Let’s imagine you have a YouTube channel with no subscribers or a website with no visitors (which means users are not visiting your website). How can SEO help you get more visitors? Is it possible to learn SEO from home? This SEO guide will answer all of your questions. Hello, friends! My name is Swati Rathod, and I created this SEO guide for newbies to guide them through the fundamentals of SEO. I believe you have arrived at the right landing page, as you will discover the major foundational principles of search engine optimization that haven’t changed.
When I think of SEO, I recall Isaac Newton’s quote: “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.” This quote also appears in my favourite Netflix series, “Dark.” Search engine optimization is a never-ending ocean and definitely a time-consuming process. Since search engines and technology are constantly developing, they can never satisfactorily answer them in a single article, blog post, or video. I could do a series on SEO because there are so many new things to learn. However, I want you to master SEO fundamentals, which are immutable cornerstones. Because if your fundamentals are clear and direct, you’ll be able to perform advanced SEO easily, leading to improved results.
Now I’ll go through SEO’s history. This is quite fascinating, SEO (search engine optimization) first became a reality in 1991. The first website was being built at the moment, and so was SEO, which was also being built at the same time.
Within the next two years, new websites popped up at a quick speed. But, what does the presence of other websites imply? This means that there is a lot of content on the internet, but it does not belong to a single sector; rather, it covers a wide range of niches.
Nowadays, finding everything we want is easy. But go back to when it was first introduced, when there were a lot of new websites being launched and no one had heard of a search engine. Few individuals were familiar with the term “search engine optimization.”
In such circumstances, users began to have trouble accessing niche-specific information. As a result, whenever there is a problem, there is also a solution, which is why structure and accessibility are so important. How can the information on the website be accessible and structured?
I’m not sure how to identify if a piece of content is niche-specific. As a result, the SE game begins here. As a result, SEO was used to solve the difficulty of accessing XYZ material.
Most people think of Google when we talk about search engines. This is right; Google is the most widely used and profitable search engine today. In contrast, Yahoo was the first search engine to appear. At the start, Google didn’t exist. Though, people learn about SEO mainly from here.
What is SEO, exactly?
SEO is short for “Search Engine Optimization.” In simple terms, it means optimising your website to boost its visibility when users look for products or services related to your business in the search engine such as Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. The more visible your pages are on the search result page, the more likely you are to draw attention and attract new and existing consumers.
In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (both PhD students at Stanford University in California) founded Google, the world’s most popular search engine. Back in 1996, Google was known as BackRub.
By the time Google joined the market, people had learned about SEO and website owners were bringing in so much content that they had figured out how to reach their content to the world.
SEO allows whatever material I publish on my website can be read by millions of users, but SEO was not that tough, especially back then.
At first, it didn’t appear to be that difficult. What we’re seeing now SEO or the evolution of the search engine in recent years. It wasn’t always like this; in fact, it was pretty basic at first. The arrangement of keywords in the text, title, and a few other places was enough
We could say that it was not algorithm-based. Simply add keywords in your article, and when someone types the EXACT keyword, your website/webpage will appear.
Then Google saw an opportunity and began building algorithms that placed a greater priority on the values, quality, and relevancy of the material. Here we’re talking about finding relevant content that matches the user’s intent on our website. Then, and only then, will Google rank our website using that keyword.
Google had already recognised the importance of relevant and high-quality material while developing its algorithm. On the same basis, the algorithmic update was made. In the Search engine, this is how it ranks sites based on quality, trustworthiness, and valuable content.
From here, the real game begins; as technology develops and changes occur, so do updates; this is an ongoing process. The basis, however, remains the same.
There are three techniques to get your audience to follow you:
Let’s take an example: you built a website or a YouTube channel when you published a blog or a vlog video on your YouTube channel. Of course, you’ll want to promote them around the internet to get users to visit your landing page or watch your YouTube video.
- You’ll share them on your Facebook page, spam them, or send them to your WhatsApp group to get friends and colleagues to visit your website or YouTube channel. This is the first option. However, you can only get 100-300 visitors here, depending on your target. If they’re interested in a certain product or service you’re offering.
