SEO for Beginners: A Beginner’s Guide to Blog SEO

Do you need a good SEO for beginners guide to help you figure out search engines?

Blog SEO is not just important; it’s crucial. It’s the key to getting your blog on the coveted first page of search engines. And let’s face it, most search users won’t venture beyond that first page. That’s why understanding and mastering SEO is a game-changer for your blog’s visibility.

However, SEO can be difficult and can look really confusing to someone who has never used it before.

That’s why I decided to create this guide to SEO for beginners. SEO is a lot easier than it looks. After you read this, search engine optimization will become habitual, and you’ll be doing it well.

SEO for Beginners: Basics

Before you jump into SEO for beginners, it’s important to understand what SEO is and what each type means.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of improving your website’s visibility on search engines. There are three main types: on-page SEO, which involves optimizing your actual website content; off-page SEO, which focuses on external factors like backlinks; and technical SEO, which deals with the technical aspects of your website’s structure and performance.

• One-page SEO involves everything done on your blog, such as keyword research, including your keyword in your content, and creating the high-quality content required in the first place.
• Off-page SEO is a little different. It involves building backlinks, which can be done through social media, niche directories, and guest blogging.
• Technical SEO is all about website speed, implementing sitemaps, ensuring mobile-friendly options, and securing your blog.

Understanding SEO for beginners starts with understanding what each types of SEO is and does.

 

SEO Terminology

There are a lot of terms with SEO that you want to make yourself familiar with.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): is when you conduct on-page, off-page, and technical tactics to rank your content higher on search engines.
• On-Page SEO: Search engine optimization actions performed on your blog.
• Off-Page SEO: Search engine optimization actions performed for your blog but away from your blog.
• Link Building/Backlinks: Developing links on other reputable websites that are relevant to the topic of your blog.
• Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs): Sequentially numbered pages that are the result of a keyword search on a search engine.
• White Hat SEO: Ethical means of search engine optimization.
• Black Hat SEO: Unethical means on search engine optimization that usually results in a penalty by most search engines.
• E-E-A-T: Google’s algorithm for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
• Keyword: The search term that you write your blog post about in order to rank it on search engines.
• Keyword Research: The strategy of researching the topic term that you will be using for your blog post.
• Organic Results: Search engine results that are found through searching for a keyword and are not paid to be listed at the top.
• Page Rank: A ranking structure for websites and web pages based on their backlink amounts.
• Search Intent: How a keyword was intended to be searched for by a user.
• Keyword Competition: A percentage rate of how many bloggers are competing for the same keyword.
• Search Volume: A percentage rate of how many searches a keyword gets on search engines.

Knowing the terms above is a basic function of SEO for beginners. It will not only help you understand SEO better but also make performing the functions easier.

 

Why is SEO Important?

The internet is vast.

There are billions of websites, blog posts, and articles listed on search engines. When you post a new blog post, you compete against all of them. Competing against millions to billions of posts sounds like being a needle in a haystack.

That’s because it is being a needle in a haystack.

However, with SEO, you give your content a fighting chance to compete with others. You’re telling search engines what the content is about, which tightens your pool of competition and makes it easier to get listed on search engines. SEO will enable you to rank higher and get listed on page one faster.

Most search engine users don’t go past page one of search results.

SEO can help you get on page one. That will help you get more web traffic. More web traffic can help you make more money with your blog.

Most top results on search engine queries are blog posts so it’s important to rank for search engines since your content has a better chance of getting listed.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Search engines have three core functions, but the algorithms they use consist of mathematical and complex intelligence, most of which now use AI.

The three functions include crawling, indexing, and ranking.

Crawling occurs when a search engine bot finds a blog post. It ” crawls” the post, reading what it has to say, and collects this data for indexing.

Indexing is how the search engine will interpret and list your blog post on its results.

Ranking is how many people will see your post. If it clearly targets a keyword and has high-quality content, it will rank higher on search results. If it’s a trustworthy link that people already love, it will rank even higher.

While understanding algorithms is difficult, you should at least understand the basics of how your blog and search engine interact with the functions above.

 

WordPress SEO Plugins

Your blog will most likely be using WordPress, and there are a few great plugins available to help you with SEO success.

These plugins include Yoast SEO and Rank Math.

• Yoast SEO is more popular. However, to access many of the better features, you have to upgrade to the paid version. Personally, I use Yoast SEO Paid and have been for many years.
• Rank SEO has many features, like Yoast SEO, but many of them are free, and the plugin hasn’t been around as long.

