'll improve your SEO a lot faster. 

Some examples of black hat SEO tactics are the following. Black hat SEO can trick Google into thinking that your site gets more traffic than it does by using keyword stuffing, cloaking, or other forms of artificial traffic generation.

Another way that you can do Black hat SEO is by misrepresenting your website's content (i.e., hiding negative information), injecting spam or other keyword stuffing, or paying for click-through results.

Content for SEO

Everything about SEO is based on bloggers creating high quality content for their site. There's no doubt that you want your content to be as good as possible. After all, it's the backbone of your entire SEO strategy. You need high quality content that is interesting to readers and provides helpful information.

The best content possible will attract more readers, and the more people see your pages, the better your traffic will be overall. When you use search engine optimization techniques on your content, you want to perform keyword research to add to your article.

A trend that we notice is that search engines like to have long-form content. We assume that this is the case for Google and other search engines as well. One way to determine the appropriate content length for your article is to look at the search results for the top ten results. You can look at the length of their content, table of contents, etc.

When it comes to publishing great content, there are some factors to consider. Whether you're writing a blog post, issuing a press release, or updating your blog's description, you want to make sure your content is well-written and filled with helpful information for your target audience.

History of SEO

It's important to remember that SEO has been around for a long time. It's been around since the advent of the internet and search engines. Over the years, SEO has had many different iterations and methods, but the general idea has always remained the same. Google's algorithm was created in 2006, and SEO was one of the factors included. SEO has grown and evolved in the years since then, but it's even more critical than before. 

The Google algorithm has had many updates. Panda, Hummingbird, Penguin, and other updates have affected how search results are displayed. You may have noticed a change in rankings in your website traffic or rankings, and Google has updated its algorithm. If you want to stay ahead of the game and increase your search rankings, you must stay informed of what Google considers essential and update your website accordingly.

SEO & HTML

SEO isn't just about building links and optimizing your content; it's also about using the correct type of language. The language you use on web pages is vital for several reasons, but one of the most important is for SEO. You want to make sure that you use quality content written in an easy way to read.

The best way to do that is by making sure that the language is clear and grammatically correct. You want to make sure that your site structure is SEO friendly for your entire site. The site architecture will make it easy for web crawlers to discover your web pages. When your web pages are found, they can become indexed pages in Google. Successful SEO is all about having your web pages in Google in the first place!

You want to use the proper HTML tags to describe your content. H1 is the most critical headline for SEO purposes. It is used for the top heading on a page and should be close to the top of the page. The H1 header should have a keyword in it. It's best to have your keyword in the subheadings as well. You can also use subheadings. H2 is the second most crucial heading for SEO purposes. It should be about one-third of the way down the page. It should also have a keyword in it.

The Role of Mobile Devices on SEO

Mobile-optimized websites receive a significant amount of organic search traffic based on mobile ranking factors. According to Google, 51% of all traffic comes from mobile devices. So, it's crucial to be mobile-friendly. Google doesn't view responsive design as mobile-friendly. It's a responsive site that has a mobile-friendly URL. So, it's best not to have a responsive site with a mobile-friendly URL. Google has updated its algorithm to favor mobile-friendly sites. Therefore, website owners need to have a responsive site with a mobile-friendly URL.

Other websites use accelerated mobile pages, or AMPs for short, which are a new technology that helps deliver faster loading websites to mobile devices. AMPs are primarily used by large tech companies like Google, Amazon, or Uber to improve their performance on mobile devices. AMPs are also a good solution for smaller businesses to enhance their mobile experience.

The main benefits of using AMPs are the improved performance and the ability for your website to scale quickly across multiple devices, which is not possible with regular HTML pages. For example, with AMPs, you can easily switch between your site's desktop and mobile views with a click of a button. You can get possibly get more search engine traffic using AMPs.