SEO Basics Tutorial

When you’re getting started with SEO, you need a step-by-step tutorial.

You might know the basics like:

• Keyword research
• On-page optimisation

But where do you start?

In this post, we will learn all the basics steps to start your SEO strategy.

So, if you’re new to SEO, follow these tips to rank your website.

Let’s get going.

SEO steps

• Keywords
• Page title
• URL
• Meta description
• H1 text
• Content
• Links
• Analyse

Keywords

Keyword research is finding words and phrases that are:

• Used by searchers
• Relevant to your business

Targeting these words and phrases are more likely to get people to:

• Visit your website
• Consume your content

Note: Learn to do keyword research manually before using keyword research tools.

And track your keywords using a spreadsheet or word document.

Remember, pick one keyword or keyphrase for each of your website’s web pages.

Don’t target different keywords on one page, unless they are semantically related.

For example, the long-tail keyword “local coffee roaster,” would be semantically related to:

• “Local coffee”
• “Coffee roaster near me”
• “Coffee roaster [city name]”
• “Locally roasted coffee”

Page title

After picking a keyword, use it in your web page’s title.

Because the web page’s title:

• Tell search engines like Google what your web page is about
• Appears on top of your web page in the SERPs

Remember, keep it short, use 65 characters or less so search engines don’t cut off your title.

And your brand name is part of your website’s title character count.

URL

URLs also tell search engines like Google the content of your web page.

So use your keyword or keyphrase in the URL slug.

Remember, don’t keyword stuff, instead keep it:

• Short
• Descriptive
• Simple

Meta description

Meta descriptions also help search engines and users know the content of your web page.

So, insert your keyword or keyphrase in your meta description.

Remember to make sure it’s:

• Readable
• Keyword focussed
• Not too long

H1 text

The H1 text is the article’s title at the top of your web page. 

And the H1 is important to search engines like Google.

So make sure your keyword or keyphrase is in there.

Content

Put your target keywords in your content because:

• It’s part of on-page SEO
• Tells search engines that the web page’s content is about the keyword
• Helps it show up in search results

Remember, to make sure to insert your keyword naturally into your content and avoid keyword stuffing.

Links

Now it’s time to get inbound links to your website from websites in your industry.

This is an important step in SEO because search engines like Google rank your website on:

• The number of links pointing to it
• The quality of these links

Backlinks to your website means its:

• A topic authority
• Has trusted information

Note: Linking out to related websites in your industry shows relevance for that keyword.

Analyse

After a few weeks or months, search engines would have crawled and indexed your website’s content.

Now it’s time to check your rank and track your progress.

Do this manually by searching your target keyword in Google or use Google Search Console.

Do this to see what’s working and see where you need to improve.

Metrics you can monitor include your Google PageRank.

Google uses this to rank your website based on importance.

So, a high Page Rank means your content is at the top of results for search terms.

Note: A free tool like Check Page Rank can also help.

Conclusion

Now you can get started on your SEO strategy with the above steps.

But remember, these are just the basics to get started.

SEO takes continuous effort, improvement and you have to stay on top of search algorithm updates.

So, start with the steps mentioned here to boost your website’s chances of ranking.

Now it’s over to you.

Tell me what are the basic SEO steps you take for your web pages.

Let me know in the comment section below.