You are currently viewing What is SEO | Complete Beginner’s Practical Guide (2022) | Zero to Pro Level

What is SEO | Complete Beginner’s Practical Guide (2022) | Zero to Pro Level

🤔😲 Imagine: 👉 You’ve completed your blog posts. You made certain that all relevant keywords were included properly. You’ve already modified your titles and added meta tags.

Now, you search for keywords you want to rank for and you find them on the first page. But in reality, for beginners, it takes a long time to rank a website on the first page of search results.

And if you are just starting your SEO journey, you should know what is SEO concept & what factors really impact SEO rankings. 🙅‍♀️❌ Stuffing keywords on your site will not work. You need to understand the basic concepts properly.

Not sure how SEO works or what areas to focus on? 👉 You’ve arrived at the right place.

This complete beginner’s practical guide to what is SEO will assist you in mastering the fundamentals of all SEO terminologies and putting them into practice.

💡 So without further ado, Let’s get started.

👉 Part I- What is SEO?

The term SEO “search engine optimization” refers to the process of making a website easier for search engines to understand and more user-friendly. The overall goal of SEO is to improve the positions of a website in the SERP (search engine result page) for various search terms to increase organic traffic.

The higher your pages’ visibility in search results, the more likely you will be able to attract the attention of new and existing customers to your business.

Remember, the higher the website is listed, the more people will see it and click it.

In a nutshell, good SEO entails a variety of tasks, including:

  • Identifying relevant keywords with a high potential for search traffic.
  • Creating and optimizing high-quality, relevant content for search engines and readers
  • Adding relevant links from high-ranking websites
  • Taking measurements of the outcomes

When it comes to optimizing a website for search engines, there are hundreds of rules to follow in order to satisfy the various search engine ranking factors while also keeping your users happy.

The SEO industry has developed various types of SEO to make them easier to manage. Each type is responsible for a different set of SEO rules.

👉 Part II- What are the major types of SEO?

What’s important to remember is that these subsets of SEO aren’t separate processes; rather, they’re a way of breaking down a complex process into smaller, easier-to-manage processes.

So, here are the various SEO types:

  • Technical SEO
  • On-Page SEO
  • Content SEO
  • Off-Page SEO
  • Local SEO
  • eCommerce SEO
  • Mobile SEO

Technical, On-Page, and Off-Page SEO are the three most important types of SEO.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is exactly what it sounds like: technical parameters that influence a website’s visibility in search engines.

The primary goal of technical SEO is to ensure that search engine crawlers can successfully crawl and index a website.

The following are the most important technical SEO guidelines:

  1. To ensure that search engines can access your website correctly, check and optimize your robots.txt file.
  2. Optimize the structure of your website and its URLs.
  3. Add and verify your website with the Google Search Console and specify your preferred domain.
  4. Use a web design that is SEO-friendly.
  5. Focus on templates, redirects, and visuals to improve website speed.
  6. To find and fix crawl errors, use the feature of the COVERAGE report.
  7. Create an XML Sitemap and send it to all of the major search engines.
  8. Create websites that are quick to load on both desktop and mobile platforms.

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO is concerned with the site page itself. It primarily focuses on how to optimize pages for search engines while also making them more user-friendly.

It should be noted that while search engines consider the entire website, ranking is done on a page-by-page basis. That is why it is necessary to optimize every page on your website.

🔴The following are the most important on-page SEO guidelines:

1] Conduct keyword research:

Determine the search terms and phrases for which you want to be ranked. Do proper keyword research to see which terms have the most relevance and search volume, but also look for terms that have the least amount of competition. Once you’ve identified the best keywords, make sure to inform your writing team so that they can include those keywords in the page content.

2] Optimize the titles of your pages

This is an important SEO factor. Page titles appear in search results and should entice users to click on them. A page’s title should also give search engine bots enough information about the page’s content.

3] Optimization of metadata

Metadata informs Google and searchers about a page’s content. To improve your chances of ranking higher, make sure your meta titles and meta descriptions include relevant content and keyword phrases.

It’s also worth noting that Google rewrites our metadata with other copies on the page from time to time, so make sure your entire page is optimized.

4] Optimize your H1 Tag-  While the page title is displayed in the SERPS, the H1 tag is displayed as the page’s top heading. An optimized site page has only one H1 tag, and usually, it has the same values as the page title.

5] Heading tag optimization-    A page must have subheadings (H2, H3) for each section in addition to the H1 tag. In the case of long-form content, subheadings make it easier for users to read and crawlers to scan the page.