- Second, you may use Facebook or Google Ads to drive visitors to a specific keyword, or you can use YouTube in-stream ads to play your ad before a specific video is played. However, the problem is that you’ll end up spending a lot of money, people like us who manage small start-ups or individuals unable to work effectively.
- “Organic Search,” the third method, which may supply you with millions of views and visitors for free. If you want to find free funny SMS on the internet, for example, you’ll go to google.com (or any other search engine you use, such as Bing, Yahoo, or others) and type in a keyword. What exactly is a keyword? A keyword is a word or phrase that you write in Google’s search box. When you enter a keyword in Google, it will show you the best results.
How long do you think it will take for you to see results from SEO?
While there is no one-size-fits-all answer for how long it takes to receive organic results from SEO, the returns you get after six months should be much less than what you get after a year. Also, if you ask why SEO takes so long?, Keyword difficulty, domain age, inbound links, and other criteria all play a role in generating results. As a consequence, depending on how you handle these important SEO areas, your results may take longer or shorter.
What is the significance of SEO?
There are a few reasons why every website needs SEO. We’ll go through those reasons in a quick 4-5 points. If you want to brush up on your SEO basics, or even if you’re just getting started, you must understand why we need to do it.
Here are the main points, let’s have a look:
1. Organic search –
Organic search is frequently the primary source of website traffic – who doesn’t want more traffic to their website, whether it’s a blog or an e-commerce store? Our primary goal, in the beginning, is to generate traffic.
We’ll see what we can sell later. What is our website worth, and how is the product service? However, if the traffic does not arrive, the primary goal will not be completed.
The most important or major aspect after the construction of our website is website traffic. In the Search Engine Planet, “organic search” is the most important source of website traffic, especially from Google as well.
The first thing to understand about the significance of SEO is that if we do not perform SEO, our organic search options will be completely closed to us, as would all routes.
2. SEO Increases Trust and Credibility –
If I key in “buy online shoes” into Google, I’ll find advertising at the top of the SERP, followed by organic results. We all know that SEO will not result in advertisements. Our website, on the other hand, will rank #1 in the SERPs if we use SEO tactics.
Consider this- if you Google this term, you’ll get Nike advertising. (from a classified ad)
Nike’s results are also included in the organic results below.
Users’ trust grows when they come to understand that “The organic results listed below are genuine, and they did not appear at the top by paying to paid advertising. However, if they pay money, their ad will appear at the top of the SERP.”
So this is the point of building trust and credibility. Even if you do not use SEM, your content results will still be based on the query.
3. SEO Affects The Purchasing Cycle –
As I mentioned in the previous paragraph. When a user returns to your website several times, he will definitely move towards conversion. Because trust and credibility will flow from here, this way overall buying cycle affects and more and more possibilities are to avail your product. In any phase, the user gets an increasing number of opportunities to use your service.
4. SEO is fairly cheap –
Well, SEO can be expensive. I’ve seen 10-15 individuals working on a single project for large businesses. So, when a large team is working on a project, consider the team’s salaries, the tools they’re using, and the cost of producing high-quality material.
We need to hire specialised content writers to write the content. You’re probably thinking that SEO is inexpensive? SEO isn’t cheap, but the term used here is “relatively cheap” with time.
You started performing SEO today, and you may be feeling quite expensive. However, as time passes, your SEO activities begin to age your website and your websites continue to strengthen. At that time we feel that the result of our productivity which is coming, we have more than that, today we are spending money.
Today you started doing your SEO, and you may feel very costly. But with time when the efforts of SEO begin to age your website and your websites start strengthening. At that time we feel that the result of our productivity which is coming, we have more than that, today we are spending money.
So, SEO is cheap in the long run, but a little expensive at first. And if someone tells such a wizardry thing, “I will rank the website in less than 10 days”, This is not healthy for your business. Yes, many black hat strategies can help you rank higher. However, believe me, if you gain rankings using black hat tactics, your strategy will fail and you will be blacklisted.
