What is SEO, how it works & learning SEO in 6 simple steps

If you’re new to working on SEO, on-page optimization is a good place to start before moving on to advanced practices. Here’s a breakdown of what on-page SEO is, how it can help your website, and a step-by-step list of techniques to use. Consistent effort is required to create SEO-friendly content that your target audience finds valuable. You’ll want to optimize every page of your website, including the home page, about page, and other static pages, as well as blogs, articles, sales pages, and lead capture landing pages. Where you rank on SERP matters; the first organic (unpaid) search result on Google receives 27.6 percent of clicks, according to Backlinko 1. A significant decline in clicks occurs for results on the second page, meaning that appearing on the first page garners more visibility.

Meta Description

Instagram has always been at the forefront of social media innovation, constantly… However, those people will not stay on your website and will leave as soon as they see that your content is not solving their purpose. Search engines catch on to such online behaviour and consider it while assessing relevance.

SEO Best Practices

Google AI Overview results aren’t just based on the relevancy of the content on a site. They also consider social signals collected on different brands across social media platforms, review sites, and referral links placed on other high-authority websites. So how can you use the power of search engines to grow your business?

Whilst it will not be visually present on your webpage, audiences will be able to read this via screen readers. If you’re running a website, you’re probably aware of the importance of SEO. But the ‘how’ of implementing SEO practices into your website can feel confusing to many. This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals. Explore each reason in more detail to understand the importance of well-crafted SEO marketing.

For example, one of the goals with my guide to learning SEO was to promote some of my older posts. The truth is, unless you already have a massive audience, you need to hustle to get the word out about your new content. And in this section you’re going to learn how to get eyeballs on your content. But it also has a cool “Semantic” section that hands you a list of LSI keywords that you can use in your content. I also recommend linking out to related content, which one SEO experiment found to directly impact Google rankings. That way, you can focus 100% on content… without having to worry about keywords, H2 tags, alt text and other on-page SEO stuff.

This is not scientific, but probably a reasonably accurate guess. There are several ways to determine the quality or “authority” of a backlink. A backlink is created when another website links to your website. From a technical SEO standpoint, you will want your main title to be an h1 tag and your subtitles to use h2, h3, and h4 tags based upon their relative importance to the core topic. The table of contents in blue helps visitors get a quick overview of your article and navigate to the sections that are important to them. These are the reasons why it’s essential to have strong writing skills and to incorporate UX best practices into your website and blog design.

Proper use of title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags (H1, H2, H3) ensures search engines can interpret the page’s structure and relevance. Keyword-rich URLs and internal linking improve navigation and signal content relationships to search engines, enhancing rankings. SEO involves optimizing a website’s structure, content, and navigation, which can enhance your user’s experience.

Lesson 4: The Fundamentals of On-Page SEO (Can Google Read Your Website?)

You can pitch your business or products to relevant websites or news outlets with the same target audience. If you have subject-matter expertise, consider pitching a guest blog post that points back to your website. You can also focus on your blog and create useful content—such as infographics, case studies, white papers, surveys, or statistics—that others will want to reference. Web pages that rank highly in search engines contain content that closely matches users’ search intent. That means considering what searchers are looking for when they enter queries and then providing the information or services they’re seeking. For example, if the term “masks” brings up results about beauty sheet masks, it wouldn’t be the right keyword for you if you sell Halloween masks.

• However, the most important criterion is whether or not a site represents a real brand.
• Getting first-hand experience will teach you a lot about how SEO works and how to improve your skills!
• This strategy encompasses various types of content, including written articles, images, and videos, all tailored to topics your target audience is actively searching for.
• Instead of just a long list of links relevant to your searches, there are now AI-generated responses based on your queries above the fold.

They’ve done a great BHS Links job of identifying what people might be searching for when they are feeling uncomfortable or distressed about something in their personal lives. And when people land on their articles, they become aware of Calm’s meditation app. It’s insane how fast they grew their traffic in 2023 and how it’s sustained itself over the past few years — even through all the Google Core Updates (and the rise of ChatGPT). One of the cool things about Calm is that they are both a mobile app and a web app.

This link then goes to a landing page that shows you how to start creating this workflow with Zapier. It’s a genius strategy that helped Zapier get its initial start. Next up is a popular one that most people in marketing know about — Zapier. Zapier is an automation tool that allows you to connect multiple apps together to create automated workflows.