Learn the basics of SEO and how to get your website discovered on Google with this beginner-friendly guide. We cover everything you need to know to get started.
Quick Definition: SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s the action of creating, organizing, and promoting your content in the hopes of getting featured in search results for the terms your customers are searching for.
Is your website buried on page 10 of Google search results? Let’s bring it to the first page where your customers can actually find you.
To get your content ranking higher where people can find it, you’ll need to understand:
- What SEO is
- How search engines work
- How to optimize your content and website to rank
We’ll go into all this and more in this post to show you how to get your website discovered on Google—no tech jargon required.
This is a bit of a behemoth of a post, so get comfy, grab a coffee or nice drink, and settle in. If you’re not in a place to read this, email it to yourself for later! 📩
What is SEO?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the action of creating, improving, and promoting your content in the hopes that search engines will feature your content for certain search terms.
When we talk about search engines, we’re not just talking about Google. There are many search engines in the world, including:
- Bing
- DuckDuckGo
- Perplexity (AI-powered search)
- SearchGPT (AI-powered search, not yet released at the time of writing)
- Google Scholar (research papers)
- YouTube (videos)
- Pinterest (pins)
- TikTok (posts)
- etc.
But in this article, I’ll be talking specifically about SEO for Google Search. Google Search is the #1 search engine in the world, and today, it’s the best way for people to find your website online.
Why Does SEO Matter?
Should you care about SEO? Well, it’s the only way to improve your chances of getting found on Google.
You could just write whatever you want on your website and hope that people will find it. But that’s not really a strategy.
SEO gives you clear best practices to follow to make sure your content gets found by the right people when they need it most.
However, it’s NOT a promise that your content will be ranked.
When you follow the practices, and you have good content and a good business behind it, you will start to see your blog posts and web pages rank higher and higher for different keywords.
And THAT’s when things start to change for your website.
Why It Matters Where You Rank
According to the SEO blog Backlinko, the website in position #1 gets the vast majority of clicks for any search query. That number drops sharply for the #2 and #3 spots. Anything under #5 doesn’t get much at all. (And if you’re not on page 1, forget it.)
Image Source: Backlinko
So getting a web page or blog post to rank for those coveted #1 to #3 spots really does make a huge difference for your business.
Not to mention, today, Google inserts YouTube video results, AI results, and other things at the top of the search results, so even the #1 and #2 pages don’t get as many clicks anymore. It’s more important than ever to get your pages into the top 1-3 spots if you want to get any traffic at all from search.
See in this screenshot how the AI Overview takes up half the screen, and only the #1 ranking page is showing at the bottom?
How Search Engines Work
Search engines, like Google, are made to help people find the best content for their query.
(A query is what they type into the search bar. In other words, what they’re looking to find.)
Google looks through all the web pages it can find and “indexes” them, basically cataloging them in their huge database.
Then when someone types in a keyword like “best cage for my hamster,” Google picks out the pieces of content it believes will best answer that query and ranks the content in order of how helpful they think it will be for the searcher.
In this case, Google recommends a Reddit post, an Amazon review, and a hamster blogger.
Google Wants the Absolute Best Content & Best Search Experience for Its Users
That’s why you can’t just write tons of content and hope to coerce Google into ranking yours. Your content has to be the very best and most helpful for the person doing the search. And your business has to be trustworthy enough to back it up.
Right now, spammy, AI content is still ranking for many search terms, but Google is on a mission to eradicate any content that doesn’t really help the reader. (I’m sure you’ve found content like this, that says a lot but doesn’t say anything at all.)
So if you want your content to rank for the long term, your best bet is to focus on helping the searcher with the absolute best content possible. I will give you an overview of how that works in this article, and then break it down into more actionable step-by-step guides in other posts.
Why Do Some Pages Rank Higher Than Others?
So why do you see so many of the same pages in search results, while others (like yours) lag behind? Let’s talk about the factors that go into ranking.