Google has hundreds of updates, some official, and some unofficial. The quickest method is to follow Google’s guidelines and perform content-based SEO. We must do Content Oriented SEO in today’s world. Concentrate on the content, your niche, and your optimizing efforts, and you will see results. Do not go for shortcuts.
5. If you’re not on page one, you’re not going to get any easy clicks:
Who, in today’s world, searches for information on Google’s second page? Why is it that no one is interested in going on the second page? Because Google’s algorithm has improved to the point that it now delivers a large number of accurate and relevant results. Why would a user go to page 2 when they are ready to see relevant results on the first page of the SERP.
Let me explain to you what happens when the user does not achieve the desired result. Rather than going to the second page, they will alter the query. In most cases, the user only travels to page 2 on rare occasions. So SEO will be important since optimization must be done with the search engine in mind in order to rank on page one.
So, I hope you’ve seen how important SEO is and learned a lot of knowledge from these thoughts. Consider working on each point carefully; once you start, you’ll realise how deep SEO is and how vast the reach is.
How does a Search Engine function?
Now, before we begin to understand how search engines work, let us first see the meaning of the search engine.
So, why do we call it a search engine, complex computer software? Because a search engine has access to hundreds of millions of websites and provides results based on that information. That’s why we call it a Complex Computer Program. This complicated program delivers results in milliseconds when you search for information or make a query.
How many search engines are there in total? Google is the most popular search engine, although there are others, such as Bing, Baidu, Yahoo, Ask.com, DuckDuckGo, and more. Instead of Google, try one of these 20 fantastic search engines.
So, a search engine is a system for us to find any information by entering any query or a keyword and receiving information related to the query or keyword we asked for. Now, your next question may be, “how does it deliver information to us?” We’ll figure it out by looking at how a search engine works.
Google’s crawler or spider :
Search engines use programs known as spiders, crawlers, or bots that crawl and visit various websites. What does it mean to crawl? It means crawling the source code of that webpage and trying to understand what this webpage is about.
But how does it get from one site to the next? The route is the link. As an example, a crawler arrived at our website, followed a link on that page, and then went to another website via that link.
We will crawl your website if you submit your website using Google Search Console, which Google recommends. Crawling is the process of obtaining all the information from our website’s source code and saving it to a local server. Assume that there are three different websites. The first is about news affairs, the second is about sports, and the third is about movies. Now that the crawler has crawled all the websites, they identify that this content is relevant to the news, sports, and movie websites and save it to the local server.
Indexing :
The search engine will try to understand and categorise the content on a web page through ‘keywords’. Following SEO best practices will help the search engine understand our content, so we can rank for the right search queries.
Then there’s the indexer, who indexes these websites in the same way that our books have an index section at the start. Even in the directory, you can see that all the names begin with A, B, C, and other details are properly indexed from A to Z. Keywords will be used to categorise the content on the webpage. In this instance, the same thing occurs. News data, for example, will be assigned to the News category, and the same will be applied to the movies and sports categories.
Ranking :
This is where the user enters the picture. The user requested the query “Hindi News” to Google’s search engine. This request is passed to the ranking algorithm, which determines that there are millions of websites in this index and ranks the content based on several factors. That aims to deliver the most relevant result to the users. Also, they decide which of them will be in the first, second, or third position.
This is a mechanism that tells us how search engines work. Now we do not have any control over how things are ranked. However, we can always do the SEO portion and follow SEO guidelines to improve our ranking here. This way, we can tell the Google algorithm that we belong to which category.
However, this does not mean that we can force Google to place our website in this category. This Google will decide under which index or category of your content to be placed. But we will definitely give a hint of our activities and the content of our website to Google that we belong to this index or category.
Types of Search Engine Optimization
Bloggers struggle to improve their websites for Google ranking. It is because most bloggers don’t know how to start. We are all either a beginner or a professional & every search engine has a guideline that every website owner must follow. However, we don’t have any magic wand that will allow us to reach the top-ranking page in a single day.
