SEO Basics for Bloggers – Rank Your Website Higher on Google

Search engine optimization can seem like a tricky concept. It involves many different aspects and difficult vocabulary. Keywords, backlinks, SERPs, Google robots, crawlability, Core Web Vitals and so on. There is a lot of vocabulary, and so are the players who share their SEO tips on LinkedIn, YouTube and blogs. So where do you start when you want to become a search engine optimizer but there is no clear “get started here” or easy-to-read manual?

That’s why Ztips.org has published an easy-to-understand guide, the pages of which can be found here: SEO Guide – Ztips.org.

SEO helps you get more visitors to your site

Search Engine Optimization is not a new art form. It has been an essential way to get traffic from the web since Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the first version of Google.

At first, search engine optimization and SEO were only talked about by geeks and, at the turn of the 21st century, by growth entrepreneurs blinded by the tech bubble. Today, search engine optimization is one of the most popular channels for content marketing and traffic generation for websites of all sizes, from businesses to individuals.

Search engine optimization itself is not difficult. It’s just time-consuming, laborious and rewards are slow (but plentiful if done right). There are no quick wins to be had. For good SEO, every visitor from Google is the result of hard work, and every new lead is the result of a carefully crafted strategy and content plan.

The best thing about search engine optimization is the durability of the work – a well-built landing page may not climb high on Google until months after the publish button is pressed, but it will be churning out traffic and bids for months and years to come.

Unfortunately, most of us give up on search engine optimization soon after the first steps are taken and the results are not visible.

This is a common misconception. It is easy to think that you can just “try” search engine optimization and expect results quickly after a couple of weeks or a few hours of work.

SEO requires time, resources and a well-defined strategy

In reality, search engine optimization requires time, resources and a well-defined strategy. Once these things are in place, you can start to expect results while continuing to publish content, internal SEO activities and link building, among other things.

So don’t assume that you can get your hands on big quick wins without working on your rankings. Competition for search engine rankings is fierce these days, and only the strongest, most authoritative and most relevant content-publishing site can win.

Remember, only the Google results of the number one page matter. To quote one of the world’s most famous SEO gurus:

“The best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of Google search results.”

Despite what I just scared you into thinking, search engine optimization is actually quite easy. It relies heavily on common sense, understanding your site visitors and potential customers. SEO requires a lot of sitting around, testing, and clicking your fingers on the keyboard.

What is Search Engine optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine optimization, or SEO, refers to measures that aim to improve the relationship between a website and a search engine. The aim of search engine optimization is to make a website more readable by search engines, more relevant to search queries and to increase its authority and reputation.

The aim of search engine optimization is therefore to get traffic organically (i.e. for free) from Google, saving money on advertising costs. In an era of rising advertising costs, SEO has steadily grown in popularity, which is no wonder. Who wouldn’t want free traffic?

To put it simply, Google ranks the top search results for pages that are the most relevant, reliable, knowledgeable and that best meet the user’s needs. You can read more about Google’s search ranking here.

Google’s search robots (also known as Googlebots) scan millions of web pages every day, analysing text content, images, links from page to page, updated pages and broken URLs. They have a lot of work to do, and it’s up to the search engine optimiser to help them find the pages they want.

The three most common areas of SEO

The three most common areas of search engine optimization are:

• On-site SEO
• Technical SEO
• Off-site SEO

On-site SEO is the process of improving elements of a website to boost rankings and increase relevant traffic from search engines. This means choosing appropriate keywords for the page title and many other things.

Technical SEO means the techniques involved in building and optimising a website so that it can be more quickly indexed and crawled by search engines. Technical SEO is only one part of the whole SEO puzzle.

Off-page SEO means activities performed outside your own website that impact your position in search engine results pages (SERPs). One of the most important elements is natural and strong backlinks from other sites pointing to your site.

It takes time, effort and doing the right things to see results

As stated earlier, search engine optimization takes time. No one can give an exact timeframe for improving a site’s rankings, even if the right steps are taken. Rankings can also fluctuate a lot on search results pages, so don’t be alarmed if your search engine optimised page rises to number 4 and then drops to number 9 in the same week. Google’s algorithm is mysterious, and you can only trust the process itself.

If you start your search engine optimization from a completely new site with zero authority, you can expect the workload to be greater and the duration to be longer than for an already well-known and stronger site.

You can expect to see your first movements on Google a few weeks after you have created your content plan, published your first articles or content, and done the basic internal optimization work on your site.

Remember to keep publishing content, pruning and improving old content, and continually testing and monitoring through Google Search Console, even if you get results quickly. After all, nothing is permanent.

In Ztips.org’s Search Engine optimization Guide, you’ll find many ways to optimise your search engine rankings that, if carefully implemented, are guaranteed to boost your page’s Google rankings. All points are completely do-it-yourself and do not require any knowledge of programming languages or much knowledge of, for example, web design. You can find the pages of the guide here: SEO Guide – Ztips.org.

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