How to learn SEO like a Pro

The success of any SEO strategy, whether you're new to it or have been practising for years, relies on a solid understanding of its foundational principles. When applied correctly and consistently, these principles can yield significant long-term results.

Let's get started;

This article covers;

1. What SEO is and why it's crucial for your online presence.

2. Learn how SEO works and its relevance in today’s digital landscape.

3. Gain insights into how Google’s search engine functions and how it ranks websites.

4. Discover the four pillars of SEO essential for any business.

5. A five-minute SEO activity to assess your website's visibility on Google.

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It refers to the process of optimising your website and its content so that it can be easily discovered through organic search results on search engines like Google. In simpler terms, SEO is all about making sure that when people search for information, products, or services related to your business, they find your website first.

If you're new to SEO, think of a search engine like Google as a massive library, but instead of storing books, it stores web pages. Just as a librarian helps you find the right book by organising them into categories, a search engine organises web pages based on their relevance to the searcher's query.

How SEO Works

When someone enters a query into Google and hits the search button, Google’s search engine scours through all the web pages it has indexed to return the most relevant results to the searcher. This process happens in a fraction of a second, but how does Google decide which pages to show first?

The answer lies in SEO. When you optimise your website correctly, it signals to the search engine that your web page is the most relevant result for the user’s query. SEO, therefore, helps you demonstrate to search engines that your content deserves to be ranked higher.

Understanding Google Search Engine

Google is the most popular search engine globally, allowing users to search for information by entering keywords or key phrases. Although other search engines exist, Google dominates the market, making it the primary focus for SEO.

Google’s primary goal is to organise information in a way that makes it easily accessible and useful to its users. To achieve this, Google uses sophisticated algorithms to analyse websites and rank them based on the relevance and quality of their content.

Is SEO Still Relevant Today?

In today’s digital landscape, there are numerous ways to market your business—paid advertising, social media marketing, email outreach, and so on. So, why should you still invest time and resources in SEO? Is it still relevant?

The answer is a resounding yes. Here’s why:

1. Free and Consistent Traffic: Unlike paid advertising, where traffic stops as soon as you stop paying, SEO provides free and consistent traffic. Once your website ranks well, it can continue to attract visitors without any ongoing cost.

2. Active Audience: People who use Google are actively searching for information, products, or services. This makes them a highly engaged audience that is more likely to convert.

3. Bigger Reach: SEO allows you to reach a global audience that you might not be able to access through other marketing channels. By optimizing your website for search engines, you can attract visitors from all over the world.

Google is the most widely used search engine, with billions of users. This makes it a powerful platform for reaching potential customers who are actively searching for what you offer.

The Four Pillars of SEO for Businesses

SEO can be complex, but it can be broken down into four main pillars that are essential for any successful strategy:

1. Technical SEO: This involves optimizing your website’s infrastructure to ensure that search engines can crawl and index your content effectively. It includes things like improving site speed, ensuring mobile-friendliness, and fixing any technical errors that might prevent your site from being indexed.

2. On-Page SEO: This refers to optimising individual web pages to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic. It includes elements like optimising your title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and content to include relevant keywords.

3. Off-page SEO: This involves building authority for your website through backlinks from other reputable sites. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more likely it is that your website will be seen as authoritative by search engines.

4. SEO Content: Quality content is at the heart of any SEO strategy. By creating valuable, relevant, and engaging content, you can attract visitors to your site and keep them coming back for more.

A 5-Minute SEO Activity to check out your website visibility on Google -

Before we dive deeper, let's start with a quick activity to check your website's visibility on Google. This will give you a baseline understanding of where your site currently stands and what areas might need improvement.

1. Open Google in a private/incognito window: This ensures that your previous searches or browsing history don’t influence the results.

2. Search for your business name: See if your website appears on the first page. If it doesn’t, you may need to improve your brand presence.

3. Search for your primary keyword: The main product or service you offer. Does your website appear on the first page? If not, this is an indication that your SEO needs work.

4. Analyse your competition: Look at the websites that rank on the first page for your primary keyword. What are they doing that you aren't? This can provide valuable insights into areas where you can improve.

How Does Google Rank Websites?

Now that you understand what SEO is and why it’s important, let's explore how Google ranks websites. The process involves several steps, starting with crawling and indexing, and culminating in ranking.

What is Crawling and Indexing?

Google uses automated bots, known as spiders, to crawl the web. These spiders start by visiting a few known web pages and then follow the links on those pages to discover new ones. This process continues until Google has crawled and indexed billions of pages on the internet.

Once a page is crawled, Google analyzes its content and stores it in its massive index. This index is like a giant database that Google uses to retrieve relevant pages when a user enters a query.

Understanding Google’s Crawling Process

The crawling process begins with your website's URL. Google’s spiders first look at the URL to determine the page’s relevance. This makes it crucial to have a clear, descriptive URL structure that accurately reflects the content of each page.

After analysing the URL, the spiders follow the hyperlinks on the page to discover other pages on your website. This is why having a well-organised internal linking structure is essential. It not only helps visitors navigate your site but also allows search engines to crawl your pages more effectively.

Why Google Crawls and Indexes Websites

Google’s primary goal is to provide the most relevant information to its users. If Google were to return every page that mentions a particular keyword, the results would be overwhelming and unhelpful. Instead, Google indexes pages in a way that categorises them based on their relevance to specific queries.

By crawling and indexing websites, Google ensures that it can serve users with the most relevant results. This is why it's so important for your website to be optimised—so that when Google crawls your site, it can easily understand what it’s about and categorise it appropriately.

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How Google Makes Ranking Decisions

Google uses hundreds of factors to determine which pages to rank for a particular query. While the exact algorithms are a closely guarded secret, we do know some of the key factors that influence rankings:

1. Backlinks: These are links from other websites that point to your site. Backlinks are like votes of confidence from other sites, signalling to Google that your content is valuable and trustworthy. However, not all backlinks are created equal—links from reputable, high-authority sites carry more weight than those from less reputable sources.

2. Content Quality: Google prioritizes content that is well-written, informative, and relevant to the user’s query. Content that provides value, answers questions and engages the reader is more likely to rank well.

3. User Experience (UX): Factors like page load speed, mobile-friendliness, and ease of navigation all contribute to a positive user experience, which in turn can improve your rankings.

4. On-Page Optimisation: This includes elements like your title tags, meta descriptions, and the use of keywords within your content. Proper on-page optimization helps Google understand what your page is about and which queries it should rank for.

5. Search Intent: Understanding the intent behind a user’s query is crucial for ranking well. Google is increasingly focused on delivering results that match the user’s intent, whether they are looking to make a purchase, find information, or simply browse through a series of information.

Conclusion

SEO is a powerful tool that can help you improve your website’s visibility, attract more visitors, and ultimately drive more business. By understanding the basics of SEO, how Google’s search engine works, and the key factors that influence rankings, you can start to optimise your website and see real results.

Remember, SEO is not a one-time effort but an ongoing process. It requires constant monitoring, testing, and updating to stay ahead of the competition and continue to attract quality traffic to your site. So, start with the basics, apply what you've learned, and keep refining your strategy as you go. The results will be well worth the effort.

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