Consider researching both plugins. They can audit each post you write so that you can get your SEO correct every time you publish content on your blog.

 

SEO for Beginners: Steps

These are the 12 steps to my SEO for beginners framework for publishing content on your blog.

Step 1: Find a topic based on the needs, wants, and pain points of your target blog audience.

Step 2: Research a good keyword that is associated with your topic. For instance, if your blog is about healthy recipes, a good keyword could be ‘easy healthy recipes. ‘ Make sure it has a high search volume but a lower keyword competition score. A bad keyword might be ‘food ‘, as it is too broad and competitive.

Step 3: Write the best content possible. Every sentence needs to be packed with value or lead to the highest-quality content.

Step 4: Add your keyword to the blog title, preferably at the beginning, where it makes sense.

Step 5: Add your keyword to the post’s meta description. The meta description is a brief summary of your post that appears in search results. Including your keyword here can improve your post’s visibility. You can do this using the SEO plugin you chose.

Step 6: Add your keyword to the slug of your blog post URL.

Step 7: Add your keyword to your first paragraph. Try to make sure that it is listed in the first sentence of the paragraph.

Step 8: Add your keyword a few more times to the rest of your content. Just make sure it makes sense;; otherwise, it, it could hurt your ranking.

Step 9: Add your keyword to the ALT tag on your first image.

Step 10: Add relevant links to other posts and pages on your blog. Make sure you link to description text (anchor text).

Step 11: Add relevant external links to your blog posts. Make sure the blog is reputable and contains good content and links.

Step 12: Monitor the results of your blog post after you publish it.

The steps above are my basic SEO for beginners framework, and to this day, I use it to get most of my content on page one of search engine results.

 

Keyword Research Tools for SEO

There are several tools available to help you with keyword research and general SEO.

• SEM Rush is one of the best tools to research keywords, find search volume, and keyword competition among other things. It can be expensive, though
• Ahrefs is another trusted source of genuine keyword research expertise. This is also an expensive product.
• Uber Suggest is a newer tool with many features. There is a free version, but the paid version (fairly cheap) offers more suitable features.
• Answer the Public is another great free tool to help you come up with ideas to blog about.
• Google Auto-Complete is a free product of Google that shows search suggestions in the search box when you start typing in words. This can help show you trending search terms that you might consider for your blog content.
• People Also Ask is another Google feature that appears on all search listing results pages. It provides common questions (with answers) about various trends associated with the keywords you searched for.
• Keywords Everywhere is one of my favorite tools. It costs very little but gives you a lot of search engines results when you search for a term that you want to use.

Sometimes, it’s best to use a few of the tools mentioned above, whether you choose the free ones or the higher-cost full-featured ones.

 

Low Competition Long-tail Keywords

The best type of keyword to use on your content is called a long-tail keyword.

A standard keyword example would be “pizza recipe.” This keyword is highly competitive, and it will be difficult to rank for it. However, a long-tail keyword example of “meat lovers pizza recipe for campfire cooking” will be used less but still generate enough interest for people to search for that result.

Try to choose long-tail keywords that have lower competition but higher search volumes.

 

One Keyword Per Post

One of the biggest mistakes people make in terms of SEO for beginners is using the same keyword more than once.

A keyword must be unique. You should have a unique keyword for each article. Using the same keyword on multiple pages or posts will confuse search engines and likely harm your ranking for that particular keyword.

Try to keep track of your keywords so that you don’t accidentally use them more than once.

 

SEO for Beginners: Best Content Tips

When it comes to SEO for beginners, it’s important to understand how important your content is because, without the best content possible, you will not rank very well on search engines.

The following tips will help you create better content that you can use to build up your search engine ranking.

Try to create long-form content as much as possible. That means 1,000 words or more. The longer it is, the more it will have a chance to rank better.

Make your content readable by breaking it up into short paragraphs with short sentences. Use different headings, white spaces, and bullets when applicable.

Make sure your post has no broken links. Ensure that all links are relevant to the nature of your content and post. Suspicious links should never be added to a blog post.

Make sure your content addresses your audience’s needs and wants. Once you answer their biggest pain points, everyone will flock to your blog.

Make it a goal to write a better blog post than your last one. Research other posts by other blogs and aim to write a better post than theirs, as well.

Include a secondary keyword associated with your first unique keyword. This can help you further rank your content.

Always include a CTA on each of your blog posts. That’s a Call to Action. It could ask readers to subscribe to your newsletter, leave a comment, or purchase your services.