As a result, we must paint a picture of our website explaining what it is about in a way that fulfils Google algorithm conditions. Also, obeying Google guidelines can help build a powerful website that can rank pleasingly.
Using SEO strategies is necessary to get traffic to our website from search engines. It doesn’t matter if we choose to blog for fun or for earning, but we can’t achieve anything if there is zero website traffic.
For Newbies like me, SEO is time-consuming, but I will always stick to the White Hat SEO technique for Google ranking. It is focused on enhancing online website existence as well as daily traffic that will eventually give better ranking results.
White Hat SEO
White Hat SEO refers to the most ethical tactics used by marketers to get higher rankings on search engine result pages.
White Hat SEO is when all of your search engine optimization strategies are performed, as per Google’s Webmaster Rules.
White SEO strategies completely follow Google’s SEO guidelines. It’s a kind of SEO that is believed to be extremely genuine in its practice as it follows Google’s algorithms and therefore does not seek to manipulate any flaws in them. Organic search results come on search engines as a result of approved ways rather than sponsored or fraudulent approaches.
Although adverts take up a substantial portion of the visible search results, the amount of space allotted to organic results is limited. Therefore, top positions are highly prized.
TACTICS FOR WHITE HAT OPTIMIZATION:
- Finding good keywords with a lot of variation, such as short-tail and long-tail phrases.
- Regularly updating the site with fresh content.
- Using HTML that is free of errors
- Create a site map that is easy to understand for both people and search engines.
- Adding links and buttons to give the reader additional information about the site.
- Placing important and relevant keywords in the title and URL.
- Positioning enough meaningful keywords in the page’s content while avoiding keyword stuffing (page titles, headers, anchor text, URL etc.).
- Add social network connections and communicate with users on these accounts to get backlinks.
- Publishing meaningful and engaging video material that is both informative and entertaining.
Advantages of using White Hat SEO:
- Probably talking about cost: White hat SEO is less expensive in the long run than black hat SEO because being penalised by Google for using unethical practices would cost more.
- Safety measures: White hat SEO-optimized sites are safe from Google penalties.
- Level of Steadiness: Compared to pages optimized through unethical approaches, which may result in penalties, the ranks achieved with White hat tactics are often more constant, and it can cement your website for the longer term.
- It’s a good approach to connecting with people online – It concentrates on marketing methods that are tailored to a particular target demographic while maintaining high quality. Although white-hat SEO takes time and patience, it is a wonderful way to gain frequent online users.
- reputation Will Never Be Ruined By White Hat SEO – Going against a search engine’s algorithms can say a lot about your company. What will your consumers say of your legal compliance if you’re a company that doesn’t follow the rules?
- Create a variety of revenue streams – White hat SEO allows you to create various revenue methods. White hat SEO tactics tend to produce organic and natural results, which increases the likelihood of genuine traffic.
Black Hat SEO
Everything may be done in two washortcutys: the proper way, which is the long cut, and the short cut, (which is always wrong and drags you into trouble). White hat SEO is a legal method that complies with all search engine guidelines. On our website articles, we use White Hat SEO by following the rules and regulations of SEO as well as its recommendations.
Black Hat SEO is unethical and differs from white hat SEO in a number of ways. Rather than focusing on specific clients, Black Hat focuses on the search engine.
It is always used to achieve speedy results because it ranks higher on search engine result pages. However, the black hat cannot be used for an extended period because this is a shortcut that generates poor outcomes. You could lose a lot of money.
The black hat does not follow any Search Engine recommendations or rules and regulations to improve traffic and ranking for any site. They used such approaches and procedures in this case with the sole objective of higher ranking in search engines.
The early results appear to be quick and effective, but you will experience long-term adverse effects. It lowers your site’s ranking and may cause a complete blacklisting by Google. As a result, black-hat SEO is not a preferred strategy, and no SEO professional recommends it.
Let’s have a look at the various techniques and strategies used in this:
1. Keyword Stuffing – In this technique, the keyword density is kept high. Keywords are frequently used throughout the material.
