So you’re ready to take your blog to the next level? You’ve written some great content and now you want to get more traffic. We want you to succeed! We’ve put together our ultimate starter SEO guide to get your website performing in the quickest time possible. You’ll learn about keyword research, link building and on-site optimization so that you can start generating thousands of visitors from Google each month.
READ: WHAT IS SEO ? SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION?
Starter SEO Guide – Let’s Go!
1. Select your keywords.
When it comes to SEO, the most important thing is choosing the right keywords. Choosing the wrong ones can make your website invisible to Google, so it’s best to be strategic about your keyword selection and pick terms that are relevant to what you have to offer.
Keyword Research
First off, choose keywords relevant to your product or service. Try using an online keyword tool like Google’s Keyword Planner or SEMrush to generate a list of search terms people are using when they look for similar products/services online.
You should also look at how many people search for these terms on a monthly basis — this will tell you how much competition there is in that market segment and whether or not someone might click on an ad with those words in it (which means they’re more likely interested in purchasing something).
2. Find the most shared content for each keyword.
There are a number of tools you can use to find the most shared content for each keyword. Some of the best ones are Google’s Keyword Planner, Buzzsumo and Ahrefs.
- Google’s Keyword Planner: This is one of the most popular free tools for SEO professionals and it provides you with valuable insights on how often your target keyword has been used in search results over a period of time. It also shows how many people have visited pages that contain that particular phrase and which pages were clicked on by users who were searching for it.
- Buzzsumo: A social media content discovery tool that enables you to analyze what kind of content gets shared across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc., so you can see what topics resonate more with audiences than others.
- Ahrefs: A marketing software suite that lets you track everything from backlinks to keyword rankings in one place so they don’t slow down your work flow by requiring additional software applications or services.
3. Analyze the content
Content analysis is an important step in the process of improving your search engine optimization. The goal of content analysis is to discover ways to make your website more valuable for users and easier for search engines to find.
The first step in analyzing content is identifying the elements that make up a web page:
- Text: Anything written on a page (or screen) falls under “text” – including text links and paragraph descriptions as well as headers or navigation menus!
- Images: Images can be used to enhance text or they can stand by themselves; they’re also very helpful in making websites look professional and appealing because they improve overall aesthetics while providing additional information about whatever product or service.
- Videos: Videos are becoming increasingly popular on websites thanks largely due their ability provide more detailed information than simple images or even written descriptions.
When analyzing content, keep in mind that you should focus on the key points and avoid trying to cover every single aspect of it. Try not to spend too much time analyzing each element; instead think about what really stands out as important or interesting! Look out for any inconsistencies between different parts of your content (for example: if there are two sentences with similar information but one uses “he” while another uses “she”).
READ: 7 TIPS FOR SEO CONTENT CREATION
4. Refine your product and marketing approach.
- Review the keywords you’re using. Which ones are most relevant to your business? Which ones are underperforming? Is there a keyword that you should be using more often or not at all?
- Check out competitor websites. What kind of content do they produce, and what does it look like? Are there any commonalities between their approach and yours, or would it make sense for one strategy to work better than another for your audience (if so, why)?
- Get inspiration from other successful brands. If a goal is important enough, there will be someone out there who has already figured out how to achieve it!
If you have access to an SEO expert who can help guide you through these steps, then all the better! You never know what insights they might uncover that could change everything about how your company approaches its online marketing efforts in the future — and that’s worth every penny spent on their services right there.
5. Create the best product or service ever
Start with the basics. Is your product or service the best in its class? If not, you need to make it better. It’s that simple.
Is your product or service unique? If it isn’t, there are a dozen other people who can do what you’re doing for less money and more experience. Make sure that your product or service is truly different from anything else available on the market today – even if it’s just a little different!
Does it solve a problem that nobody else is solving right now? This requires some creative thinking and research but will pay off big time once you’ve found an untouched niche market to serve with your new business idea!
6. Create high-quality content around your chosen keywords
Now you’re ready to create content. We recommend creating high-quality, useful and unique content that is relevant to your chosen keywords. This will not only help you rank higher on Google but will also increase the chances of people sharing and linking to your site, which will further improve your ranking with Google over time.
To ensure that your content is SEO friendly:
- Create value for the reader – make sure it provides them with real value or solves their problem in some way (e.g., an instructional guide)
- Use a keyword tool – find out which words are most relevant for your topic or niche before writing any new articles so that they can be written around these topics as well as other related ones (e.g., if “How To Install WordPress Plugins” was one of our keywords then we would include this in each article we wrote from now on).
7. Get high-quality backlinks to your content
Let’s talk about backlinks.
If you’ve made it this far, then the fact that backlinks are important shouldn’t be a surprise to you. In fact, they’re one of the most crucial ranking factors in Google’s algorithm. But building links can be intimidating if you’re new to SEO—especially if you don’t have any links yet! If that sounds like your situation, don’t worry: it’s easy to get started with link building and there are lots of resources available for free or cheap that will help you build high-quality links.
In general terms, getting more links is great for improving your rankings because search engines want their users to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily—and the best way they can do this is by sending them straight to their target pages when someone searches their keywords. This means that any time someone finds an authoritative source online and then links back to another relevant page on their site from within that content body (usually through anchor text), Google will recognize this as a vote of confidence from another trusted source who thinks highly enough about your page(s) worth linking directly into them via their own content body upon which said link resides!
You can drive 10,000 visitors a month with a little bit of planning, a lot of hard work and some patience.
You can drive 10,000 visitors a month with a little bit of planning, a lot of hard work and some patience. Remember:
- Have an action plan – You don’t have to be a genius at SEO to drive traffic to your site. But it will take some time and effort on your part to learn the ins-and-outs of building links and writing content that Google loves. Be sure that you’re willing to put in this time or hire someone who already knows what they’re doing!
- Stay consistent – If your goal is 100k visitors per month instead of 10k, then make sure that all the steps outlined above are done consistently over time (and not just once). Keep doing them until they become second nature.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that no one can do all of these steps perfectly. You’ll find some things that are hard, and some things that are easy. The key is to keep learning and improving your skills over time.
SEO isn’t an exact science. There are countless factors to consider, from backlinks and keyword density to individual page content and formatting. This checklist is by no means comprehensive, but it contains many of the most important factors for SEO success. As you look for ways to improve your own SEO practices, keep this checklist handy as a first step in your research.
We can also help you develop a strong SEO Strategy to get you ahead of the competition!
