What is SEO? A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners and Experienced SEOs

Hi, my name is Farman and I’m an SEO with more than 3 years of experience. In this blog, I’m going to teach you everything you need to know about SEO, from the basics to the most advanced techniques.

What is SEO?

As an SEO with more than 3 years of experience, I can tell you that SEO or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about optimizing a website to make it more discoverable and relevant to user search queries. It involves improving various aspects such as content, page speed, technical configuration, indexing, crawling, and link popularity.

By implementing effective SEO strategies, we aim to ensure that the website’s pages are easily found by users, highly relevant to their search queries, and provide valuable solutions within the website’s niche and industry. 

This, in turn, allows search engines to recognize and rank them better, as we are focused on meeting user needs and delivering a better user experience with improved page speed we can generate revenue from our website as well.

Search engines highly recommend SEO efforts that not only enhance the user search experience by displaying rich results from our website but also improve the ranking of our web pages. 

This can be achieved by doing a relevant keyword research and featuring content that fulfills user search needs, including the use of relevant keywords in titles, meta descriptions, and headlines (H1) and (H2), you can use many best SEO tools for all these tasks. 

It is also important to have descriptive URLs that contain relevant keywords instead of random things. Additionally, implementing schema markup allows us to specify the content meaning of the page, among other essential SEO best practices.

By following these best practices, we ensure that our SEO efforts benefit both users and search engines, resulting in improved visibility, higher rankings, and a positive impact on the overall performance of the website.

What is a search engine and How search engines work?

When I started learning SEO the first question that came to my mind was what is a search engine and how it works and after my research I came to a conclusion that a search engine is a software that helps you find the information you’re looking for on the internet.

It does this by crawling and indexing the web, which means it visits and reads all of the publicly available websites and stores their content in a database. When you enter a search query into a search engine, such as Google, it searches its database to find the most relevant results and returns them to you in a ranked list.

Search engines work in four main steps:

1. Crawling: The search engine sends out crawlers, also known as spiders or bots, to visit all of the publicly available websites on the web. These crawlers follow links from one page to another, until they have visited as many pages as possible.
2. Indexing: Once the crawlers have visited a website, they index its content. This means they read and store the text, images, videos, and other content on the page in a database.
3. Query processing: When you enter a search query into a search engine, it processes the query to understand what you’re looking for. This may involve breaking down the query into keywords and synonyms, and understanding the context of the query. For this rightnow google is using BERT, MUM for showing better results.
4. Ranking: Once the search engine understands what you’re looking for, it ranks the indexed pages in its database based on their relevance to your search query. The most relevant results are displayed at the top of the list.

How Search Engines like Google determine where your website ranks?

Search engines like Google use a variety of factors to determine where your website ranks in SERPs. Some of the most important factors include:

1. Relevance: How relevant is your website to the keywords that people are searching for?
2. Helpful content: How helpful and valuable your content is for the user.
3. Page speed: How fast does your website load? Search engines want to rank websites that load quickly, as this provides a better user experience.
4. Mobile-friendliness: How does your website look and function on mobile devices? Search engines are increasingly ranking mobile-friendly websites higher in SERPs.
5. Authoritativeness: How authoritative is your website compared to other websites that are ranking for the same keywords?
6. Amount of Content: How much content you have on your website around that topic and niche. However, it’s important to note that quality is more important than quantity. It’s better to have a few high-quality pieces of content than a lot of low-quality content.
7. Click-through rate (CTR): How often do people click on your website’s links in SERPs?
8. Bounce rate: How often do people leave your website after only viewing one page?
9. Technical SEO: This refers to the technical aspects of your website, such as its structure, code, and navigation. Search engines want to rank websites that are easy for them to crawl and index.

Different Types of SEO

There are three main types of SEO: On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, Technical SEO.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO refers to optimizing the content and code of your website. This includes things like using relevant keywords in your title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and body text. It also includes making sure your website is mobile-friendly and loading quickly.

Tips for improving your on-page SEO:-

• Keyword Research: This helps in identifying target audience, search intent and relevant query that users are searching on the internet.
• Write high-quality content: When creating content for your website, prioritize quality over quantity. Your content should be informative, engaging, well-written, and helpful to the user. Keeping up with the latest updates in 2024 is important, as search engines now prioritize helpful content updates, review updates, and spam updates. Providing high-quality content that meets user needs should be your top priority as an SEO professional.
• Use relevant keywords throughout your website: Use your target keywords throughout your website, but be careful not to overuse them.
• Optimize your title tags and meta descriptions: Make sure your title tags and meta descriptions are clear, concise, and relevant to your target keywords.
• Use images and videos: Images and videos can make your content more engaging and can also help to improve your ranking in SERPs.

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to building links to your website from other high-quality websites. Links are like votes of confidence from other websites, and search engines use them to determine how authoritative your website is.

Tips for improving your off-page SEO:

• Build links from high-quality websites: The best way to build links is to create high-quality content that other websites want to link to. You can also reach out to other websites and ask for links.
• Get involved in social media: Social media is a great way to promote your content and build relationships with other websites.
• Guest blogging: Guest blogging is a great way to get your content published on other websites and build links.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing your website’s code and structure so that it is easy for search engines to crawl and index.

