SEO Tutorial For Beginners: A Step-By-Step Guide

Topics Covered

The topics covered in the SEO tutorial are:

• What is SEO?
• Keyword Research
• On-page and off-page SEO
• How to rank #1 on Google
• SEO Tools
• How to Drive Traffic to Your Website
• SEO tips
• SEO Interview Questions

Why Learn SEO?

SEO is the necessity of the new world. And here are the reasons why: 

• Better customer experience: If users get exactly what they are looking for, when they are looking for it, then it leads to higher conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
• Saves time and effort: SEO leverages a targeted approach to connect the user and product, thereby saving time by delivering high-quality search results quickly.
• Focus on the customer-centric approach: Compared to the outbound marketing approach, SEO drives, and thrives on organic results. SEO strategies aim to inform the customers through attractive and engaging content such as blogs, infographics, articles, newsletters, and much more. Thus, your customer comes to you, instead of you having to push them. Examples of outbound marketing in the case of SEO include interruptive advertisements, spam calls/emails. 

Applications of SEO

• Create engaging content: This includes creating original quality content for your customers to enjoy and share with their peers. This means, no keyword stuffing or duplicating of content.
• Build stronger keywords: The customer lands at your page in a few clicks due to the keywords you use, and their density in your content.
• Robust link building practices: Avoiding link administration to draw customers, can be a huge turn-off and drive customers away in a jiffy.
• Faster website load time: Crisp and well-thought content and layout will result in higher lead conversion rates.
• Enhance customer experience: Building a mobile-friendly website that employs the latest features to give all your customers a good user experience.
• Re-index your website: Use clear and rich meta-tags for better site visibility.

Who Should Learn SEO?

The tutorial is for intermediate-level aspirants who wish to learn more and stay abreast with SEO tools. The SEO tutorial is versatile enough for aspiring digital marketing managers, e-commerce entrepreneurs, and even interns who need to advance their expertise on SEO and website ranking. Anyone who works in the digital marketing domain, be it the backend developer, content writer, editor, content coordinator, UI/ UX designer, can benefit from this concise SEO tutorial.

Prerequisites

This tutorial is useful for anyone who wishes to drive more traffic towards their website. A basic understanding of digital marketing and its various processes would also be helpful. This includes being well-versed with the structure of a website or webpage, as often certain strategies are implemented in coding the webpage along with the content. 

That being said, do brush up on concepts such as title tag, meta description, URL structure, header tags, and HTML/ XML sitemaps, before beginning the SEO tutorial. A little research will go a long way to innovate new ideas for SEO tactics; especially, since search engines, such as Google, are always coming up with new and improved algorithms to rank genuine content better.

SEO Tutorial: Table of Contents

1. SEO Introduction

The first lesson of the SEO tutorial eases into the introduction of SEO and its importance in the digital marketing world. To begin with, there is a brief explanation of the Search Ecosystem components and their incentives. 

Next, you will learn about the key drivers of the search ecosystem and how SEO is related to social media. The lesson also brushes up on the pros and cons of SEO and how to avoid common outdated techniques. At the end of the lesson, you can learn more about potential careers in SEO. You will also be able to differentiate between the various aspects of an enterprise, small-medium business, agency, and individual SEO.

2. How Do Search Engines Work?

Taking a step further, Lesson 2 of the SEO tutorial begins with an in-depth explanation of how Search Engines work, which will form the foundation of your SEO practices. Here, you will gain an insight into the major vs. minor search engines, along with various international search engines. This lesson answers critical questions about search engine mechanisms, crawling in a step-by-step way. You will know how to optimize website elements with sitemaps, storing, processing, indexing, and ranking.

3. Types of SEO

The lesson proceeds to a detailed explanation of SEO Do’s and Don’ts and in-depth best practices that will make your SEO strategies stand the test of time (or change of search engine algorithms). Lastly, you will get to know about SEO spam and a brief on falsifying content and links. 

4. Keyword Research and Competitive Intelligence

This lesson lets you dive deep into the world of keywords by introducing to you the importance of keyword research, user intent, and performing keyword research. You will also learn about the latest handy tools (and its applications), to leave your competitors behind in the digital dust.