Whether that content is connected to your query or not, their goal is to rank the site and boost traffic.
1 to 3 per cent keyword density is good for any post. Keyword stuffing is when you use keywords too many times in a row.
It gives your site’s readers an awful user experience, which gives negative results for your site.
2. Hidden Text or Invisible Text – Some specific targeted keywords and links are hidden on your website or blog, which are not visible to visitors but can be read easily by search engines. Keywords and links are written in white writing on a white background to catch the Google’s attention.
3. Doorway pages: These are fictional pages designed for search engine crawlers. So that the pages may be indexed as fast as possible and the article can be ranked in the search engine.
4. Low-quality pages: These are pages that contain a large number of keywords. These sites include less and no specific information. However, they contain many keywords. Keyword stuffing is done to increase traffic on a website.
5. Content scraping: Scraping is the practise of constantly republishing any material on your site. Content scraping is disapproved by Google, and as a result, your site may become inaccessible.
6. Spamdexing – This is a ranking technique in which a person repeatedly repeats a specific paragraph. Such activities are considered against the search engines’ guidelines, regardless of whether there is value to the viewers or not.
So, because this is such a broad topic, my goal in this blog is to help you understand what white hat, black hat, and grey hat SEO are. For the next post, I will break down white hat, black hat, and grey hat SEO separately. Subscribe to my newsletter and bookmark my blog for future postings; you will be updated when new ones are published.
Grey Hat SEO
Now here you’ll ask that when there is already White hat SEO and Black hat SEO, then why did we need a Grey Hat SEO?. Friends, it’s a hybrid of the two. In Grey Hat SEO, we do 5% black hat and 95% white hat techniques. This technique is also not recommended, but some digital marketers do a little.
Some people who don’t have patience, no matter how hard they try, will accept the negative method at least once. This results in quick link building. However, the grey hat is not recommended. It will not completely block your website, but its technology is still not suitable for one.
There are three types of SEO techniques:
- On-Page SEO – This refers to the website’s content. If we keep updating the website’s information and optimise them. Why updating website information? Because then we can rank our website for specific keywords in a search engine.
- Technical SEO – This refers to the non-content factor of your website that has nothing to do with content. Page speed is an example of something that has nothing to do with content.
- Off-page SEO – This is a technique for improving the interaction between our website and other websites. Backlinks help us establish connections, just like they help us build backlinks.
On-Page Optimization:
There are three types of SEO: on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. Those who are beginners will read this.
Let’s look at an example of off-page factors: Backlinks. For new websites, we can’t manage all the backlinks, can we? But using On-page SEO can control 99% of the factors or, I can say 100% of the factors, that’s why you can’t ignore on-page SEO.
On-page optimization has to be done carefully because the entire off-page SEO is not in our control, but on-page is entirely in our control.
Now there are questions asked; when do we start doing on-page SEO? When someone asks that we got a new website, How do we apply on-page?.
Friends, There are two types of working done in On-page SEO:
- One, that stays for a long term, we don’t need to change it again and again throughout the website or webpage; we configure that thing once; it lasts for a long time.
- Second, there are some other factors of on-page that do not stay for the long term. For example, if we publish an article or a blog, we must continually update it while keeping all the factors in mind.The same goes for all the blogs you post. So these are two different things.
What comes under One-Time Setup: Let’s say SSL certificate, this is a one-time thing you will not do again and again.
Once in a while – Some factors like, before you post a blog, optimise its title, description, heading tag, overall from a search engine optimization point of view. Google recommends 200 factors that can Affect Your Ranking directly or indirectly.
When I do on-page, I always make a checklist that there are some factors which have to be done at one time and the other activities which have to be repeated.
Whether it is a checklist or a step-by-step process, start making a habit. If you are starting as a beginner, then you must make a process of what will be your first action, and then you will not miss any step this way.
It’s an excellent habit to develop, not only for newbies but also for those who have moved a little further in their SEO careers. Other advanced techniques can always be broken down into a checklist or step-by-step process. There will be no errors if you keep the process of adopting those strategies in writing.
