SEO Explained for Beginners

When you start getting involved in websites you’re going to hear endless chat about search engine optimization (SEO). It can sound a little daunting at first, but don’t worry as everyone needs SEO explained!

Once you understand what SEO is and the powerful impact it can have on your website then you’ll be itching to get on board with it. And there’s no time like the present, so let’s get SEO explained!

SEO – What Is It?

If you want SEO explained then you need to understand exactly what it is. Now, it’s not exactly a discipline you can condense down into one simple to digest sentence, but it can be broken down into its basics.

SEO, quite simply, is a marketing strategy used to propel your website higher up the search engine results page (SERP) to help drive web traffic to your site. And the way you achieve this is by integrating various techniques and following the correct rules to make sure search engines LOVE your website.

You see, the internet is a huge, huge business packed full of potential revenue and riches; search engines happen to be the major starting stone on the way to this success, so they have to offer their users the best possible set of results available. And your job is to help the search engines deliver this.

What Can SEO Do for You?

Sure, the content on your website is pretty damn amazing, but how do you get it in front of people’s eyes? You can’t just expect them to magically pluck your URLs out of thin air, now can you?!

No, what you need is for your website to feature high in the SERP for all the major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. And you want them targeted at exactly the right people. The people who will click on your link and become engaged with your content and not want to leave your site.

Once we get SEO explained then you’ll find that this becomes a lot easier. A high ranking in the SERP exposes to you to huge volumes of potential traffic, so getting to grips with SEO will help you direct this traffic to your website.

As your website receives increased traffic it should also increase the number of conversions you’re recording e.g. more people are likely to commit to your ‘call to action’ for purchasing your killer e-book.

How To Get Started with SEO

There are endless tips, tricks and techniques for maximizing SEO, so it would be pretty difficult to get them all listed here! However, we want to get SEO explained to you in a manner where you can dive straight in, so let’s take a look at the best strategies for increasing your website’s SERP ranking!

• Optimizing Content: We can’t stress enough that CONTENT IS KING when it comes to SEO in the 21st century, so you need to generate plenty of fantastic content that people can’t get enough of. You can try publishing average content, but this only provides users with an average experience and search engines don’t want this. You need to deliver great content which resonates with people and encourages them to share it which marks you out as an authority – search engines DO want this!
• Getting the Basics Right: If you’ve had SEO explained to you correctly then there’s absolutely no excuse for getting the basics wrong! Sloppy mistakes such as grammar, incorrect page titles and poor use of the description tags will mean that search engines look down on your website. Instead, they’ll favor other websites who have gone through their site with a fine toothcomb to provide a hassle free experience. Attention to detail, therefore, is the key!
• Embrace Keywords: You want to give people what they’re looking for and, fingers crossed, you should have what a specific demographic are looking for. And the best way to get this information in front of them is through maximising organic (unpaid) search traffic with keywords. These keywords then need to be carefully scattered through your content as this will be what users are typing into search engines. The correct usage of these keywords – which can be research through Google’s Keyword Planner – will get your content in front of those who need it most.

To learn more about SEO, give the experts at HubRunner.com a call, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.