And by the way, Google only mentions *some* of the factors, because they know that spammy SEO agencies will try to game the system and force their clients’ content to rank. And that’s not helpful for anyone.
Here’s what it comes down to:
- The helpfulness of the content (the blog post or page)
- How well the page matches the search query
- The trustworthiness of the business (Google looks at many factors, like how many other people are linking to or talking about the business, how much content the business has on this topic already, and more)
- Other factors that help Google predict if people will like the content or not (They seem to be using AI and user behavior to figure this out)
That can feel like a lot for a small business or organization trying to get into SEO. So in the next section, I want to share some practical things you can do to start building your own SEO strategy.
How to Optimize Your Articles for Google Search
Now you know what makes a page rank higher or lower in search results. But what steps can you take to help your website rank more quickly?
There are 3 categories of actions that you can take, which I’ll explain here. They are:
- On-page SEO: These are actions you take when writing a web page or blog post to make it easier to rank. They include planning the content with SEO in mind and optimizing the HTML to help Google index it better.
- Off-page SEO: These are actions you take outside of writing content that help Google see you as an authority that’s worthy of being ranked. For example, getting links and mentions from other businesses. Getting lots of positive reviews online. Having people search for your brand name. Having a strong online presence across multiple platforms. Covering your topic in depth across many blog posts to demonstrate topical authority.
- Technical SEO: These are actions that improve the performance of your website, readability, and other things in the code that help Google understand your content and rank it properly. It also helps the user experience of your site, such as how fast the page loads, which can affect your ranking.
Now let me give you some very beginner-level steps you can take for each one. Of course, you can spend hours figuring this out and spend thousands on specialists to cover every little detail. But I hope to give you a starting point here that you can launch off from 😊
On-Page SEO: First Steps to Take
The first step with on-page SEO is making sure every page of your website and every blog post you publish corresponds with one main search query.
Website SEO is outside of my area of expertise, so I’m going to focus on blog post SEO (also called SEO content) here.
Here’s how to do that:
- Choose one keyword for each blog post. (For example, this one is for the keyword “what is SEO”.)
- Conduct keyword research (using my SEO keyword research process) to understand what to include in the post.
- Write each blog post with the goal of making it the absolute best resource for that keyword, blowing everything else out of the water (learn how to write a blog post fast here). Google has something called E-E-A-T guidelines, which basically means they want you to demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness with every piece of content you write.
- Include the keyword in the title and try to make it enticing for searchers to click on (also make sure it’s around 60 characters or fewer so Google doesn’t cut off the ending).
- Include a meta description that mentions the keyword and why a searcher should click on your post. (This doesn’t always get used, but it’s important to have.)
- Rinse and repeat! Do your best to cover every keyword and topic in your industry, and add links between each blog post to help people find related content on your website (this also helps Google understand how content is related).
See how I’m linking to other posts on my blog inside the steps above? That’s what you want to do with your blog posts, too.
Off-Page SEO: First Steps to Take
Remember, off-page SEO is everything outside the content itself. So it has to do with your business or organization as a whole and whether you seem trustworthy or not in Google’s eyes. 👀🔍
Ultimately, what you need to really dominate search rankings in your industry is to become a well-known business with a good reputation. Yes, there are a lot of tactics you can try to get ahead, but ultimately the point is: Are you well-known? Do people know and like your brand? Do people see you as an authority?
So any steps you take to increase your visibility and brand reputation and get more reviews and mentions in the media will help you here.
Side note: One of my clients had amazing brand authority but no blog when we started working together. So when I started writing content for them, a lot of it got ranked in the top 3 almost instantly. A year and a half later, they’re getting 20K monthly visits to these blog posts now with almost no off-page SEO tactics at all. That’s the power of a good online reputation for your business.
Also, here are some more traditional SEO strategies for off-page SEO.