6] Create internal links-  Internal links are URLs on your website that lead to other pages. These are frequently attached to the anchored text. To help Google read your site and make it more user-friendly, include links to high-authority pages and links to targeted keywords in your content.

7] Images optimization-  Any images used on a page should be properly optimized; otherwise, search engines won’t be able to figure out what they’re for. Image SEO requires things like optimizing the filename, ALT text, and file size

8] Formatting the page-  It is not a good SEO practice to publish a page with text and images without spending time enhancing the content.

Google cannot see a page in the same way that a human can, but they have ways of understanding how a page should look or if it’s full of popups and ads. These factors are considered during the ranking process and you need to improve the optimization process.

Including on-page SEO in your marketing efforts assists search engines in understanding your site’s content. And once Google has a good understanding of your website, it can reward you by displaying content for relevant search queries.

Content SEO

Content SEO is a part of the on-page section. The quality of content and how to improve it more are at the heart of content SEO.

Many people consider this to be one of the types of SEO because it is such an important SEO success factor. However, in many cases, content guidelines can be found under on-page SEO, which is also a good approach.

Publishing great content that users love and search engines can understand is a great combination.

To achieve this, you must follow these SEO guidelines:

  • Keyword research should be the first step in the content creation process. Find the most important SEO keywords for your website and include them in your content.
  • Look for long-tail keywords and semantically related (or LSI) keywords and add them to your titles, headings, and main content.
  • Publish content that is comprehensive and long enough for users to get what they want and for search engines to understand the meaning of your content.
  • To help users learn more about a topic, link to other high-quality websites and other pages on your website.
  • Use schemas and structured data to indicate to search engines which parts of your content are important.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO mainly focuses on promotion. Off-page SEO refers to everything that occurs outside of your website. It is all about increasing your company’s visibility and trust, which can lead to more visitors and sales.

Popular websites are more likely to rank higher on Google than lesser-known websites. And to make the site popular, off-page activities play the main role.

The most important off-page SEO techniques are:

  1. Link Building
  2. Content Marketing
  3. Forums
  4. Guest Posting
  5. Podcasts
  6. Reviews
  7. Local SEO (GMB and Citations)
  8. Business Profile
  9. Blog commenting 
  10. Influencer marketing
  11. Email Outreach 
  12. Social bookmarking
  13. Slide sharing(Powerpoint presentation)
  14. Article submission
  15. Infographics submission

Ensure that you acquire links that are earned, come from authoritative sources, are “follow” links, and bring qualified traffic.

Fast-Track your digital career with a digital marketing course in Delhi with advanced modules from Marketing fundas.

Local SEO

Local SEO is a type of SEO that is appropriate for local businesses. To put it another way, if you have a website and want to attract customers to your local store, you should optimize it for local SEO.

It’s all about boosting your community’s online presence and promoting your products or services to local customers. Google My Business profile is frequently used to determine how well you rank on Google. This is where you list your business’s address, hours of operation, description, reviews, and photos.

Based on the user’s search query, the search engine results pages will consider proximity, relevance, and prominence, and will select your business if you meet certain criteria.

Get the best YouTube services from Marketing Fundas, the top YouTube advertising agencies in Delhi that drive growth with YouTube paid promotion in India

Make sure your business name, address, and contact information are visible on all pages of your website:

  • On your homepage, add the Local Business schema.
  • Create a Google My Business account if you haven’t already created one.
  • Trusted directories such as Yelp, Foursquare, Yahoo Small Business, and others can help you promote your business.
  • Local websites and directories can help you promote your website (for example, online local newspapers)
  • Building local links
  • Include a customized local landing page
  • Submitting spam on Google Maps
  • Optimizing your local profiles
  • Spamming Google Maps with spam

The following are some of the advantages of local SEO:

  • It’s extremely targeted.
  • It’s completely free.
  • There’s a better chance of ranking locally because only 44% of businesses claim their GMB listing.

E-Commerce SEO

E-Commerce is a massive business. Optimizing an e-commerce site is more challenging than optimizing a blog or a business website in terms of SEO.

You have a lot more pages to optimize, and promoting an eCommerce website is much more difficult.

The following are the most important eCommerce SEO factors you need to consider:

  • The homepage and category pages are the first places t start optimization. Before you begin working on your product pages, you must first optimize these two-page types.
  • Optimize your product pages based on your keyword research findings.
  • Optimize your store’s entire visual appearance (images, videos)
  • Add the schemas that are required (products, offers, etc.).
  • Use social media platforms to promote your store.
  • Consider unique ways to encourage people to link to your product pages.
  • Start a blog and share information about your products and how they can assist people in solving problems.

