What is SEO?

“In SEO it’s really about the business, choosing the keywords and phrases that speak to the audience that you want to capture.” -Rand Fishkin

For every content that you do, you have to make sure that it will reach a certain audience. It is the first thing to consider to make your content become SEO-optimized. 

SEO is the most important thing for online marketing, blogging, SaaS, and the like. But to tell you the truth, it is also the hardest thing to master. 

It stands for Search Engine Optimization that determines the amount of online traffic a certain keyword or phrase obtains through search engines. By providing the search volume, you will see if a keyword or phrase has greater traffic than the other. 

When you search using Google, it tends to provide the best results possible. Those that are on the first page are the top picks and most probably more SEO-optimized than the other. 

SEO tends to tally unpaid traffics than those of the paid ones, yet it is the best way to market your websites and products.

Steps to a Successful SEO

In order to obtain success for your content, here are seven simple ways to keep in mind:

1. Make sure that search engines can reach your website. Crawl accessibility will make sure of that.
2. Your content should answer search queries. There are a lot of ways to know frequently asked questions, high search volumes, and how people search things. Using SEO tools will help you analyze organic traffics and keywords to use.
3. Think of your keyword (what people would search more often), and use it frequently on your content, but not too much. Keyword-optimized content will attract search engines.
4. It is best if your website has good or fast loading speed.
5. Make sure that your content is read-worthy, share-worthy, and helpful. It will eventually have backlinks, and also affiliations for your website. This will help your earn money online.
6. Learn the basics of SEO formatting whatever web builder and web host you use. Correct title, URL, and Meta description are needed to optimize your content.
7. Your target goal should be the number one result for the keyword that you optimize. When you search for it, search engines like Google should provide snippets from your article, and show it on the first page of SERP.

SEO Optimization for Blog Posts

This guide works best for bloggers who would like to SEO optimized their posts. Take note and apply all these simple ways to your article. Even if you are a beginner, you will definitely achieve SEO optimization in no time.

Keyword Research

Search for keywords that are high in volume, and share the reader’s intent. It should 1 or 2 words long. You can also search for phrases but they should not be more than four or five words long.

You can also use SEO Optimization and Analysis tools to search for keywords. We will tackle this portion below in this article.

Use tools that will determine if your focus and target keywords are difficult. Search volumes determine if your keyword has great potential. If it only has an average of 200 to 2000 searches per month, the difficulty range will only be 0.2.

Keyword Appearance

After having your own keyword, it should appear exactly the way it was on certain parts of your article. But the number of appearances should only be moderated depending on the length of your article. Never over-optimize at it will only fail your SEO optimization.

Your keywords should appear on the following:

Title

There is such thing as article title and SEO title. The SEO title is the one that will appear on search engines. It is best if you use your keyword at the very beginning of your title. 

For example:

Keyword: Happiness

Article Title: Best Ways to Achieve Happiness

SEO Title: Happiness: What is it and How to Achieve it

Of course, the article title and SEO title can be the same. Make sure that you use the one where the focus keyword is at the beginning.

URL

You can definitely edit your article page URL. Make sure that the focus keyword appears on it

For example: 

Keyword: Happiness

URL: mywebsite.com/happiness or mywebsite.com/achieve-happiness

Header

The focus keyword should appear on headings and subheadings inside the article.

Body

Of course, your article should be about the focus keyword. It should appear on the right amount of frequency inside your article.

Meta Description

When you search for a keyword, articles will appear. The highlighted big blue part is the SEO title. A small portion of the text below it is the meta description. Your focus keyphrase should also appear on it. Whatever web host and web builder you use, you can edit your meta description and include your keyword.

Image Alt Attribute

If you are going to use images on your content, you need to take the focus keyword to appear at it is on the image alt attribute. This will also SEO optimize your content. 

When you left-click on the image, you will see the pen icon for edit. The alternative text portion declares the image alt attribute. Type in the focus keywords there.

Number of Words

The number of words is a very important factor to optimize your article. Do not create a very short article. 1000 words may be enough, but it is better to have 2000 and above words as well. 

You need to pass your article to the readability as well. Use more active voice sentences, more transition words, and direct thoughts.

External and Internal Links

Never forget to have internal links. Internal links are other URLs that will redirect to another article from the same website.

You can also strengthen your connections with other websites. Help one another, create guest posts that will cross-promote your websites both.

Connect with big affiliate companies, and make clicks by promoting their products and services on your posts.

Subscription

You can let your audience subscribe to your website. It might be paid subscription to help you earn money, or it may be not, depending on you. Nonetheless, it is your duty to make your subscribers informed about specific details and helpful information about certain topics that will benefit them.

Using email marketing also helps you with better subscription services. Automatic messages will definitely save your time and effort to contact all of your subscribers.

Best SEO Tools for Optimization and Analysis

There are so many SEO tools to consider. Each and everyone has their own features and unique characteristics. Take a look at this list and learn the best tool for you.

• GrowthBar
• SEMrush
• Ahrefs
• Advanced Web Ranking
• Sitechecker
• Authority Labs
• Serpstat
• Long Tail Pro
• SEObility
• SEOquake
• SEOptimer
• LinkMiner
• Pitchbox
• Google Search Console
• Moz
• Ubersuggest
• SpyFu
• WooRank
• Fat Rank
• Siteliner
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider
• Seed Keywords
• Mangools
• Surfer SEO

Final Words

SEO is indeed hard to understand and master but day by day of practice and open understanding will definitely help you understand it better. 

Our advice is to use a good SEO tool and rely on it to help you optimize your content. 

With this, we hope that this article helps you understand SEO Optimization for beginners more than before.