After the theoretical lessons, it's time to see the practical part.
Positioning your blog in search engines can be difficult, depending on the keyword you want to target.
Getting a fast ranking on Google can make a big difference for your business.
There are thousands of tips, techniques, and tricks, but you and I don't want to be "World's # 1 SEO", we just want the bare minimum.
These 10 steps to SEO for beginners:
1. WRITE ABOUT POPULAR THINGS
If your topic is popular, the probability of receiving visits will be higher.
But if your keyword is too popular, your blog, except for miracles, will not appear in the first results and will not get the expected visits.
As you can see, everything is a matter of balance in life.
Use tools like Google Trends to quantify a keyword's current and future popularity, as well as profitable ads.
You search for words with a future projection, without too much competition, and with significant daily searches (at least 100 searches/day).
2. SELECT VERY PRECISE AND RELEVANT KEYWORDS
You should try to optimize a post for a single keyword.
Of course, this keyword will have to be 100% relevant to your article. Instead of using generic keywords, go for very specific keywords.
Let's take an example: instead of trying to position an article on "Facebook", try it better on "How to create a survey on Facebook".
3. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE LONG LINE
Select keywords with 2 to 3 words, even better if they are 3 to 4 words: statistics show that about 60% of searches include 2 or 3 words.
Take this into account when doing the SEO optimization of your article for a keyword.
For a newly created blog, I would recommend choosing 3- or 4-word keywords. You will improve the long tail of your articles.
Types of keywords according to their extension:
- Standard search: "soccer jersey" or "create a blog".
- Long-tail search: «buy a soccer jersey in Madrid» or «How to change jobs at 40«.
Learning the difference between these two types of the search will help you on your way to positioning your blog or website and learning how to do SEO.
4. USE YOUR KEYWORD IN THE TITLES AND SUBTITLES OF YOUR ARTICLE
Titles are the most important element of on-page SEO.
Use titles and subtitles as one of the usability elements that make your post easier to read, but you should also take advantage of them to insert your keyword.
Also, remember to put the keyword several times throughout the post.
There are people who are very concerned about keyword density. I recommend that you be natural and use synonyms and variations of the keyword.
For example. Just visit this website https://fancycrazytext.com/
Its keyword is fancy fonts, and after visiting you would find, this keyword has been used everywhere in the article, so that Google can understand and rank it on the targeted keyword.
5. DON'T TRY TO OVER-OPTIMIZE
Don't go overboard with using your keyword in your article, because Google might decide to penalize you for Spam.
Penalties are typically 90 days, and trust me 90 days is forever for your # 1 keyword.
How to know if you are passing? Think about your reader and the quality of their reading.
Read your post aloud. If it sounds weird, you're overdoing it. You will see how easy it is to identify when you are reaching the limit of what is acceptable.
6. USE FRIENDLY URLS
A friendly URL is one that is easy for Google and the user to understand.
I recommend that you use the Entry Name.
7. INSTALL AN SEO PLUGIN
There are many. We use Yoast SEO.
Yoast allows you to create a sitemap of your website, optimize your posts and tell Google what content you want to index.
In this way, Google robots will happily crawl your web page.
8. SIGN UP FOR GOOGLE ANALYTICS AND SEARCH CONSOLE
Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that offers statistical data on users, visits, and page views, among others.
It also lets you know from which countries they visit you and how far they travel through your website.
A fundamental tool to improve your website.
For its part, Search Console is another Google tool dedicated to offering information about searches related to your website.
It shows data as relevant as the number of impressions, clicks, and the position your page is in.
It also alerts you to possible errors and helps you correct them.
9. WORK INTERNAL LINKING
Here I am not going to get technical, so I will tell you to create a logical structure for your website, to use a simple and practical menu, and create several categories to classify the contents of your blog.
Yes, the menu is also part of the internal linking of your website.
In posts, try to use semantic links, meaningful to the search engine
Try to vary the text from which you link (the anchor text or anchor text). If you abuse the keyword too much, you could be penalized or ignored.
10. GET QUALITY LINKS
Inbound links are important to Google, so put your effort into them. These are the 5 most effective ways to get a quality link:
- Guest Posting: Guest writing on third-party blogs with a relevant audience greater than yours. It is a win-win: the blogger has fresh and relevant content at zero cost (Google will know how to thank them) and you have a way to reach a new audience. It is common practice that the blog that invites you enables a box of authors with a bio of 3 or 4 lines about you and how to contact you: you can customize a couple of links as you want. Also, being seen on other blogs will also help you build your personal brand.
- Write unique content with strong added value: if what you say is useful and valuable, it is only a matter of time, but you will get inbound links. People link to good content.
- Collaborate: the key is not to think about promoting but about how you can help others in their own promotion. You will see how, in a magical way, the mentions, retweets, comments about your blog will grow naturally.
- Interview relevant people in your niche: This is unique, easy-to-read content from recognized people in your niche. Guaranteed success, easy to spread, and will allow you to consolidate your position as a relevant expert in your niche.
- Link to others: "Givers get" say the Americans. Don't wait for them to link you, do it yourself proactively. I do not recommend exchanging links from blog to blog, but rather citing relevant posts in your articles if they add value to your messages.
Getting quality inbound links is important for your SEO strategy, and patience is a very important virtue to be successful in an online business.
