The Best SEO For Beginners: Learn How To Speed To The Top Of Google
I’m going to show you some of the best SEO techniques for beginners to get their new sites up through the rankings to the top of Google.
Now, look, it’s unlikely to work for you overnight, but with persistence and consistency you will find that the top positions in Google searches are not only the dominion of the big budget businesses, but you can push your humble new site up there too.
The best SEO involves the application of a range of different techniques- way too many to deal with in this single article. However, I am going to help you to understand an important deciding factor for whether your site is going to be discovered by the search engines or languish forever, far out in cyberspace, unloved and unvisited.
SEO Optimized Content
If your site isn’t being found, and your online store is currently a ghost town, the chances are that your content has not been optimised for SEO. What this means is that the content of your site is not signalling to the search engines to come and find it. As the internet is such a vast and crowded space, your site has to be structured in such a way that Google can funnel your target audience to the virtual door of your website. Therefore, you need to craft your content to make it as specific and relevant to the interests, needs and pains of your target audience so that when they are searching for what they want, your site pops up in the search engines.
Relevancy
The bottom line of effective website search engine optimization is relevancy.
Your site content has to be absolutely relevant to the needs, pains and interests of your target audience, or those visitors are not going to be arriving, let alone consuming your content or making sales. The more specific you can be, the more likely you are to be successful.
Have You Created a Website About Cats?
Cats are great, aren’t they? They’re funny, they’re clever, they’re cute, they’re cuddly. Millions of people own cats, don’t they?
Yes, that’s true, and there are millions of cat-based searches entered into the search engines every day. But the thing is this- because there are millions of people interested in cats there are also already loads of well-established websites about cats already. In other words, it’s a way too crowded market for your new site to be found in.
It’s the same with weight loss- most people I know would like to shed a few pounds- or the ‘make money online’ niche. Who doesn’t want to escape the daily grind and the gruelling commute?
Don’t Expect Your Site To Appeal To the Masses
It’s unrealistic and unnecessary. Instead, break down your target market as much as you can so that you have a smaller, but much more engaged audience who are more likely to find your site.
Take the weight loss example. People want to lose weight for a range of different reasons: take one of those reasons and write articles based on that one reason — then that’s your unique selling point- that’s what will make your site stand out.
Interrogate the motivation that you have identified and see whether you could break it down even further- then you’ve identified a pain point for an even smaller niche market who are going to be looking to the internet to find answers and are more likely to find your site, as there is so much less competition.
For example: take two women who are both 24 years old and both wishing to lose weight. So, you could present them both with a daily nutrition and exercise plan which would help them achieve that goal. But what if one of the women was diabetic? Then your plan isn’t going to suit them both.
One Size Fits No One
So, I hope you can see what I’m driving at: the more you steer clear from the ‘one size fits all’ approach to creating your website, the more likely you are to be able to get your site ranked in Google.
Don’t Write About Jelly
When you are creating content for your website you can’t just go wild and creative and write just anything. Sadly, no. Unless, of course, your website is purely for you and your own amusement. If that is the case- go mad! Write a million articles about jelly. It’s fine, because, in all likelihood, no one else will ever read them. (Or will they? You may prove me wrong….)
Oh….turns out there actually is an audience for jelly articles…..Even ‘the serious side of jelly’ has lots of searches….
Well, what can I say? Perhaps I’ve inspired you!
Anyway, back to the subject of creating SEO optimised content for our Websites
Let’s start with words- keywords.
The number one thing to understand is that keywords hold the key to a special form of magic which is known as ‘organic traffic.’ Now, when one thinks of organic, one immediately thinks about vegetables, compost heaps and green wellies, but this is not the case when we are talking about organic traffic online.
No Kale Here
No, we are talking about visitors to our site (traffic) who are coming in a nice, free, natural way. Notice that the word ‘free’ is in italics? That’s because free organic traffic is good quality traffic, which has been funnelled to your website or offer. Not only that, they have arrived at your site without you having to spend any money. GREAT!!
These targeted visitors find themselves on your site by a special kind of magic, of which they are blissfully unaware. What they have done, without realising it in any way at all, is they have entered search terms into a search engine which you have already predicted, by gazing into the crystal ball of SEO.
Targeted Keywords
Yes- they have innocently keyed in the keywords which have unlocked the doors to your website or offer! Amazing and magical, indeed!!
Well, not really. It goes like this:
Keywords are the words that people type into their keyboard when they are searching for specific content that interests, educates or amuses them.
If you want your content, your website, to be found by your particular audience, then it’s vital to spend some time figuring out what words they are going to be using in their searches so that you can ensure that they are found on your website.
Let me explain more clearly how this works:
Before you begin writing articles for your website, go through the process I discussed earlier: identify your niche (ie ‘weight loss) and then identify a niche within that ( ie weight loss for young women with diabetes.)
