An understanding of basic SEO can make a noticeable difference. Get an overview of search engine optimization basics with the Google SEO starter guide.

It's a common misconception that SEO involves too much work and isn't worthwhile. This isn't the case. SEO is quite simple if you know what you're doing. Having 57.8% of all web traffic come from Google is definitely something you should be aware of if you have a website.

It isn't necessary to trust that you aren't ranked based on the basics. Knowing the basics of SEO can certainly help you achieve success, as most people running websites have very little knowledge of it.

This guide will teach you:

Chapters

1. SEO fundamentals

2. Setting up for SEO success

3. How to do SEO

4. How to track SEO success

5. Free SEO tools

Contents

• 1. SEO fundamentals

• 2. Setting up for SEO success

• 3. How to do SEO

• 4. How to track SEO success

• 5. Free SEO tools

Chapter 1

SEO fundamentals

In order to fully understand SEO, let's go over the basics, including why it matters and what makes it different from other marketing channels.

Why is SEO important?

Most web traffic comes from Google’s organic results.

Thus, organic search generates most of the traffic compared to all other sources.

As you may know from our guide to how search engines work, Google and other search engines rank pages based on hundreds of signals. It's important to have SEO because it helps increase organic search results by boosting these signals.

What are the benefits of SEO?

SEO is most often associated with ranking higher in search results, but rankings are just a means to an end. Traffic is the real benefit of SEO.

1. SEO leads to more traffic

Ranking higher in the search results usually helps increase traffic to your website because most people tend to click the first few results.

Take a look at the top three results for "submit website to search engines." Using Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer, we can see that the top-ranking page gets the most organic traffic, followed by the second and third.

Ranking position is closely related to overall traffic to a page, as our study found that these observations hold true across the board.

2. SEO leads to consistent traffic

Search engine rankings usually result in both consistent and passive traffic. Social media and email marketing are typically responsible for spiking traffic spikes that quickly fade away.

This is because social media networks surface fresh content daily. We often mark emails as read, forget about them, or send them to the spam folder. As a result, once you rank on a search engine, the amount of traffic tends to be both consistent and passive due to the number of searches performed.

3. SEO leads to ‘free’ traffic

instead of paying for advertising.

Search engine ads can be expensive, so that's a big deal.

The Ahrefs Blog, for example, receives an estimated 390k monthly visits from search engines according to Ahrefs' Site Explorer. Google would charge us $1M per month if we paid for that traffic.

Google-ranking content isn't free, but it's usually cheaper than paying for ads.

How do you get your website on Google?

Search engine optimization helps you rank higher, but you can't rank higher if Google doesn't even know your website exists.

Eventually, Google will find your site on its own, but manually submitting your site has a couple of advantages:

• Faster discovery. The first few weeks after a new website is launched, Google might not find it because most of them do not have any backlinks.

• Improve your website. Your Google Search Console gives recommendations for improving and optimizing your website.

Finding your sitemap is the first step in submitting your website to Google.

You can create sitemaps by listing all of your site's important pages. The URLs listed below are usually yours if you type them into your browser:

website.com/sitemap.xml

website.com/sitemap_index.xml

You'll usually find it at website.com/robots.txt if it's not there.

You probably don't have one if it's not there either. For help creating one, see our guide.

In order to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console, create a free account.

• What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization Explained

• Why SEO Is Important: 8 Undeniable Facts and Case Studies

• How to Create an XML Sitemap (and Submit It to Google)

• How to Submit Your Website to Search Engines

• 9 Reasons Your Website Isn’t Showing Up On Google

• 10 Ways to Get Google to Index Your Site

• SEO Training Course: Learn How to Get Organic Traffic From Search

Chapter 2

Setting up for SEO success

When search engines index your website, it means you're in the race, not that you're likely to win. Search engine optimization plays a role here. If done properly, SEO increases your chances of winning over time.

When your website is setup properly for SEO success, it is much easier to do SEO well.

Here's how you can do it.

