How to Do SEO With 8 Basic Beginner Steps

SEO is a powerful strategy for driving more organic traffic to your website. If you want to know how to do SEO to boost your website’s ranking in search results and drive more leads, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ll provide you with eight tips on how to optimize your SEO ranking to reach more valuable leads.

If you need help integrating SEO into your marketing plan, call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about incorporating SEO into your digital marketing campaign. Check out our short video and then keep reading to learn how you can do SEO yourself.

Here’s a little sneak peek of the eight basics steps to help you get started with SEO:

1. Know your audience to create an SEO campaign that engages them
2. Become a keyword research guru
3. Improve the technical side of your website
4. Focus on creating a positive user experience
5. Research and know your competition
6. Link internally to help Google index new pages
7. Create content to drive more traffic to your site
8. Monitor your analytics to improve your campaign

1. Know your audience to create an SEO campaign that engages them

If you want to create a successful SEO campaign, you must know your target audience. You are targeting these people to get them to interact with your organic listing. You want them to visit your website and get to know your business.

To attract the right leads, you must establish your audience. You can define your audience based on:

• Demographic information
• Socioeconomic status
• Buying habits
• Hobbies/interests
• Browsing habits
• And more

These categories will help you define your audience and know who you’re targeting. It’s important to know who you’re targeting so you can optimize your search strategy better. You must know your audience to study how they search, what they need, and more.

This strategy helps you understand the types of questions they ask or how they phrase keywords. When you know how they search, you know which keywords to target to reach them. You can find valuable keywords and create custom content based on your audience’s interests.

This knowledge allows you to create a more effective SEO campaign. Knowing your target audience allows you to create a better SEO project management strategy to reach them. If you want to know how to do SEO, start by getting to know your audience.

2. Become a keyword research guru

If you want your site to appear at the top of searches related to your business, you need to research and target the right keywords. When you know your audience well, you can discover valuable keywords that they use to conduct searches. Keyword research will help you find the best keywords for your campaign.

When you conduct keyword research, you’ll get a list of potential keywords you can use on your site. It’s crucial that you focus on long-tail keywords, which contain three or more words. Long-tail keywords are better for your campaign because they are more specific, which drives more relevant traffic to your website.

There is also less competition for long-tail keywords, too. This lack of competition means that you have a better chance of ranking for them and can interpret the intent of long-tail searches. You can also provide your audience with content that best matches their search intent as they search with long-tail keywords.

For example, if someone searches the long-tail phrase, “flower shops in Harrisburg, PA,” you know what they want to find. This long-tail keyword tells you that the user is searching for a flower shop specifically in Harrisburg. On the other hand, a keyword like “flower” or “flower shop” doesn’t tell you precisely what the user wants.

They could be looking for types of flowers, the definition for the word, or other related searches. Long-tail keywords have a more precise search intent, which helps you know if the keyword is right for your business. Once you have the right keywords, you’ll integrate them into your site.

Keyword integration will help you rank better for relevant search results that include your long-tail keywords. Use them judiciously on your page, as overusing keywords can lead to keyword stuffing and negatively impact your ranking.   If you want to know how to optimize your SEO ranking, start by choosing the right keywords.

Keyword research and optimization is a crucial component of SEO for beginners.

3. Improve the technical side of your website

When it comes to SEO campaign management, SEO isn’t just optimizations on the surface. There are many optimizations that you’ll want to do on the backend of your site that influence your SEO ranking. Let’s take a look at a few of those factors that you can fix on the backend of your website.

Page speed

Page speed is a crucial component of a successful SEO campaign.

If your page does not load quickly with information, your audience will leave your page. 53% of people will leave a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Your pages must load quickly to ensure your audience gets your information fast.

If you want to keep your audience happy, optimize the back end of your site to load quicker. You can do this by deleting white space in your coding, reducing redirects on your site, and optimizing image file sizes. All of these optimizations will reduce your site’s load time so your audience can access your information faster.

Responsive design

Over 50% of Internet traffic comes from mobile devices.

If your website isn’t adapting for mobile or other hand-held devices, you’re hurting your SEO ranking. Google considers mobile-friendliness to be an essential ranking factor when determining where your site falls in the search results. If you want to have a higher ranking, you must adapt your website for non-desktop users.

The best way to do this is to integrate responsive design. Responsive design enables your website to change to whatever device your audience is using. Whether it’s a computer, tablet, or smartphone, your audience will see the version of your website that works best for their device.

This adaptation ensures a positive experience on your site and keeps your audience on it longer.

Create a secure site

The rapid growth of the Internet brings along issues like hackers, viruses, and more. Your audience is willing to give out information, but only if they know, it’s secure. This need for security is why you need to ensure you create a secure server for your audience.

Secure websites have “HTTPS” vs. “HTTP” in their web addresses. Sites that have “HTTPS” utilizes a security layer that encrypts user information and makes it safe to share that information. Without security, users are prone to their sensitive information, like passwords and credit card numbers, being stolen by attackers.

Users won’t want to do business with your company if your website isn’t secure.

4. Focus on creating a positive user experience

One of the most critical SEO basics is focusing on user experience. If you want to see positive results with SEO and gain new leads, you must provide your audience with a positive experience that keeps them on your site. If your audience isn’t enjoying being on your site, they will leave.

