7 Basic SEO Tips for the Beginner
Search Engine Optimization or SEO, has the undeniable reputation of being extremely complicated. Well, it has that reputation because SEO in its entirety is extremely complicated but it is absolutely critical to business success. Don’t get scared though because there are some basic SEO tips that will make SEO easier to understand.
First off, why don’t we go over what SEO is? Basically, Google and other search engines use “spiders” to crawl websites. Based on several indicators, these spiders will determine whether your site is valuable or not and where to rank it. The more valuable your website is, the higher it will rank. These indicators could include new content, traffic, and backlinks, just to name a few.
SEO is just a series of practices that make it easier for search “spiders” to find what they are looking for. Now search engines, especially Google, are constantly changing their algorithms. They are always looking for ways to provide more value to their customers but that can often hurt currently ranking websites because they do not know the new requirements. Luckily, there are a few things that have stayed the same. We have outlined these in our 7 basic SEO tips below. Follow these and you will realize that SEO does not have to be complicated to be successful.
1. Domain & Hosting
One of the first basic SEO tips is settting up your own domain and hosting. Search engines are more likely to rank trustworthy sites higher on the results page and having your own domain name helps solidify that trust. Customers will also be more likely to view your site as serious and trustworthy when you are self-hosting.
2. New, Quality Content
As mentioned above, search engines place great emphasis on providing value to their customers. What better way to do that than to solve your customers’ problems through your content? Write blog posts, share photography, record a podcast, or play videos. There are many different types of content and all of them can be useful. In fact, the more you solve peoples’ problems, the better your ranking will likely be. If you need some help in creating good content, check out this article.
3. Natural Backlinks
You might have heard it said building backlinks is a dead practice for SEO. Don’t believe it. Building backlinks is still very much a part of SEO but some of the methods are dead. For instance, never buy backlinks. Google punishes websites that do this severely. Remember that the source matters. The more credible the source that links back to you, the more credible and trustworthy your website appears. However, the most important thing in building backlinks is to remember to do so in a natural way. This way you can avoid serious penalties from search engines.
4. SEO Optimized
Because this can be a broad topic, and not so much just a basic SEO tip, we will keep it brief. Basically, you just want to optimize your site for SEO. Firstly, this means keeping it coded nicely so that the “spiders” can crawl it easily. Secondly, also make sure your website loads quickly because users and Google love it when it loads fast. Finally, double check all links to make sure they are not broken and keep your navigation working smoothly.
5. Sitemaps
This is probably the easiest thing you can do on this list. Install a sitemap on your website. A sitemap is exactly what it sounds like; a map to your website. A good program will generate the sitemap frequently and submit it to the search engines. The “spiders” can then crawl it better and it can be indexed faster which means better rankings.
6. Comment
Did you know that commenting on other blogs counts as a backlink? In addition to that, by commenting on authority blogs, you can also get more traffic and exposure. If you leave a good comment, not only will the author appreciate it but other commentators will also see it. By adding a link to your site in your comment or bio (as long as it is relevant) it also gets you more brand awareness.
7. Social Media
Another basic SEO tip is to remember your social media profiles. Build them up. Google is now using social media as an indicator of a post’s trustworthiness and relevance. If you wrote something and thousands of people are tweeting or sharing it, then chances are that Google will notice it and reward you. Remember to treat your blog and social media channels as two separate resources. In other words, share information on social media that does not show up on your blog for better customer interaction.
Seeing results from new SEO practices will not happen overnight but they will happen. Rembember, SEO does not have to be complicated. Simply start with these basic SEO tips and watch your website rankings increase.