• Get a good domain

• Use a website platform

• Use a good web host

• Create a positive user experience

• Create a logical site structure

• Use a logical URL structure

• Install a good SEO plugin

Get a good domain

Do not panic if you've already registered one. Your SEO efforts won't be hindered. If you haven't yet selected a domain, keep these two qualities in mind:

1. Domain name

First of all, don't include your keywords. For search engines to understand what your site is about, your domain does not have to be londonitalianrestaurant.com.

There are a few things that make a good domain:

• Is the name of your business

• Has no hyphens

• Is short and memorable

2) TLD

(top-level domain) refers to the top-level domain. There is a part after the name like .com, .org, or .co.uk.

According to Google's John Mueller, your TLD has no bearing on SEO. However, if you can get it, .com is usually the best option because it is the most recognizable and trustworthy.

The .org or equivalent of your country (e.g., .org.uk) works for charities, too.

If you only do business in one country outside the US, your ccTLD (e.g., co.uk) will be fine.

If you have a domain named .info or .biz, it's probably best to stay away from them. However, if you do, it's not the end of the world. It's still possible to build a legitimate website that ranks.

Use a website platform

Websites are typically not coded from the ground up in HTML and CSS. Web platforms are used instead. They allow even those with no coding skills to create a website, manage content with ease, and deal with boring technicalities.

There are two types of website platform.

Hosted platforms

offer everything under one roof. They host your website, provide ready-made designs that you can install and edit with ease, and let you create and manage content without having to touch code.

Self-hosted platforms

give you the option of managing and creating content with no coding required. However, you must host and install them yourself.

SIDENOTE. WordPress also has a hosted solution at wordpress.com.

Do you need a hosted solution or a self-hosted one?

A self-hosted, open-source platform like WordPress is recommended by most SEO experts because:

• Open-source code can be edited however you want, and there's a large community of developers who know the platform well.

• Due to its extensibility, it can be extended with millions of ready-made plugins, including thousands of SEO plugins.

We recommend a self-hosted solution such as WordPress.

A hosted solution like Wix or Squarespace, on the other hand, might be a better fit if you value ease of use and support. For most people, most of the popular hosted platforms provide more than enough SEO capabilities.

If you're currently using another platform, don't worry about switching to WordPress.

Use a good web host

Your site is stored on a hard drive that is accessible by anyone with an internet connection.

You have very little control over your hosting if you use a hosted platform for your website. When using WordPress, you'll need to find a place to host your site since it's self-hosted.

What should you look for in a good SEO web host?

SEO guides advise that you should use a dedicated host instead of a shared one. Although true, it doesn't make a lot of difference until your website receives a lot of traffic. If you pay a few dollars a month, you won't notice much of a difference in performance between cheap hosts.

What does matter is:

• Protection. Make sure the host provides you with a free SSL/TLS certificate or supports LetsEncrypt, a nonprofit that provides free TLS certificates.

• Location of the server. As data has to travel between the server and visitor, it's best to choose a host with servers in the same country as most of your traffic.

• Support. 24x7 customer service is ideal. Before you sign up, ask the questions above to see how good the support is.

Create a positive user experience

Google prefers to rank pages that give visitors a good experience. The search engine says as much in its SEO starter guide:

Websites should be built with the user in mind, and any optimization should aim to improve the user experience.

Here are a few suggestions:

Use HTTPS

Protecting your visitors' information is the best thing you can do. Use SSL/TLS on all your sites.

Choose an appealing design

Nobody likes a website that looks like it was designed in the ’90s. It's not necessary to redesign your website every six months, but it should at least be visually appealing and reflect your brand.

Make sure it’s mobile-friendly

According to Google, there are now more mobile searches than desktop searches, so you must make your mobile website as user friendly as your desktop website.

Use a readable font size

Nowadays, there are all kinds of devices people use to browse the web. Your content should be readable on any device.

Avoid intrusive pop-ups and ads

Ads may not be everyone's favorite, but sometimes they are necessary. It is important to avoid intrusive ones if that's the case. Here are some guidelines from Google about what's acceptable.

Make sure it loads fast

because desktop and mobile page load speed is an important ranking factor. That does not mean you need a lightning fast site. Yes, faster is better, but Google says this factor only affects sites that provide the worst user experience.