Make sure your blog post is easy to read by anyone. You also want to make sure it’s easy to scan since most readers are using their phones nowadays.

Do the eight things listed above each time you create a new blog post. Doing so will help ensure that your content gets closer to being listed on page one of search results.

 

Search Trends and Algorithm Changes

Try to pay attention to search engine news, particularly on algorithm changes and search trends.

These changes will help you modify your strategy. Algorithm changes happen all the time, and when they do, they can impact your SEO progress. If you don’t change your strategy with them, you might have worked hard for nothing.

SEO is all part of blogging so you need to become an expert at search engines just as much as you are with your blogging niche.

 

Habitual SEO for Beginners

The more you use SEO on your blog, the more habitual it will become.

I’ve used SEO tactics so much that I don’t even have to look at my Yoast SEO audit results anymore. I try to, just in case I miss something here and there. However, I’ve been doing SEO long enough to know what I need to do from the get-go.

It’s important to take SEO for beginners and evolve it into being an SEO master.

 

Importance of Search Intent

Search intent is extremely important when it comes to SEO for beginners.

Search intent can be summed up as the way your content is intended to be perceived by the person who found it through search. You need to make sure the title and content match what you’re trying to do; otherwise, inform users who stumble upon it. If someone clicks on your content, doesn’t get what they expected, and presses back to go to something else, that tells search engines that your content didn’t deliver (pogo-sticking), and that can impact your search engine ranking.

When creating your blog content, consider four types of search intent: navigational, informational, commercial, and transactional.

1. Navigational: This is the type of search query where users want to find a specific page.
2. Informational: This is the type of search query where users want to learn something.
3. Commercial: This is a type of search query in which users want to learn about something before they purchase it.
4. Transactional: This is the type of search query where users want to perform an action, which is usually a purchase.

Consider the four types of search intent when creating your blog post to ensure that your title and content matches what the intended search should reflect.

 

Adding Photos and Videos

The days of just texting are long gone.

No one wants to see just text on a blog. They want to see visually appealing content and media. They want that content and media to help them with their needs, wants, and pain points.

You can accomplish this with photos and videos on your content.

Add photos that are high quality and visually appealing but small in size. Large photos can slow your blog down, which hurts your technical SEO. Use an image optimization tool or at least upload photos that are 200kb or less in size.

Videos also make for a great addition as long as you do it right.

Don’t add a video that can replace the whole blog post; otherwise, readers might skip the blog and watch the video instead. Instead, add videos that discuss small portions of what’s in the blog to add that extra feature but not replace the content distribution. This will make your post more featured but keep people reading it for more that the video can’t deliver.

Visually appealing content catches people’s attention quicker, so it’s an important practice for bloggers to consider.

 

Title Hooks and Storytelling

Learn copywriting and storytelling and use it to get more attention on your blog posts.

You want to be able to hook people with your blog titles. This means you create a title that accurately depicts the content they will be reading but presents it in a way that catches their attention and encourages them to read the post. You’ll often use power words and copywriting in the title to help persuade readers to read.

The better a storyteller you are, the more effectively you will connect with your audience and make them want to read your content.

You might need to get better at storytelling by reading stories on the internet to inspire you. You can also listen to great stories on podcasts such as The Moth. The better storyteller you are, the more you will be able to connect to and resonate with your readers.

It doesn’t stop at your titles, though. You also need to make sure each sentence on your blog post is worthy enough to keep readers hooked.

 

Include an Author’s Bio

Create a good author bio and add it to the bottom of all your blog posts.

The bio should include a good photo of you or your brand logo. You should include your name and title in relation to your blog or business. Add a brief bio that displays your expertise and authority in your niche.

You can also add a link to your full about page and contact page so the reader can seek more information if they desire it.

 

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of SEO

SEO is changing with the rise of artificial intelligence.

AI is changing the internet as we know it, and it’s doing it at a very rapid pace. AI will eventually change the way we search because it will give users information a lot quicker than traditional search engines give the information. Because of that, search engines will start to favor using artificial intelligence in most of their products.

In order to stay ahead of the SEO game, you need to make sure you pay attention to AI and learn about how it will impact search engines so that you can remain relevant in rankings.

 

Final Thoughts About SEO for Beginners

I hope you enjoyed my guide to SEO for beginners and that it has helped you understand how to optimize your blog for search engines. If you follow the tips above, you should have no problem getting ranked on page one of search engines.

Please comment and tell me what you think. Feel free to ask any additional questions about blog SEO that I might be able to help you with.

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About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.