“What should we do if our website is currently ranked highly for specific keywords? Can we stop our search engine activity? This question is often asked whether in seminars, online classes, or workshops. No, it’s a content process. Don’t expect your current ranking position will last permanently because presently our website/web page ranks on the search result page for particular keywords. There is a possibility our competitor can rank on the SERP for the same keyword after two hours. As a result, SEO is described as a continuous process.
However, some of the factors that have direct or indirect ranking effects are listed below:
- Website is crawlable
- User Friendly Urls
- Well-targeted content
- Keyword optimization
- Website optimization
- Https
- Image Optimization
- readability and UX
- CTR
- Mobile-friendliness
- Quality outbound link
- website structure
Off-Page optimization:
Off-page SEO refers to technology that is processed outside of your website. Or those tactics in which you do not work on your website but instead link it to several online sites.
Let me give you an excellent example: I own a property that I have thoroughly designed and made beautiful. Now I want to invite everyone to my XYZ house.
Much in the same way, I developed my website, optimized it to perfection, placed keywords, and enhanced the speed of my site. In other words, I created a good website, and now I’m encouraging the audience, i.e. users, to come to my house, which means users visit my website, which increases my website rating, and so users are aware of my site.
However, there are a few things to consider, like my property is in a colony and everyone in the neighbourhood is watching celebs come to see my newly constructed flat. This indicates that high-ranking authorities have visited my property, strengthening the reputation of my residence. Others would also like to visit your home. In the same way, others would prefer to visit my website if such high authority links were to appear on my page.
What does the term “website authority” mean? When my website is linked to various good and major websites, so the search engine will consider it important.
Something on my website is causing it to grow at such a rapid rate, and it is being linked to major websites. As a consequence, the search engine ranking of my website will increase. As a result, my website will see an increase in traffic, while engaging in off-page activities.
We will engage in off-page activities in such a manner that we can draw our audience from a number of high-authority sites and platforms.
The main goal is to drive traffic to our website from various sites and platforms so that the search engines believe our website is trustworthy and genuine, and that people trust it.
So, whatever activities, like, creating links or publishing something that impacts our webpage ranking within search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google by activity taken outside our website. This all is called off-page optimization.
Some of the off-page SEO aspects:
Now when we talk about off-page SEO, only one thing we remember is backlinks. Indeed, backlinks are an important part of off-page activities, but we also have to pay attention to other factors apart from backlinks.
When we understand off-page SEO, we must also know how many links must be created every day, week, or month. When will our links be considered spam, and how will they be evaluated as quality backlinks?
Let’s check a list of factors while executing off-page optimization on our page:
1. Search engine submission 2. Free classified submission, 3. Image summation 4. PDF or PPT submission 5. Social bookmarking 6. Forum posting. Guest blogging 7. Press Release Submission, 8. Infographic submission, 9. Video submission, 10. Q & Answer Submission
Technical SEO
Friends, Whenever we talk about SEO, we often discuss the activities of on-page and off-page SEO. Few individuals discuss technical SEO optimization and implementation. If we’re talking about a website’s ranking, I’d agree that on-page optimization is very imprtant.
Friends, Even if we haven’t done any off-page optimization, such as building backlinks, our website can still be ranked only based on the on-page activities. But, without technical SEO, our website will not be rank; this is why technical SEO is so important.
As we all know, one of the goals of on-page activities is to optimise content for search engines so that they can understand what the website is about.
Backlinks are discussed on the off-page level. So, what exactly does technical SEO include?, Why do we perform it in the first place?
We’ll go over these points and understand how does technical SEO assist us in the following areas:
1.Site Structure-It should be Organized
2. Follow a Consistent & Logical Site Structure
3.Check the Crawling related Issues in Google Search Console
4. XML Sitemaps
5.Robots.txt
6. Mobile Friendliness
7. No Index Tags
8. Canonical URL Implementation
9. Optimize your 404 Pages
10. Add SSL Certificate
11.Website Speed.