Search Engine Optimization: Complete Beginner’s Guide

We can categorize Search Engine Optimization or Seo in three categories. These are:

Technical SEO
ON-Page SEO
OFF-Page SEO

Let us see what are these?

1.Technical SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Technical SEO is related to the creation of Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster, and Yandex to monitor the technical aspect of a website such as checking site performance, speed, and coverage, how many external links pointing to a website, sitemaps, and many more.

Given below are the technical Seo checklist which you need to do for SEO:

I.Secured Socket Layer (SSL)

Google or search engines give extra attention to those websites which have enabled SSL certificate on their website. It gives more preference to the HTTPS website, instead of HTTP. So ensure to have an SSL certificate on your website for better rank in SERP.

II.Mobile Responsive

Search engines are becoming smarter day by day due to regular updatation on the search algorithm. Search engines bots are so smart if during the crawl if it finds that a website is not mobile responsive, then it would not provide a ranking.

Google has already indicated that they would give preference and ranking to those websites which are mobile responsive.

III.Page Speed:

Page speed is one of the essential ranking factors or signal in Search engines. If you want to enhance your website’s speed, you can do the given things:

Choose Hosting, which is fast and reliable.
Compress large image sizes
Use minimum CSS
Minimize HTTPS request
Compress your website using GZIP
Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML of your website
Use a fast DNS provider
If your website is made up of WordPress, then you can use caching plugins such as W3Super Cache to optimize your website.

IV. Avoid Duplicity and canonical issue

Search Engines hate duplicate content. It is a good practice to avoid duplicate content because if it is not removed, then your website may not rank in the SERP. The reason for the duplicate content is due to the presence of different versions of a single website.

For example,

Suppose, if you have a website named www.beingoptimist.com. If the preferred version is not set, then search engines would consider the given website has four versions. These are listed below:

1) http://www.URL.com

2) htttp://URL.com

3) https://www.URL.com

4) https://URL.com

Due to the above 4 different versions of the same website, search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo would consider these websites different and would consider a duplicate content or may your website would be penalized, if the problem is not solved. This problem is fixed using Canonicalization techniques.

What Is Canonicalization?

It is a process of driving traffic to one preferred domain of a particular website from all of its four versions. It is the way of selecting the best URL out of several choices available.

How to Fix Canonical Issue?

After knowing that a website has four versions of URL, you would be wondering how to fix it. Right?
Do not worry, I am here to help you out, and I would let you know how you would fix and set the preferred version of your website.
To fix the issue, you can follow any of the given below strategies. These are:

Using the canonical tag

To set your preferred version of the website, you would have to insert the given below code within the head tag of the HTML element:

When you would insert the above-given code in the header section of a website that would tell the search engines to index the webpages according to the given URL set in the canonical tag.

301(Permanent) redirect

301 redirect is the best way to solve the canonical issue. So for permanently solve the problem, you would have to insert the given code in the .htaccess file.

Redirect from WWW to non-WWW

RewriteEngine on

rewritecond %{http_host} sitesbay.com [nc]

rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://sitesbay.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Redirect non-WWW to WWW

RewriteEngine on

rewritecond %{http_host} sitesbay.com [nc]

rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.sitesbay.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Note: Never forget to set your preferred domain at Google webmaster Tools.

V.Creation of XML Sitemap:

An XML site map is an XML file which holds the full details of a website. It helps the search engine to understand what your website is about and helps in indexing of the webpages. It helps search engine to understand where the webpage is.
If you are using a WordPress, then you can use Yoast SEO Plugins which create a sitemap of a website automatically, or you can use sitemap generator tool.

VI. Consider AMP:

AMP means Accelerated Mobile Pages. It is an Open Source framework which was developed by Google in collaboration with Twitter. It was mainly developed for the mobile version and helped the webpages to load fast in mobile by reducing the extra HTML and CSS code.

AMP is essential for loading webpages fast in mobile devices and also helps in enhancing usability and reduces the bounce rate and increasing ranking immobile devices.

VII. Add structured data markup to your website

Structure Data Markup is a specific code which helps you to markup elements on a webpage to help search engines to understand the website’s content in a better way. It is also known as Schema Markup. Once a search engine understands your webpage data. It would display your website content in search engine more attractively
Using structured data, you can easily add rich snippets. For example, you can add a star rating, reviews, and products’ prices with the help of structured data.

VIII. Register your site with Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Yandex Webmaster

Google Search Console, Yandex Webmaster, and Bing Webmaster Tools are free tools from Google, Bing, and Yandex, respectively that allow you to submit your website to their search engines for crawling. When your website is ready, you should submit your website in these free tools so that you can easily monitor your website’s performance. Moreover, submit your website’s sitemap to these webmaster tools so that Google, Bing, and Yandex search can crawl your site to display in search results.

2. ON-Page SEO

ON-Page SEO is a strategy which is used to optimize a webpage and its content by inserting a keyword relevant to your industry or niche in the title, heading, and Meta tags, and so on. This activity is done on the webpage, which is to be published. The On-page SEO activities includes are:

I.SEO friendly URL:

It is considered a good practice to use the SEO friendly URL. To make a URL SEO friendly, you have to keep it short and small.

For example:

Never Use the given below two URLs:

https://www.URL.com/ p=123/

https://www.URL.com/ 8/8/18/cat= SEO/pageid=890.html

II.Use Keyword

Always try to use keyword in the webpage’s URL. For example, https://www.plinksharing.blogspot.com/SEO.

III.Use Keyword at the beginning of the title

The title tag is significant HTML tag and is vital On-page SEO factor. So always utilize this tag for inserting heading. Do remember your title tag should contain the Keyword for which you are optimizing your webpage. Keyword more closely to the title tag more preference you would get in search engine.

IV. Use H1 heading for your Post title

Always use the H1 tag for the post title. If you are using WordPress or CMS, then your work becomes more comfortable because CMS by default always put the title in the H1 tag.

V.Never forget to ADD modifies in your title tag

Add modifier such as “Best”. “2019” “Beginners” etc. It would help you to rank high for the target keyword.

VI.Use Images or Videos:

Never forget to use images or videos in your webpages. Using multimedia helps in user engagements and makes the post more attractive.

VII.Use the H2 tag for creating subheading

Always include the target keyword on the subheading. Use at least once.

VIII.Use the keyword in the first paragraph

Always use your target keyword within the 100 words of the first paragraph of your article.

IX.Mobile friendly

Your website should be mobile-friendly. If your website is not mobile-friendly, then google would penalize you. Mobile-friendly websites are preferred first for search indexing.

X.Internal linking

Internal linking helps in reducing the bounce rate. So try to put 2 or 3 relevant internal linking on your article.

X.Outbound links

Try to use relevant outbound links on your article. It would help Google to understand that your article is full of quality information.

XI.LSI Keyword

Scatter LSI keyword in your article. LSI stands for latent Semantic Keywords, which are the synonym of your target keyword.

XII.Never Forget to Optimize images

Always use keyword in the “ALT” attribute of the images and reduce the size of the images using an online image compressor or WordPress plugins, if your website is made up of WordPress.

XIII.Content Is King

Make your content longer and engaging. The longer the content there is more chances that your webpage would rank high in search engines. Try to write content with over 1500 words.