Mobile SEO

Mobile SEO is not a distinct type of SEO, but rather a subset of SEO tailored for mobile devices.

It’s a fact that mobile devices now account for more than 60% of Google searches. This is a huge number, and it shows that the Internet is shifting away from traditional desktop computers and towards mobile devices.

This is also why Google decided to create a mobile-first index, which indexes a website’s mobile-friendly version rather than the desktop version.

When working on mobile SEO, make sure to keep the following in mind:

  • Your website is responsive to mobile devices. Starting with the mobile-friendly test is a good idea.
  • On a mobile device, the website loads quickly and is simple to navigate.
  • The user experience on mobile is not disturbed by interstitial banners, other methods of aggressive popups, or advertising.

👉 Part III- What is the difference between white hat SEO vs black hat SEO

Some people consider “black hat SEO” to be a type of SEO, which confuses newcomers. Black hat SEO is a general term that refers to any actions taken to manipulate search engine algorithms.

Many people come up with ideas on how to artificially create links to improve the rankings of a website on Google from time to time. These techniques are against Google’s policies and should be avoided at all costs.

Following black hat techniques will only result in you losing your Google rankings and trust, as well as being penalized by Google and reducing your chances of ever achieving any rankings on Google.

All of the methods described above are ‘White Hat SEO’ techniques, which means that if you follow them correctly, you will ultimately be able to rank high in search engines and receive a portion of the traffic generated by search engines.

👉 Part IV- How do search engines actually work?

People use search engines when they have a question and are looking for an answer on the internet. Search engine algorithms are computer programs that search for clues in order to provide searchers with the exact results they seek.

Algorithms are used by search engines to find web pages and determine which ones to rank for a given keyword.

📌 The workings of search engines are broken down into three steps:

Crawling: Crawling is the stage of discovery where they search the Internet for content and examine the code and content for each URL they come across.

Indexing: Indexing is the filing stage. It stores and organizes the content found during the crawling process.
Ranking: The retrieval stage is known as ranking. Provide the content that will most effectively respond to a searcher’s query.

Step 1: Crawling

Crawling is the first step. Web crawlers are sent out by search engines to find new pages and record data about them. These web crawlers are also known as “robots” or “spiders”.

Their goal is to find new web pages and to check the content of pages they’ve already visited to see if it’s changed or updated.

Search engines crawl web pages by following links they’ve found previously. When a search engine crawls your homepage, it will look for another link to follow and may follow the link to your new blog post if you have a blog post linked from your homepage.

Step 2: Indexing

Indexing is the second step. A search engine decides whether or not to use content that it has crawled when it indexes it.

A search engine will add a crawled web page to its index if it is deemed worthy by the engine. This index is used at the final ranking stage. 

When a web page or piece of content is indexed, it is filed and saved in a database from which it can be retrieved later. The index contains the majority of web pages with unique and useful content.

A web page might not be placed in the index if:

  • Your site is brand new and hasn’t been crawled yet.
  • If the content is considered to be plagiarized.
  • If the content is regarded as low-quality or spammy.
  • There are no external links on your website.
  • The navigation on your site makes it difficult for a robot to effectively crawl it.

If you already have a website, it might be a good idea to start off by seeing how many of your pages are in the index. This will give you a lot more information about whether Google is crawling and finding all the pages you want or not.

One way to check your indexed pages is to type “site: yourdomain.com” into the Google search bar. This will show you the results from Google’s index for the specified site:

Use the Index Coverage report in Google Search Console to get more accurate results. If you don’t already have a Google Search Console account, you can create one for free.

With a tool like Google Search Console, you can submit sitemaps for your website and track how many of those submitted pages have actually been added to Google’s index.

🟢 Get top-rated digital marketing services in Delhi from Markering Fundas.

Step 3: Ranking

The third and most important step is ranking. Only after the crawling and indexing steps are completed can ranking take place.

Your site can be ranked once it has been crawled and indexed by a search engine.

Search engines use over 200 ranking signals to sort and rank content, all of which fall under the three pillars of SEO: technical optimization, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization.

The following are some examples of signals used by search engines to rank web pages:

  • Keyword in the title tag: Whether or not the keyword or a synonym was used on the page and in the title tag.
  • Web page loading speed: Whether the website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly.
  • Website reputation: Whether or not the web page and website are considered reliable for the topic being researched.

👉 Part V- The 5 Most Effective SEO Tools Used by SEO Experts

As a fairly technical discipline, SEO employs a variety of tools and software to aid in the optimization of websites. The following are some of the most commonly used free and paid tools:

📌 Google Search Console

The Google Search Console (formerly known as “Google Webmaster Tools”) is a free Google tool that is an essential part of any SEO toolkit. It can help you identify and resolve on-site technical issues by providing rankings and traffic reports for top keywords and pages.

