7 SEO Tips for Beginners

7 steps to improve SEO skills

The face of marketing has changed drastically in the last decades. Whereas, not so long ago, competition between companies happened via aggressive marketing campaigns, nowadays, the big battle has moved to a “silent” front – the Internet. Given that a vast majority of people formed a habit to search whatever they need online by using just a couple of keywords, being on the first or second page of the results output by search engines can represent the difference between having huge success and being fully ignored.

Since this difference has a monumental impact, there is a fierce battle between websites for the top positions in the list of search results yielded by important combinations of keywords. This led to the explosion of the industry of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which aims to increase the quantity and quality of website traffic by making websites more visible to search engines. To reach this goal, the knowledge of SEO tips for beginners is essential!

Google about Google

As Google states in its Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, SEO is about making small incremental optimizations to your website. Although these modifications might seem to play a minor role when considered in isolation, their combined effect can be very significant in terms of improving user experience and content/website friendliness to search engines. As the world’s most influential search engine, Google proposes a set of best SEO practices to follow.

Given that websites are ubiquitous nowadays in so many realms of human activity, knowing how to structure them properly (at least in terms of content) becomes a highly valuable skill, even for those that don’t plan to become web designers. By listing below the most basic tips for beginners, we aim to offer a perspective over the key elements that one should be aware of when it comes to optimizing their websites.

SEO for Beginners – A List of Basic Tips

1. Identify and use the right keywords – pick the most likely words or word combinations clients would use to search for your products, services, or content. Use keywords that clearly differentiate you from the competition. Use Google AdWords to evaluate whether the chosen keywords are frequent enough. Integrate these keywords often into your content but do it naturally and keep keyword density to acceptable levels.
2. All content editing and keywords should not impact readability – remember that your website is created primarily for users. Constant repetitions, awkward formulations, grammar errors, etc. look very unprofessional and might lead to a reluctant attitude from users.
3. Create high-quality and up-to-date content. Good content is viral because it provides value. Visitors exchange such content with each other, post it on their social network pages, on their blogs, etc., hence, such content tends to gain territory naturally and exponentially.
4. Structure your content clearly by using multiple headings. Not only it makes the text more navigable and helps users locate information faster – headings also increase visibility to search engines, especially if they also contain relevant keywords.
5. Place links to your website on other websites – an important part of the page ranking algorithm employed by search engines are looking at how many websites refer to yours. Hence, it is in your interest to build your online presence (through direct links, hyperlinks) on various websites – ideally, on those with higher traffic.
6. Optimize your website for mobile devices since not doing so might earn penalty points that would decrease your website’s overall rank. Failing to be accessible from mobile devices is also bad for obvious reasons.
7. Use analytics tools to measure your website’s SEO performance but also to learn more about your visitors and their online behavior and preferences.

Many college students gather website building experience from an early age by running their own websites or blogs. Those that want to delve deeper into the topic start learning SEO tips. But given that the latter is an emerging and very dynamic field, it implies active learning and significant individual effort, which translates in time investment (a scarce resource in college).

However, if needed, students have the option of delegating assignments for less important disciplines by contracting an excellent research paper writing service that guarantees consistent quality. Importantly, they should consider such content writing services for their future SEO projects – these can be employed to write massive amounts of content from scratch or to rewrite existing content according to a set of strictly defined rules: using specific keywords, ensuring high uniqueness levels, adding relevant hyperlinks, correcting grammar, proofreading, etc.