Your audience leaving your site increases your bounce rate, which is a negative signal to Google that your site isn’t relevant to the search query. It’s crucial that your audience has a good experience on your website, so they spend time getting to know your business. So, how can you provide a positive user experience?

• Make your navigation simple: Your audience doesn’t want to spend 20 minutes having to find relevant information. If you make your navigation simple and easy to use, your audience can find information quickly and easily.
• Choose design colors wisely: Your audience will judge your site based on its appearance. If you don’t have an appealing design, your audience won’t want to engage on your website. Choose a design that is clean, modern, and reflects your business.
• Create compelling meta descriptions and titles: You want to entice your audience to click on links to your website. Create titles and meta descriptions that tell your audience what to expect when they click on your link. It’s the best way to ensure that your audience finds what they need.
• Make content easily readable: If you want your audience to remain on your website, make your content easily readable for your audience. Use headers, numbered lists, and bullet points to make content easy to read. It will also make your content easier to skim for people who don’t have time to understand your entire page.

These are just a few of the many ways you can provide a positive user experience. By providing a positive user experience, you’ll keep leads on your site longer. If you want to know how to do SEO successfully, focus on providing your audience with a good experience on your website.

5. Research and know your competition

When you invest in SEO, your goal is to get to the first page of results. Since 75% of people don’t go past the first page, so it’s crucial that you’re in one of the top spots so leads find your site. If you want to improve your SEO ranking, you must know who you’re competing against for these coveted spots.

As you conduct keyword research to find relevant keywords for your site, plug them into Google. See what companies appear in the search results. These companies are competing against your business.

Check out their website and see what they have on your page. You can use this as an opportunity to see how they structure their page and the proper elements they have that help them rank well. It’s also an opportunity for you to see where you can do better.

How can you outrank these competitors? You can look for opportunities to make a page that is better than your competitors so you can rank higher. By researching your competitors, you’ll know who you’re competing against in the search results and find ways to rank better than your competitors.

6. Link internally to help Google index new pages

Internal linking is an integral part of SEO. To have your pages rank in the search results, Google must find them. Google can’t always see your pages, so you need to help it discover them.

When you add new pages to your site, you’ll want to link to other related webpages. If you mention a particular topic, you can connect to a similar section on your website to guide people to where they can find more information. If you were writing a page about how to plant flowers in your garden, you might link back to an article that you previously wrote discussing the best types of flowers for your garden.

It’s a relevant link that you can put into your content to help Google find that page and index it. Internal linking is also suitable for keeping leads on your page longer. If someone was reading about how to plant flowers, they might want to read your article about the best types of flowers to know what kind of flowers to plant.

They will spend time reading both pieces to get all the information about planting their flower garden. When leads spend more time on your site, it sends a positive signal to Google that your content is relevant to the search query. They will rank your website higher to help more leads find your relevant content.

If you want to know how to improve your Google ranking, look into internal linking. Internal linking will help Google index your pages and keep leads on your page longer.

7. Create content to drive more traffic to your site

SEO and content marketing go hand-in-hand with each other. Content marketing is a valuable tool for SEO because it helps boost traffic on your website and keeps leads on your site longer. Not only does the longer duration send positive signals to Google, but it also means your audience will spend more time getting to know your brand.

To start creating your content, you must choose your topic. Keyword research will help you find topics for your content. Once you have a topic, you will choose your format.

Content marketing comes in numerous formats, including blogs, videos, infographics, and ebooks. You’ll want to use a variety of these formats when you create new pieces of content to keep your content fresh. When you create content, answer essential questions your audience is asking.

You can find these questions by searching on google. If you type your keyword into Google, you’ll see a “People Also Ask” section. In this section, you will see common questions people ask about the topic. You can use this a basis for points to touch on in your content.

By investing in content marketing, you’ll help improve your SEO ranking. You’ll drive more traffic to your site and keep that traffic on your page longer. If you want to know how to do SEO for beginners, start by creating content to boost your website’s traffic.

8. Monitor your analytics to improve your campaign

Whenever you invest in a digital marketing campaign, you want to ensure that it works. When you invest in SEO, you want to monitor your analytics to ensure that you’re driving valuable results with your campaign. There are various metrics you can monitor, including:

• Organic traffic
• Dwell time
• Pages per session
• Clicks
• Bounce rate
• Conversions

These metrics are just a few of the many you’ll want to measure to monitor your SEO campaign’s performance. When you watch these metrics, you’ll know which aspects of your campaign are working and where you need to improve your campaign. If you want to know how to optimize your SEO ranking, start by monitoring your metrics.

Tracking your metrics will help you optimize your SEO campaign to drive better results for your business.

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Learn how to do SEO with WebFX

SEO is one of the most beneficial digital marketing strategies for helping your business grow. When you know how to do SEO, you can help your business grow online by reaching new people. If you don’t know how to implement these tactics to obtain new leads, WebFX can help.

We have over 28 years of experience running and optimizing SEO campaigns for businesses. You can count on our team of over 500 experts to help you optimize your site to perform better in the search results. We’ll help you create an SEO campaign that grows your business and helps you earn new leads.

If you’re ready to start investing in SEO and grow your business, contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about growing your business through SEO. We can also help if you’re having issues with your current SEO campaign, or have SEO questions!