Create a logical site structure

It's critical to create a logical hierarchy for your content so that both visitors and search engines can navigate your site easily.

The easiest way to do this is to create a mind map.

In your mind map, each branch will serve as an internal link, which is a link from one page on a website to another.

There are several reasons why internal links are important.

• Search engines can find new pages as a result. Internal links are rarely indexed or found on pages without them.

• PageRank is passed around by internal links. A page's PageRank is used to determine its "value" in Google's ranking algorithm.

• Search engines use the PageRank to determine your page's relevance. Anchor text and surrounding text are factors considered by Google.

Use a logical URL structure

Search engines use URLs to determine the topic of a page.

Several platform providers allow you to customize your URLs. There are five options for WordPress URLs:

• Plain: yourwebsite.com/?p=123

• Day and name: yourwebsite.com/2021/03/04/seo-basics/

• Month and name: yourwebsite.com/03/04/seo-basics/

• Numeric: yourwebsite.com/865/

• Post name: yourwebsite.com/seo-basics/

It makes sense to choose the clearest and most descriptive structure when you're creating a new website. The post name is probably the best choice.

The use of dates in URLs is also bad practice, since the posts may need to be updated in the future.

Even if the URL structure of an existing site isn't ideal, it's probably best not to change it during optimization. It can break other more important things that will have a more profound impact on your SEO if you do so.

Install a good SEO plugin

In contrast to most hosted platforms, WordPress does not come with basic SEO functionality out of the box. Without an SEO plugin, even the most basic SEO best practices are virtually impossible to implement.

These plugins are readily available. We use Yoast, but Rank Math is also useful.

Installation is simple. Just go to:

Plugins > Add new > Run a search > Install > Activate now

Both of these plugins add useful extra input fields to your posts and pages. (We’ll come back to these later).

It's not necessary to install a plugin if you're using a hosted platform, such as Wix or Squarespace, since these platforms allow you to make basic SEO adjustments out of the box.

• What is HTTPS? Everything You Need to Know

• Website Structure: How to Build Your SEO Foundation

• How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs (Step-by-Step)

• How to Speed Up Your WordPress Website in 20 Minutes

• 15 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress (Tried & Tested)

• How to Do a Basic Website Audit to Improve SEO and UX

Chapter 3

How to do SEO

Your SEO success should be based on a solid foundation by this point. However, this is just the beginning. SEO is an ongoing process that is generally divided into four elements:

• Keyword research

• On-page SEO

• Link building

• Technical SEO

Each of these aspects has been covered in detail in our beginners' guides, so we won't cover everything here. Rather, we'll look at the basics and take a high-level view to help you see why each aspect is so important, as well as how everything fits together.

Keyword research

During keyword research, you learn what your customers are searching for, how much traffic those terms can send to your site, and how difficult it may be to rank for them. Here are the basics of each.

Find keywords

The first step in keyword research is understanding what kinds of things your potential customers are looking for. It is impossible to even begin creating pages that will rank in search engines and attract valuable traffic unless you know this.

The best way to begin this process is to brainstorm words and phrases that define your industry. For example, an online computer store might include:

• computer

• PC

• mac

• laptop

• macbook

These keywords can then be used as 'seed' keywords to discover more ideas. Check out the keyword ideas report of a tool like Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer to see how they translate into keywords.

Identify keywords that would be valuable to your business.

Check traffic potential

All keyword research tools, including Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer, provide estimated monthly search volumes for the keywords they find.

A keyword's search volume is usually a good indicator of its traffic potential. A page targeting a high-volume keyword will usually drive more traffic to your website than a page targeting a low-volume keyword.

Keyword search volume isn't foolproof, however. It is possible to drive more traffic by ranking #1 for a keyword with 1,000 monthly searches than one with 2,000.

As an example, "submit your website to search engines" vs. "seo tips."

The top-ranking page of the latter earns more organic traffic even though it has a higher search volume.

As a result, it is always worthwhile looking at the estimated organic traffic to the top-ranking page to get a better sense of a keyword's potential traffic. You can find this information in Keywords Explorer.

Check ranking difficulty

It will not always be easy to rank for a keyword that seems relevant to your business and has a high traffic potential.

