4 Ways to Get Started in SEO

If today’s business landscape is anything to go by, success in life relies on superior digital marketing strategies. To compete and succeed in the online world, anything related to search engine optimization (SEO) has become increasingly important.

SEO is a complex field that requires an understanding of technical terms and a kind of intuition for knowing what your target audience is searching for. So here are 4 top tips for getting started on your SEO journey.

1. Give Google a Go

The easiest way to get into SEO is to use Google itself. Google relies on a technique called E-A-T in SEO. E-A-T stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.

With a couple of simple tips, you can get stuck in to understand better what people are searching for on Google and look at how the content provided brings all three elements to the site user.

For example, if you search the phrase “What is SEO?” you’ll learn a few things. Firstly, the vast majority of search results on the first page have “what is SEO?” or variants in the title and meta description.

Then, if you scroll further down, you’ll see “people also ask” or “related questions,” which tell you what else people are looking for. These give you some great ideas for new topics or headers for your page that you’re trying to optimize.

2. Research Different SEO Services

SEO comes in many different forms. For example, on-page SEO focuses on the front-end of the website content. On-page SEO is more than the words used in the content, as it includes headers, links to other parts of the website, and optimized images.

Technical SEO, sometimes considered within on-page SEO, focuses on the back-end of the website. For example, optimizing the website for mobile to run quicker or make sure the webpages don’t redirect elsewhere on the page.

Off-page SEO is probably the hardest to understand, only because it’s more subjective. It involves marketing your content on other platforms to get the most traffic to your website, giving it more credibility.

Social media sharing, guest posting (linking through other websites), and other forms of viral marketing are the best ways to get the content out there, generate a following, and drive traffic to your website.

3. Practice SEO Analysis

Before working on your SEO content, understand what makes good SEO content and what doesn’t. Plenty of the analysis tools available today are free, including Google’s Keyword Planner.

So what do you look for? Firstly, you want to see which keywords people are using, the volume of searches per month, and any competition for those keywords (the higher the competition, the harder it is to rank on that keyword).

You’ll need to study each keyword individually and see if it makes sense for you to write a piece on it. What is more important than volumes or competition in this stage is to make sure your content has some value for readers.

4. Hire an SEO Consultant

Professional SEO services aren’t all about doing the work for you. Of course, that’s the number one reason for outsourcing your SEO, but many are happy to provide personal advice and educate you on the basics.

It’s common for SEO companies to add value to their product by offering free advice. It sounds backward, but it makes sense. Think of it like a mechanic telling you how to top up your oil; they can do it for you, but if you want to do it yourself, you can.

Get to Know Your SEO

The difference with SEO is that there are many key rules and regulations you have to abide by, which is why it’s important to understand what those are. That said, getting advice from an expert can do you wonders in regards to improving your SEO.

And when we say “improve,” we mean fine-tune. If you’ve done everything right, your rankings will already be pretty solid, and you’ll be ranking up top in no time.

Read more articles for even more top tips for marketing your site!