Next, you will learn about the types of queries and their pros and cons. Lastly, you will also learn the finer aspects of analyzing your competition and the difference between B2B vs. B2C.

5. On-Page Optimization

Lesson 5 of the SEO tutorial explains the on-page SEO, which is the process of optimizing website elements and its various factors. You will get in-depth training on various website elements such as: 

• Title Tags
• Meta Description
• Header Tags
• URL Structure
• Image Alt Text
• Internal Links
• Keyword Usage
• Sitemaps

The lesson will conclude with On-Page practices to avoid keyword stuffing, hidden text, repetitive anchor text, cloaking, and finally, a guide on creating a perfectly optimized page.

6. Off-Page Optimization

The Off-page Optimisation lesson elaborates on the processes to further improve your ranking on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). These include important Link Building strategies such as high-quality content and off-site engagement.

The lesson moves from identifying the signs of popularity to creating link-worthy content. You will also learn how to utilize offline relationships to leverage your position as an organization. The lesson concludes with the link building tactics to avoid when you need to build a robust relationship with your customers.

7. Duplicate Content

Content is a crucial element when it comes to SEO strategies. Original and relevant content will always help your organization get higher traffic and increased lead generation. This lesson elaborates on duplicate content and its common instances. It also offers a guide to fix duplicate content to make your SEO strategy successful.

8. Design and Architecture

This lesson of the SEO tutorial elaborates on the importance of design in your SEO practices. As the design is an essential interface that interacts with the end-users, you can benefit from the best practices and design for search engines mentioned in this lesson.

9. Local SEO

According to statistics, most businesses benefit from local searches. This is one reason why “...near me” is one of the most used phrases in search engines.

This lesson elaborates on the necessity of optimizing your content according to your local audience, the benefits of easy-to-find NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number), and Directories. You will also gain an insight into the local search signals to look out for.

10. Algorithm Updates and SEO Changes

Search engine algorithm updates are something every organization needs to monitor to dominate the digital space successfully. This lesson introduces you to the SEO changes and algorithm updates you need to know about and SEO misconceptions. The following topics will help you with the metrics to monitor and update, based on the constant changes.

This SEO tutorial lesson describes in-detail the three major Google search engine updates and the RankBrain algorithm. You will get an insight into a feature called “Not Provided” that you may encounter on your SEO quests. 

11. Integrating SEO with Other Disciplines

A useful lesson on integrating SEO with other disciplines will help you learn about integrating marketing channels and improving user experience across channels. You will then be directed to the crucial relationships between SEO and content marketing, analytics, mobile, and WordPress, which provide a 360-degree approach to tackle your online presence.

12. SEO Tools

SEO can be quite overwhelming, as there is a lot to be done, and the amount of data is huge. There can be several factors that need your special attention, such as:

• Which tool do I choose?
• How much time to dedicate to research and implementation?
• Where do I begin?

This lesson answers these questions by introducing the latest handy SEO tools, their categories, and a brief on Raven SEO.

13. How to Build a Successful Career in SEO?

This lesson of the SEO tutorial is the cherry-on-top of the SEO tutorial lessons you have completed. Here, students or managers can gain useful insights into building a successful SEO career by following the do’s and don’ts mentioned. Next, the lesson also mentions the possible career paths one can opt for after completing this comprehensive course on SEO and other related certifications to go for to gain more knowledge in this domain.

Start Learning With SEO Tutorial Now!

SEO is now an indispensable part of Digital Marketing. If your website doesn’t have the expected visits or doesn’t rank high on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP), your competitors can gain an advantage. 

There could be several reasons why your website doesn’t rank high on organic search results. Start learning the SEO tutorial now and get introduced to the world of SEO with a beginner’s guide to SEO and its ecosystem. It will help you understand the need to build a robust strategy, be it any level - enterprise, small-medium business, agency, or individual. Check out our programs  IMT Ghaziabad Digital Marketing Program and Professional Certificate Program in Digital Marketing.