In today's digital age, having a strong online presence is essential for businesses as well as individuals. And in order to reach the right targeted audience, search engine optimization plays a crucial role.
In this comprehensive guide, we will take you through the fundamental principles and practical steps of SEO. Whether you're a complete beginner or have some basic knowledge, this tutorial will equip you with the necessary insights to kickstart your SEO journey.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine (SEO) is the process that helps improve a website’s visibility. For that, the technical configurations, content relevance, and other aspects are tweaked according to the guidelines of the search engine. With good SEO, a page can be made easy to find and more relevant and popular for user search queries, making them rank higher.
What is a search engine?
A search engine is a tool that helps users to find information across the World Wide Web. Some of the most popular search engines include Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Baidu, etc.
Importance Of SEO
SEO strategies can be leveraged as an efficient marketing tool, and here are some reasons why it is so important in today’s digital world.
1. Increses Organic Reach
SEO helps optimise a website or a specific webpage to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), churning more organic traffic to that website. Higher visibility increases the chances of attracting relevant visitors who are actively searching for the products, services, or information that the brand offers.
2. Improves UX
SEO involves optimising a website's structure, navigation, and content to enhance user experience. A well-structured and user-friendly site with valuable content keeps visitors engaged and encourages them to explore further, leading to longer visit durations and lower bounce rates.
3. Better Audience Targeting
SEO helps in targeting specific keywords and phrases relevant to a business or industry. Hence, by optimising a website for these keywords, you can attract highly targeted traffic that has a higher likelihood of converting into customers or fulfilling the website's objectives.
4. Cost Effective
SEO is a cost-effective digital marketing strategy compared to other paid advertising methods. Although it requires effort and time, the long-term benefits can be significant.
5. Long-Term benefits
SEO is a long-term investment that yields sustainable results over time. It may take a while to show results, but once a strong online presence is established, the effects will be long-lasting.
Important Terms Related To SEO That Beginners Should Know
If you are learning SEO from scratch, you must be familiar with the terms that are widely used in the process. Here are some of the frequently used terms and their meaning.
- Keywords: They are words or phrases that help a page of a website become easier to find. They are one of the most important parts of SEO.
- SERP: Search Engine Result Page (SERP) is the page that contains a list of websites that match your search query. For example, after you put a query in Google and hit the search option, the page that opens relevant results is called SERP.
- Anchor Text: When you hyperlink another website to your website, the text or word that is used for that purpose is called anchor text.
- Meta Description: It is a descriptive text that appears on the SERP and gives the reader a brief idea about the page content.
- Title tag: Differing from the page title, title tags or meta titles are again something that appears on the SERP and helps the reader briefly understand the content of the page.
- Alt text: It is the descriptive text used for describing the contents of an image used on a website.
- Authority: It is a positive attribute that is given to a page after analysing multiple factors of it. It is directly proportional to the page’s ability to rank.
- Page Rank: It is a metric to judge how a page will perform against a query. Ranking 1 to 10 is what everyone aims at.
How To Learn Search Engine Optimization
SEO is a broad subject that requires knowledge of multiple topics. So if you want to become an SEO expert, these are the topics you need to cover.
- Keyword research
- On-page SEO
- Off-Page/ Technical SEO
- User Experience (UX)
- Content Optimization
- Link Building
- Local SEO
- Website Auditing
These are some basic topics you must know to become an SEO expert. Always remember SEO is an ongoing process, and it takes time to see significant results.
So, keep yourself updated with the latest SEO practices and algorithm changes to stay ahead in the search rankings.
Enhance Your SEO Knowledge With Imarticus
Knowing SEO is a huge plus point in today’s world; as marketing has digitalised, businesses and companies still prefer having organic growth over paid ads. Therefore, in order to acquire organic growth, SEO is a must.
With the right guidance, you can master SEO in no time. Take the Post-Graduation Digital Marketing Course by Imarticus and get trained, certified, and hired as a digital marketing professional!