Most important technical SEO tasks include:

• Creating a sitemap: A sitemap is a file that lists all of the pages on your website. This helps search engines to crawl your website more efficiently.
• Using robots.txt: Robots.txt is a file that tells search engines which pages on your website they should crawl and which pages they should avoid.
• Fixing broken links: Broken links can hurt your ranking in SERPs. Make sure to regularly check your website for broken links and fix them as soon as possible.
• Improving your website’s loading speed: A slow-loading website can frustrate visitors and can also hurt your ranking in SERPs.
• Make sure your website is mobile-friendly: More and more people are using their smartphones and tablets to browse the web, so it’s important to make sure your website is mobile-friendly.

Best SEO Tools in 2024: Tools I Use as an SEO for Each Purpose

As an SEO, I use a variety of different tools to help me with my work. Here are the best SEO tools in 2024, organized by purpose:

SEO Tools for Keyword Research

1. SEMrush: SEMrush is a powerful keyword research tool that provides a wealth of data, including search volume, keyword difficulty, and related keywords.
2. Google Keyword Planner: Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that provides keyword search volume data and competition data.

SEO Tools for Backlink Research

1. Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a comprehensive backlink research tool that provides data on backlinks, referring domains, and anchor text.
2. SEMrush: SEMrush also offers backlink research features, including a backlink audit tool and a backlink gap analysis tool.
3. Moz: Moz offers a variety of backlink research tools, including the Link Explorer and the MozBar toolbar.

SEO Tool for Domain authority and Page authority

Moz Domain Authority and Page Authority are two of the most popular metrics for assessing the authority of a website or page.

SEO Tools for Content Editing:

1. Hemingway Editor: Hemingway Editor is a free tool that helps you write clear and concise prose.
2. Grammarly: Grammarly is a premium tool that helps you catch grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.
3. SEMrush: SEMrush offers a content editing tool that provides feedback on your content’s readability, originality, and SEO potential.
4. Yoast SEO: Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your content for SEO.

Tools for Competitor Research:

1. SEMrush: SEMrush offers a variety of competitor research tools, including a domain analysis tool and a keyword gap analysis tool.
2. Ahrefs: Ahrefs also offers competitor research tools, including a Site Explorer tool and a Competitors Backlinks tool.

Seo Tools for Traffic analysis

1. Google Search Console: Google Search Console is a free tool that provides data on your website’s traffic, performance, and errors.
2. Google Analytics 4 (GA4): GA4 is the latest version of Google Analytics, which provides a comprehensive view of your website’s traffic and engagement.
3. Looker Studio: Looker Studio is a data visualization tool that can be used to create custom reports and dashboards from your Google Search Console and GA4 data.

Different Types of SEO Specialties

Here are the different types of SEO Specialties:

Ecommerce SEO

Ecommerce SEO is the practice of optimizing ecommerce websites for search engine results pages (SERPs), this include both WooCommerce SEO and Shopify SEO . This can help ecommerce businesses attract more visitors to their websites and increase sales. Ecommerce SEO strategies typically include optimizing product pages, category pages, and the checkout process.

News SEO

News SEO is the practice of optimizing news websites to rank higher in SERPs for relevant keywords. This can help news websites attract more readers and increase traffic. News SEO strategies typically include optimizing article headlines, meta descriptions, and images.

Enterprise SEO

This is the practice of optimizing large and complex websites for SERPs. Enterprise SEO strategies typically involve optimizing millions of pages and dealing with complex technical issues. Enterprise SEO is often used by large companies with multiple websites and products.

Local SEO

Local SEO is the practice of optimizing websites for local search results. This can help local businesses rank higher in SERPs when people search for keywords related to their products or services and location. Local SEO strategies typically include optimizing Google Business Profiles, creating local content, and building backlinks from local websites.

International SEO

International SEO is the practice of optimizing websites for global search results. This can help businesses reach customers in different countries and increase their international sales. International SEO strategies typically include optimizing website content for different languages and cultures, and building backlinks from international websites.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

If you have an app and you list the app on google play store and apple app store then ASO is the practice that you can use for optimizing mobile apps for app store search results. This can help app developers get their apps seen by more people and increase downloads. ASO strategies typically include optimizing app titles, keywords, and descriptions.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO)

CRO is the practice of optimizing our websites to increase the number of desired actions taken by the visitors, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. CRO strategies can be used to improve the effectiveness of SEO campaigns by making websites more user-friendly, persuasive and apply CTAs for better conversion.

YouTube SEO

YouTube SEO is the process of optimizing your YouTube videos and channel to rank higher in YouTube search results. This can help you attract more viewers to your videos and grow your channel.

How to Learn SEO in 2024?

There are many different ways to learn SEO. Some of the most popular resources include:

• Moz Whiteboard Friday: This weekly video series from Moz covers a wide range of SEO topics, from beginner to advanced.
• Search Engine Journal: This website is a great resource for SEO news, tips, and tutorials.
• Google Search Central: This is the official Google resource for information on SEO and other search-related topics. Content You should read: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content and Overview of crawling and indexing topics
• YouTube channels: Many great YouTube channels offer SEO tutorials and advice. Some popular channels include Amit Tiwari, Brian Dean, and Umar Tazkeer.

Conclusion

SEO is a complex and ever-changing field, but by following the tips above, you can improve your website’s ranking and get more traffic.