📌 Google Keyword Planner 

Another free tool provided by Google as part of their Google Ads product is Keyword Planner. Despite the fact that it is designed for paid search, it can be a useful tool for SEO because it provides keyword suggestions and search volume, which can be useful when conducting keyword research.

There are several link analysis tools available. The two most popular of which are Ahrefs and Majestic. Backlink analysis tools allow users to see which websites link to their own or competitors’ websites, and they can also be used to find new links during link building.

📌 SEO platforms 

There are a variety of SEO platforms available, each of which combines a number of the tools required by SEOs to optimize websites. Moz, BrightEdge, Searchmetrics, and Linkdex are among the most popular.

These tools keep track of keyword rankings, assist with keyword research, identify on-page and off-page SEO opportunities, and perform a variety of other SEO tasks.

📌 Social media 

Most social media sites have no direct impact on SEO, but they can be a useful tool for networking with other webmasters and building relationships that can lead to opportunities for link building and guest posting.

👉 Part VI- What are the 7 key elements of an effective SEO strategy?

A wide range of actionable SEO strategies can be used to provide you with the strong digital exposure you deserve. Effective keywords and content marketing approaches can be used to create a strong SEO strategy.

As a result, your website rises to the top of the search engine query page, resulting in increased traffic. With a basic understanding of the goals of search engine optimization, you can determine whether or not search analysis is appropriate for your business.

1) Boost your organic traffic

When it comes to SEO, organic traffic is an important component that can help a business grow. The increase in organic traffic to your website opens up a world of possibilities for potential customers.

Significant SEO goals must be implemented in order to stand out from the crowd.

By obtaining custom-quality backlinks to your site, you can improve your domain strength and increase your ranking potential. You must be cautious when earning backlinks, both in terms of the number of links you earn and the websites from which you want them.

Backlinks from reputable and high-quality websites will help your website achieve its SEO objectives in the future. The websites from which you want backlinks must be right.

You can look for credible websites that can help you with content marketing so that you can rank well in the SERPs. Web pages can be another way to add value to your overall optimization strategy.

3) Boost the page’s speed

One of the main goals of the SEO strategy is to increase page speed through the use of effective SEO techniques. As your page speed improves, you’ll be exposed to a wider range of potential ranking opportunities.

4) Boosting domain authority

Another viable option for developing a search engine optimization strategy is to create dynamic domain authority and strengthen it over time. The ranking potential of a website is directly affected by domain strengthening. With more authoritative search engines viewing your website, it will gain more prominence on the SERP.

Internal linking is an important part of developing an SEO strategy for your website. It is not only responsible for keeping visitors on your website, but it is also responsible for improving your site’s ranking in popular search engines such as Google or Bing.

6) Branding

Any online marketing campaign relies heavily on branding. Are you planning to develop your own brand? Then there’s the matter of keeping track of the target market.

Maintaining trust and securing the domain are the top priorities for established brands. Ranking high in your industry can lead to advanced updates and the acquisition of real customers in a short period of time.

Internal links make it easier for search engines and targeted customers to learn more about your website, mission and values, services or products, and so on.

Featured snippets can be useful and have a long future ahead of them. Promote websites with featured snippets, which will act as a catalyst for driving traffic to your site.

Because users can get the information they need from your snippet, they are more likely to visit your site and use your services.

🔴 Kick-start your digital career successfully with the help of our free digital marketing course in Delhi.

👉 The key takeaway

SEO is a never-ending process, but with practice and time, you’ll undergrad from an SEO for beginners guide to a more advanced position. One of the most effective ways to improve your search engine ranking is to publish relevant posts on your blog on a regular basis (fresh content).

Once you’ve created high-quality content, promote it to reach a wider audience. And to do it more smoothly, watch this step-by-step practical SEO (on-page + on-page) tutorial video to make your website more advanced.

This Post Has 14 Comments

  1. Rebecca

    I wanted to check up and allow you to know how much I
    valued discovering your web site today. I will consider it a real honor
    to do things at my place of work and be able to utilize the tips discussed on your web site
    and also be involved in visitors’ feedback like this. Should
    a position regarding guest article writer become available at your end, you should
    let me know.

    1. Marketing Fundas

      Thanks for your useful comment 🙂 Keep following Marketing Fundas blogs for more informative digital marketing tactics. And yes we’ll definitely let you know.

Leave a Reply