What is SEO?-Beginner’s Guide

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization,it helps search engine and user understand your website easily.Studying search engine algorithms and optimizing the quality of content,you can  improve your website’s ranking and authority in SERPs(search engine results pages).

Why SEO is Important?

The core of SEO is to improve the user experience and solve user needs. Utilizing your SEO strategies can attract more high-quality traffic and potential users constantly.So,let’s learn SEO and show your website to the right audience .

Learn SEO You Need to Know These Aspects

SERP

SERP means Search Engine Results Page.It is web pages served to users when they search for something in a search engine, such as Google.SERP typically displays the following types of search results: Image pack, Video, and People Also Ask.

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO mainly about optimizing the content of each page on your website.It involves the optimization of keywords,static URLs,tags ,images,content and internal llink ect.

Keywords

Keywords are words or topics, that people type into a search engine to find information. 

Keywords research is the most basic process in SEO. If you have a list of the right keywords, you can start SEO tasks lightly.

These are types of keywords commonly:

1. Short-tail Keywords

2. Long-tail Keywords

3. Questions

4. Intent Targeting Keywords

5. Primary Keywords

6. Secondary Keywords

7.  LSI keywords,ect.

To systematically learn keywords, you can read this article: 《A Complete Guide to Keywords》

URL

A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of a unique resource on the internet.It is composed of different parts,the most important part is the domain name.A well-designed URL serves as a directory, providing users with navigation and indicating their current position on the

webpage.How to create a SEO-friendly URL?

You can learn what is a high quality URL firstly:

1. Use Domain Name

2. Use a LSI Keyword

3. Hide the www prefix

4. Use Hyphens In-Between Words

5. Keep a simple URL structure

6. Stick with lowercase

7. Avoid using dates

8. Go with HTTPS instead of HTTP

9. Nothing Dynamic

10. Redirect old URLs

11. Use UTF-8 encoding,,ect.

Content

High-quality content is essential for ranking well in search results.A premium SEO article usually has the following characteristics:

1. Write for audience and search engine

2. Include relevant keywords 

3. Write Long Content

4. Structure Content with Subheadings

5. Implement E-E-A-T

6. Link internally and externally 

7. Rewrite and update content

8. Add Multimedia Elements to text,ect.

Internal link(Anchor Text):

Internal links point to pages on the same domain. There are various types of internal links. Such as navigation menus and Anchor text, which is a description of a hyperlink on a webpage, commonly presented in the form of text or images. It can point to a specific location within the text or to another webpage.

Technical SEO 

Every SEO category is crucial,including technical SEO.Technical SEO is a part of On-Page SEO. It mentions many factors about UX(User Experience) like structured data,loading speeds and mobile-friendliness.User behaviors have a vital effect on your webpage’s visibility because srearch engine will crawl pages which user interested in.

Load Speed

Websites that load quickly perform better across a range of marketing and SEO metrics.

Webpage speed can be divided into thes categories:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) 

• Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

• Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

• First Contentful Paint (FCP) 

• First Input Delay (FID)

• DOMContent Loaded (DCL)

Off-Page SEO

Off-Page include link building, guest posting, and social media marketing.It aims to gain more credibility and authority on search engines.You will do off-page better if you focus on E-E-A-T(Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness ) ---a matter norm that search engine judge your website.

Link Building

Link building is the process of acquiring other websites to link to your website. In SEO,these links are called backlinks. They’re like votes of credibility from other sites. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher your website is likely to rank in search results.

How does Google Search Engine work?

Google search engine continuously crawl the URL and your page code, and analyze the page to include qualified pages into the index.At the same time, the search engine also analyze all the pages based on the keywords searched by the user and sort them to present the optimized search results.

Google Search Engine Algorithm

Google algorithm is the criterion for search engines to crawl and rank your page.Mastering how google algorithm influent your page ranking,you will clearly know what should you do in SEO work.Google algorithm classification factors, including:keywords mapping, quality, relevance/context, usability, content organization, content length, website structure, domain, meta description, image replacement text, keywords in H2 and H3, CTR(click through rate), bounce rate, stay time,E-E-A-T, etc. Some main google algorithms as follow:

Panda

Panda help Google filters high-quality websites and lowers the ranking of potentially low-quality websites

Penguin

It can improve the quality of search results by combatting the practice of spam links,deliberate control of backlinks,and keyword over-optimization.

Hummingbird

Introducing semantic understanding capabilities enables Google to better understand users' search intentions, context, and provide more private, secure, and personalized search result pages.

Pigeon

Improving the relevance of local search results and increasing the impact of distance and geographical location on rankings, local businesses can significantly benefit from search engines.

Mobile-Friendly(Mobilegeddon)

Mobilegeddon encourage websites to optimize for mobile devices, and those not optimized will rank lower in mobile search results. This update does not offer a middle ground - your page will either be mobile-friendly or not.

RankBrain

RankBrain is a part of Google's core algorithm (Hummingbird). It uses machine learning to identify the user’s intent of a query search. By analyzing and processing a large amount of search data, determine the most relevant results to search engine queries, thereby improve the accuracy and personalization of search results.

BERT

BERT is a pre trained unsupervised natural language processing model. It can help Google better understand natural language, especially in conversational search.

Learn more Algorithms and Details: Google Algorithm Update History

Google SEO Tools

Google Official Tools

Google Search Console(GSC)---Guide to Use GSC

Google Analytics(GA)---Guide to Use GA

Google Trends

Google Keyword Planner

Comprehensive tools

SEMRUSH

MOZ

Ubersuggest

Ahrefs

Click here to find all categories SEO tools: SEO Tools Collection

Website Building

1. Requirements analysis: Clarify the website's purpose and user profile, plan website content, and develop a budget.

2. Purchase domain name (registration): Enable users to find websites through the domain name.

3. Domain DNS resolution: Convert domain names to IP addresses

4. Purchase a space station (select server): store website content.

5. Associate domain name and website space so that users can see the content of the websitewhen accessing the domain name.

6. Website design, development, and testing: front-end and back-end

7. Upload website

8. Maintain and optimize the website

Conclusion

SEO is a process that improving your website’s visibility, attracting high-quality traffic. Implementing aspects such as keyword research, link building,and technical optimization, you can enhance your website’s search rankings. Additionally,knowing well Google’s algorithms and grasping SEO tools will help you optimize your website better. If you master these basic techniques  you will enable to gain the right audience and achieve long-term high ranking.