Ranking difficulty is determined by many factors, but the number of relevant, prominent websites linking to the top-ranking pages is one of the most important. According to Google's guide to search:

Links pointing to the page from other prominent websites on the subject are an indication of the information's quality.

It’s partly for this reason that we based Ahrefs’ Keyword Difficulty (KD) score on the number of linking websites to the top-ranking pages. It gives a score of 0 to 100 for each keyword and is a good place to start when assessing ranking difficulty.

However, as it’s impossible to distill the complexity of ranking difficulty into a 1–3 digit number, we don’t recommend relying on it entirely. Our guide to keyword research goes into more detail about assessing ranking difficulty.

On-page SEO

Search engine optimization is the process of creating the kind of content searchers want, and optimizing it so that search engines can better understand what it is about. Keyword placement is a common misconception. It's important, but it's not the most important part.

Here are some tips on how to optimize a page for search engines.

Match search intent

If you do not create the kind of content that searchers are looking for, you have very little chance of ranking. Search intent alignment is what is known as in the industry.

As Google understands search intent better than anyone, you can judge search intent by looking for common themes among the top-ranking pages for your target keyword.

There are no list-style blog posts for the search term "SEO tips," for example. Nevertheless, I found all category pages from ecommerce websites when I searched for "speakers".

People seeking "speakers" are in the buying phase, while those seeking "SEO tips" are in the learning phase. The kind of content we create needs to align with search intent if we want to rank.

Choose a descriptive URL slug

Using logical and descriptive URL structures was discussed in the chapter on setting up a website for SEO success. Whenever you publish a page or post, you should also include a descriptive slug at the end of the URL.

The best way to do this depends on the subfolders before the URL slug.

For example, let's say your target keyword is "black mens jeans."

You can set the slug as your target keyword if your URL has no subfolders or generic subfolders like /blog/.

yourwebsite.com/black-mens-jeans/

It is best to exclude repeated keywords from ‘contextual’ subfolders such as /mens/ or /jeans/.

yourwebsite.com/mens/jeans/black/

Write a compelling title tag

Clickable title tags appear in the search results as blue links.

The title is one of the few weapons you have to entice searchers to click on your page, so you should make it as compelling as possible.

The easiest way to accomplish this is by aligning it with search intent.

We can see some commonalities in the titles of the top results for "best bluetooth speaker," for example:

• They all include the year. Probably because searchers value freshness.

• Portability is a hot topic. This suggests a crucial attribute.

We can take advantage of this knowledge by going for the following title tag:

Top Picks for Portable Bluetooth Speakers (2022)

Optimize images

in order to rank in Google Images and drive traffic to your website. Within the last three months, we've received thousands of visits from Google Images.

What kind of optimization do you do?

Here are three steps:

• Name them clearly. It is better to name a file cat.png than IMG_948493.png, because it helps Google better understand the image.

• Include descriptive alt text. The alt text describes what the image is about. Unless a screen reader is used or the picture fails to load, it won't appear on the page. When you upload an image, most website platforms provide an alt text input field.

• Compress the images. Improve your website's speed by installing a plugin like Shortpixel that compresses your images on the fly.

Link building

By linking to your content from other websites, you give Google a vote of confidence in the quality of your content.

Getting good ones isn't always easy, but they're arguably the most important ranking factor.

Links are typically built by creating link-worthy content, then reaching out to site owners and editors with compelling reasons to add your link to one of their pages. However, other methods can be used as well.

Here are just a few link building tactics.

Guest blogging

involves writing a blog post for another website. Here's a guest post Ryan Stewart wrote for the Ahrefs Blog in 2018.

In the author bio, you can find links to Ryan's social profiles and website.

Typically, guest authors are allowed to include links in their bios.

Our searchable database of over seven billion pages, Content Explorer, is one of the easiest ways to find potential guest blogging opportunities. To get started, follow these steps:

• Browse relevant topics.

• Select "in title" from the dropdown menu

• under "websites"

On this page, you'll see the top websites for your topic:

Because these websites have written about this topic before, chances are they might be open to a guest post about a similar topic. Just email them and ask.

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