June 3, 2021

How to get started with SEO

Intro

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a way to optimize your website content for search. Learning the basics of SEO won't take too much time, it's becoming an expert that's tough. Luckily, you don't need to be an expert! Spending some time to learn basic SEO and practicing it will benefit you greatly. Here are a few things you can do to learn SEO.

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The Goal of SEO

Before learning how to SEO, you should know why it's necessary. Strong SEO earns revenue. Websites that are well optimized for search rank at the top of search engine results pages. Search engines work like this... Google uses bots to crawl the web to find, index, and rank sites. This is so Google only displays content relevant to what a user has searched. To make your website visible on Google, ask Google to index your URL with their URL Inspection Tool.

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Learn how to Search for Keywords

Keyword research is a crucial part of SEO. Keywords are the words people search that you want to rank for. Long keywords like "marketing agency in the Bay Area" are more specific than shorter ones like "agency". You use keyword tools like Keywords Everywhere, Soolve, and KeywordsFX as you learn SEO to find keywords to use. Knowing what keywords you want to use is crucial since you will be incorporating them in your content, titles, meta descriptions, and URLs.

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Learning SEO for Beginners

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO from Moz is the best resource I've found for learning about SEO. It starts super basic, explaining what SEO is then proceeds to go deeper and deeper into the details. Take the time to read through it and you'll know a lot about SEO! You should also learn how Search Engines work, especially Google as it's the most used. Read How Google Works by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenburg to learn more about Google. When Search Meets Web Usability by Shari Thurow and Nick Musica is another book I recommend for beginners trying to learn SEO. Though it's a bit dated (published in 2009), it does a great job of explaining the basics of search.

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Additional Online Resources

Here are some online magazines that discuss SEO:

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Books on SEO

Josh Steimle is a digital marketer and Forbes contributor. Some books he recommends for learning SEO are:

Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity by Avinash Kaushik
Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions by Tim Ash, Maura Ginty, and Rich Page
Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less by Joe Pulizzi
The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott
The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, and Jessie Stricchiola

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SEO Conferences

If you prefer to learn by attending conferences, here are some recommendations:

You can also look for SEO videos on YouTube!

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Conclusion

Taking the time to learn at least the basics of SEO will help you optimize your content for search. The higher you rank the more clicks you'll get. More clicks mean more revenue! Start by learning about what SEO is, what keywords are, and how search engines operate, before using online guides, magazines, books, or conferences to learn more about SEO. Hopefully, these resources help!

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