Complete SEO guide for Beginners

SEO stands for search engine optimization, you can easily find many posts or pages about SEO, but they, however, lack some information. But today I will try to explain the SEO guide for beginners and will try to explain all the necessary things needed to know for a newcomer to do SEO perfectly.

What Is SEO?

Google is a search engine and when you work with Google Analytics, Google Keyword Planner, Google AdWords, and Google Webmaster tools or anything related to it or any other search engine to optimize your site then that term can stand for SEO (Search engine optimization). Moreover, it can be about links, Keywords, Reputation, quality, and trust.

Things to learn in the SEO guide for beginners:

Brainstorming or Keyword Research:

The first thing to do for SEO is keyword research. You can use Google Keyword Planner for keyword research, but some other tools like Word Tracker and Keyword Discovery available on the internet can also be used for doing keyword research or brainstorming. But I always prefer Google Keyword Planner.

You can get the estimated keyword search for the words and also some keyword suggestions for the same.

Choosing Keywords:

Keywords are an important thing in SEO. So one must choose the keywords wisely, choose those keywords that have more traffic and less competition because keywords with low competition always give quick and better results.

More importantly, choose those keywords that represent your website, do not choose those keywords that do not belong to your niche, which will be of no use to your site.

Although I would personally recommend you to use long-tailed keywords with low competition and more traffic. I know it’s hard to find a long-tail keyword but check my post of mine which will help you to find the Long Tail keyword for your website or blog.

Recommended:

Why Use Long Tail Keywords for Your Blog?

Choosing a Perfect Niche for Your Blog.

Use Simple Coding techniques for developing a Website:

Consider using HTML and CSS for building your Website. Use of the flash, HTML frames, and Ajax will not be a good idea. You can also use those CMS, which create static HTML on the Server. I always use WordPress for new websites and for better SEO. But there are other Cms too with which you can do SEO pretty well like Magento, Shopify, Pligg, Joomla, etc. It will be even better if you are using an MVC.

Use of HTML Tags for SEO:

Html tags are being used from the beginning of the SEO. Google counts the tags in the Html for displaying better results. The List of tags that are most importantly used in On-page SEO are:

Keyword Density:

Keyword density is the must-have thing on the post or page while doing SEO. The use of the appropriate keyword density will lead your site to a better ranking. The keyword density must be from 3-5% out of 100%. You can check a full post about keyword density for more information. And even the keyword in the Url can be a good help.

Use of synonyms:

Sometimes the use of the keyword several times in an article or page may be counted as spam by Google. So, instead of writing keywords again and again in the post, use synonyms. The term can be named LSI (latent semantic indexing). I have written a full post about LSI; you can read it to know more about “What is LSI?”

The use of Internal Linking:

I always build internal links because it helps me to get better domain authority. Linking categories and menus also helps in making internal links, but it is better to make internal links while writing a post or page. Google gives more preference to those links that are related or mentioned on the pages of the website. And also the internal links are considered helpful information related to the same topic.

External Link Building:

Why is external link building still important?

There are still many things that depend on the links pointing to your website. The number of high-quality links pointing to your site will make a good page rank for your Website and will also help in improving the Alexa rank and domain authority. Moreover, building linking makes your site more reputable and well-connected with the internet which means there are many chances for your website to appear in a higher rank on Google than those sites that are not well connected to the web or have some low-quality links. Techniques like social bookmarking, SMO, blog commenting, Skyscraper Technique, and Guest posting help to build good quality links.

Recommended:

SEO Techniques that have worked for me.

Link Building techniques that I use.

Solving the Canonical Issue:

The word is canonicalization, if your site has a canonicalization problem then you must solve this by using only one domain link for your website. Take an example: here is a link “https://www.meee.com/” with www but it can also be used like this “https://meee.com/.” The only thing you need to conform to Google is what domain link you are using for your site, is it with www or non-www? If you use both of the links that are “non-www and www,” then many of your links may get diluted and affect your page rank. In WordPress, you can simply do that just by doing the setting in the general setting options.

Or you can redirect the link to the server by using a .htaccess file to edit.

Here is the code that can be placed on the .htaccess file to redirect the link.
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ HTTP://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,NC]

This way all your links will point to one link instead of two. However, the best canonicalization link to use is WWW instead of the NON-WWW link. I recommend you read a full post on Canonicalization.

XML Sitemap for your Website:

Is there really, any need for an XML sitemap?

The answer is a little complex, sometimes Google automatically indexes sites, and no sitemap is needed, but when it comes to the bigger sites, it is recommended to submit a sitemap. You can easily submit a sitemap using Google Webmaster tools. Google sends an email for getting your sitemap if not submitted at the time of verification with Google webmaster tools.

A sitemap is a file on the server that Google can easily index and crawl for all the pages on your site. It is recommended to use an XML sitemap for the bigger sites or sites that are regularly updated.

Google can also index your site pages without a sitemap (condition):

1. All the pages of the site must be interconnected.
2. If you have linked your pages with Anchor text.

Check broken links consistently:

One must check broken links constantly because Google penalizes those sites that have broken links. Another thing, if your site has broken links, then a 404 error page also must be there instead of the boring white page. However, if a 404 error appears on your site for a continuing period, then your site can get hurt badly. As internal linking makes the internal architecture of your site so keep internal links active.

Here are some of the simple steps that must be kept in mind:

• If you are a beginner in the field of SEO and internet marketing, then follow the guidelines of Google, and be straightforward and realistic. Be relevant and reputable and aim for a good, satisfying experience for the user. Make some quick decisions and then stick to it. And do not follow the spammers.
• Make Google your best friend and obey its rules or guidelines.
• Do not do or follow those techniques that are against the guidelines of Google. Because doing that could penalize your site. It may not harm your site at that time but could hurt it in the future. So be careful while making this kind of decision.
• Never expect that results for your site will appear instantly, results take time so always have patience. SEO may take a little time, know the estimated time that SEO may take to start working.
• Never pay to get more links, create natural links. The paid link-building software will only harm your site. Google always says that content is king, so focus on the uniqueness and quality of the content. Always use plagiarism-free content for your website. There are many plagiarism checker tools and apps.
• Stay updated with Google algorithms.
• Google’s ranking system depends on the number of quality links pointing to your site. So build links but with those sites that have good Alexa rank and good domain authority.
• Another ranking factor is good and quality content. The original content always ranks well, and the duplicate content is ranked down. You can read this article for more information on “How you can check duplicate content.”
• Make links to the sites that have Dofollow attributes. Because Nofollow does nothing to rank your site.
• Build links with those sites that belong to your blog niche because building links with a different niche will only lead to the downranking of your site.
• Submit your site to other search engines if possible.
• Use the XML sitemap for better indexing of your sites. The XML sites help search engines to access your complete site.
• Make the speed of your site and pages faster. Because people do not wait for sites to keep on loading, they simply move to the other sites. Even though Google ranks down sites with slower page speeds.
• Create more links to get a good domain authority because sometimes Google shows results for sites that are more popular.

I don’t know if I have missed any techniques or not, so if anything that I have forgotten, please tell me in the comments below.