SEO Guide
- 1How Search Engines Work
- 2SEO Basics
- 3Keyword Research
- 4SEO Content
- 5On-Page SEO
- 6Link Building
- 7Technical SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of growing a website’s organic search traffic. It’s where you do things that help you show up and rank higher in a search engine’s organic results. People are likely searching for what you do, and you can attract customers by ranking for those terms. But you’re unlikely to rank without effort, as others are trying to do the same. This is why SEO matters. It helps show Google that you most deserve torank. Most people click one of the first few search results, so higher rankings usually lead to more traffic. Unlike other channels, search traffic tends to be consistent and passive. That’s because the number of searches is usually quite consistent month tomonth. Search traffic is also “free.” That’s a big deal because ads can be expensive. For example, we get an estimated 1.4M monthly visits from organic search. It would cost us an estimated $1.7M per month to get that same traffic from search ads. Sidenote. No source of traffic is truly free. SEO costs time and effort. SEO involves five mainsteps: These steps are the main focus of our beginner’s guide to SEO. Doing SEO is much easier when your website is properly set up for SEO success. Let’s look at a few ways to dothat. Most domains are fine for SEO, so don’t panic if you already have one. But if you’re still shopping around, keep these two elements of a good domain inmind. Something short and memorable is best here. Don’t try to shoehorn keywords. Your business name without hyphens or special characters is usually a goodbet. This is the part after the name, like .com. Your choice of TLD makes no difference for SEO.[1] But we think .com is best for most people, as it’s the most recognizable and trusted. For charities, .org or your local equivalent also works. If you only do business in one country outside the U.S., your country code top-level domain (ccTLD), like .co.uk, is finetoo. It’s best to stay clear of TLDs like .info and .biz that people tend to associate with spam. But it’s not the end of the world if you have one. You can still build a legit website thatranks. Website platforms let you create and manage a website with ease. There are twotypes: Most SEOs recommend a self-hosted, open-source platform like WordPress because: That said, if you value ease of use and support, a hosted solution might be a better fit. All the big ones provide enough SEO capabilities for most people. If you’re using a hosted solution, you’ll need a web host. These store your site on a hard drive that anyone with an internet connection can access. Consider the three S’s when choosing one: DID YOUKNOW? You can optimize server location with a content distribution network (CDN). This creates copies of your site on servers around the world so it’s always served from close to the user. So don’t fret about this too much. If you find that speed is an issue, you can invest in a CDN lateron. Google wants to rank pages that give visitors a positive experience.[2] Let’s look at a few ways to dothis. Nothing is worse for visitors than their personal data being susceptible to hackers. Always encrypt your site with SSL/TLS. Nobody wants to visit a website that looks like it’s from the ’90s. So while there’s no need to redesign your website every few months, it should look good and reflect yourbrand. More searches are now done on mobile than desktop.[3] So it’s critical that your website is as pleasant to use on mobile as on desktop. People browse the web using all kinds of devices. Make sure your content is readable across theboard. Everyone hates ads, but sometimes you need them. If that’s the case, avoid intrusive interstitials. Pages with these may not rank as highly.[4] Page speed is a ranking factor on desktop and mobile. But this doesn’t mean your site needs to load lightning fast. It only affects pages that deliver the slowest experience to users.[5][6] It should be easy for visitors and search engines to find content on your site. That’s why it’s important to create a logical hierarchy for your content. You can do this by sketching a mindmap. Each branch on the map becomes an internal link, which is a link from one page on a website to another. Internal links are crucial for UX and SEO for a few reasons: URLs are important, as they help searchers understand the content and context of a page. Many website platforms let you choose how to structure your URLs. These are the five main options for URLs in WordPress: If you’re setting up a new site, go with the clearest and most descriptive structure. That’s post name. If you’re working with an existing website, it’s rarely a good idea to change the URL structure; it may break things. Most website platforms handle basic SEO functionality out of the box. But if you’re using WordPress, install an SEO plugin. It’s hard to put even basic SEO best practices in place without one. Both Yoast and Rank Math are good options. Having a website set up for SEO success will help Google crawl and index your pages. But submitting your site to Google can speed up this process further. That’s because this helps Google find your website even if it has no backlinks. Sitemaps list the important pages on your website that you want search engines to index. If you already have a sitemap, it’ll likely be at one of theseURLs: If you can’t find it there, check site.com/robots.txt where it’s usually listed. If you still can’t find it, you likely don’t have one and need to create one. You do this via Google Search Console (GSC). It takes about two seconds. Before we dive into how to do SEO, it’s worth taking a minute to understand how to track and measure SEO performance. This is never easy, and what we’ll cover here is a very high-level overview. Let’s start with the obvious one. If organic traffic is going up, you’re doing something right. You can track this in GSC for free. If you don’t have access to GSC, sign up for a free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) account. Then plug your domain into Site Explorer for an estimate. If rankings are on the rise for your target keywords, that’s another sign that you’re doing something right. You can track average keyword rankings for free in GSC. If you want more accurate tracking, you’ll need a rank tracking tool like Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker. Did youknow? Organic traffic and keyword rankings are “vanity metrics.” There’s no harm in keeping an eye on them, but they often bear no relationship with marketing or business goals. It’s much better to track metrics that have actual business impact. We cover two of thesebelow. This metric in Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker shows what percentage of all clicks for the tracked keywords land on your website. For example, let’s say you track one keyword, and all the top positions in Google are occupied by pages on your website. Because your website gets all possible traffic from that keyword, your Visibility is100%. Now let’s say your website only occupies one spot in Google, with the rest occupied by competitors. Because some clicks go to other websites, your Visibility is lower than100%. If your Visibility is increasing, this is yet another good sign your SEO is on the righttrack.What isSEO?
Why is SEO important?
What are the benefits ofSEO?
How do you doSEO?
Get a good domain
Domain name
Top-level domain (TLD)
Use a website platform
Use a good webhost
Create a positive user experience
Use HTTPS
Choose an appealing design
Make sure it’s mobile-friendly
Use a readable fontsize
Avoid intrusive pop-ups andads
Make sure it loadsfast
Create a logical site structure
Use a logical URL structure
Install an SEO plugin
Finding or creating a sitemap
Submitting your sitemap
Organic traffic
Keyword rankings
Visibility
Key takeaways
References