Research your topic thoroughly
Find out as much as you can about your target market and list down all the questions you think that those particular people might be asking in the search engines.
This is crucial to the success of your website, indeed your whole online enterprise.
If you can accurately identify the needs, wants, pains and interests of your target audience then you are going to be able to provide the solutions they are looking for. You need to identify the questions that they are asking online so that your site can provide the answers.
Identify 10 questions or topics that are of real interest to your target audience.
These are the topics that you are going to work to optimise for internet searches, to attract your target audience like a magnet! Remember, the more visitors you have on your site, and the longer they stay on your site, the higher it will rank in Google. So it’s worth spending time figuring out what really interests and pushes the pain points of your target audience so that they will come to your site and hang about for longer.
Time To Write Your First Article With SEO Optimized Content
Here goes! Start by planning and researching. Your piece of content should target one primary keyword and then target 5–10 additional keywords.
To identify your primary keyword, you need to ask yourself what your audience is looking for and what questions they are asking online. Remember-the more specific you get; the less competition you will have in the searches.
Next you need to find out what the search engines can tell you
You need to open up a keyword tool to do some research. This will tell you whether your ideas are indeed what people are searching for, or whether no one gives a monkey’s uncle. There are lots of these tools, some are completely free, some will show you so much information before you have to pay.
I like to use this one: https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/
As it gives me everything I need and it also suggests other keywords that are worth considering. You will need a Google Account and to add a payment method, but your card won’t be billed unless you’re running advertisements.
If you don’t want to use the Google ads one, there are plenty of other keyword analysis tools on the web: here are some examples:
https://ahrefs.com/keywords-explorer
https://keywordseverywhere.com/
https://trends.google.com/trends/
How To Make Sense Of What You’ll See
You put your intended search term into the tool and see what happens. This is what to look for:
Searches
In the ‘searches’ column, avoid any term that has less than 10 searches per month. The ideal is a minimum of 10–100 searches per month, but the sweet spot is words that have 100–1K searches.
It is possible but difficult, to rank for terms in the range of 1k-10k/ month, but it’s best to avoid searches with 10k+, as it will be hard to compete.
Low Competition
Look for terms that have ‘low competition.’
Now search for the competition
Having identified your keywords, perform a Google search for the keyword and assess the sites on
the first page. Are they big, established sites all over the front page? Are there small blogs and outdated websites on first page?
The number one question is, are there sites on the first page that seem to put very little effort into their content and design? If so, they will be easy to outrank.
Let me show you the Keyword Research process in action:
When writing this article, I did my KW research.
First I put “search engines can’t find my site” into Google KW planner.
Results: 0–10 searches per month. Hmmm….back to the drawing board.
Google KW planner made some suggestions for me, which got more searches:
“How do I make my website get found by the search engines?” gets 10–100 searches per month.
Better! But I’m really looking for 100–1K monthly searches.
So I’m going to try: “Get my site to rank in Google” and see what happens….
The results are better, but medium competition….hmmmm……
Now I am trying: “How to get my site to rank in Google using search engine optimization.”
Let’s see what happens!
Hmmm.. the results aren’t great. The ones that are getting a reasonable number of searches are medium difficulty, whereas I’m looking for low difficulty.
What happens if I put a ‘power word’ in- such as ‘quickly’. Everyone wants things to happen quickly, don’t they?
Let’s try “How to quickly get my site ranked in Google using search engine optimization.”
Nope….still too competitive.
What if I just enter the search term “Search engine optimization”?
Bingo! Now look at these results- rich pickings here!
I am going to choose “Best SEO for beginners” 100–1k searches. Notice the top of page bid estimate is £20.36. This is the bid you likely need to set for your ad to be shown among the ads at the top of the first page of search results- if you were going to pay for Google ads. I’d say £20.36 is pretty good, so I am happy with that.
Other keywords I like are: “SEO optimized content” 100–1K Low competition- highest bid £5.12
I am also going for “Website Search Engine Optimization” 100–1K low competition highest bid is £16.25, which is pretty decent.
Great! Next job is to come up with a catchy headline that includes my target keywords: ‘Best SEO for beginners. ‘
To get some help, I am going to head off to a free ‘headline analyzer tool.
I’m using this one: https://headlines.sharethrough.com/ because you don’t have to set up an account or anything.
There are quite a few of these tools online, and again, most are free. They will analyse your headline for you and give you a score, letting you know where your headline needs to improve in order to make it catchier.
To Conclude
I really hope that I’ve managed to give you some useful pointers if your site isn’t attracting the amount, or kind, or traffic that you’d like.
by Christine Foley https://www.coppertigermedia.com/blog