- Getting links back to your website and blog pages from trustworthy sources. These could be mentions in the media or links from Wikipedia, influencers in your space, reviews, and more. There are a lot of tactics for this, some good, some not so good. The best way, though, is for people to naturally link to you because you have good content and/or you’re newsworthy and interesting to them.
- Building a strong online presence in general. Having a Google Business Profile, maintaining social media accounts that actually get engagement, and being listed in online directories or review sites can show Google that you’re legit.
- Getting brand searches. The more people see your brand name, the more they’ll remember you and search for your name on Google to learn more. Google does factor in how many people search for your website and brand name, and this can help you a lot.
Again, this is all Google’s way of gauging whether you’re an established brand, if you’re truly who you say you are, and if people like you or not. Those tactics above are just signals that they watch.
Ultimately, building a strong business and having happy customers and industry peers who spread the word is the best way to do off-page SEO.
Technical SEO: First Steps to Take
Technical SEO is outside of my area of expertise, too, but I will go over the main things you should know. To really implement this for your organization, you’ll need someone who’s willing to learn a lot about the techy side of things, or you’ll want to hire a professional Technical SEO provider.
The way I see it, there are some technical things that you NEED to have. For example:
- Your website shouldn’t take forever to load.
- The code should be functional.
- Your website should work on mobile devices just as well as on computers.
If you don’t have these basic things, you could really hurt your chances to rank.
But beyond that, a lot of this is just extra cherry-on-top technical stuff. Without good on-page and off-page SEO, spending extra money and time on the technical stuff is a waste of time, in my opinion.
So here’s what you can do now to get the basic foundation in place:
Pop your website URL or specific page URLs into Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. It will score your website performance on mobile and desktop and tell you what to fix. You might still need a techy person to help you fix the issues, but at least you can see where the problems are.
Other than that, you’ll really want to talk to an expert in this area. But writing good content and doing on-page and off-page SEO is the first priority.
Where to Learn More About SEO
Interested in learning more? Here’s where I recommend learning more about SEO with more details than I can go into in this post.
My Favorite Free SEO Course
My favorite free SEO course is Ahrefs’ SEO Course for Beginners. It’s free, and you don’t need to give them your email or sign up for anything to watch. You get 14 short-ish lessons that take only 2 hours to complete. By the end, you’ll have a good idea of the ins and outs of SEO for your business.
But I will warn you, by the end, you’ll probably want to use Ahrefs’ software. That’s how they got me hooked 😉(I’m not complaining, though, it’s the best tool for SEO in my opinion.)
By the way, I'm not affiliate with Ahrefs in any way. I really just like this course, and it helped me when I was starting out.
They also have other free courses about blogging for business, link building, and more.
Final Thoughts
One thing you should know is that SEO is always changing. Google is always updating its algorithm and ranking factors, so what works today will not necessarily work tomorrow.
But one thing I can say for sure is: helpful content and building a successful brand that people like will always put you on top. The tactics will change, but the importance of being a helpful and trustworthy resource will not.
This is my approach to writing content for myself and clients. This is what will give you the best chances of getting found on Google and cementing your position on that coveted first page of Google results.
Best of luck on your SEO journey! If you want to consult with us about SEO or get help with your SEO content strategy, get in touch with us here.
Common Questions about SEO
What is local SEO?
Local SEO is all about optimizing your website to show up for searches made in your area. This is necessary if you have a physical location and want to attract people to your business.
For example, if you make cupcakes, you can take certain actions to help you website show up when someone in your area searches “cupcakes near me.”
This is a whole ‘nother side of SEO. It’s not really useful for blog posts. Local SEO is for your website pages, like your home page, service pages, etc.
What about other search engines besides Google?
What works for Google will generally work for Bing, DuckDuckGo, and others. Google has a lion’s share of the market, so it’s smarter to focus on optimizing for that.
AI-based search engines like Perplexity and even ChatGPT may work differently, and I can’t speak to that. These are the search engines for web pages.
For other types of content, you’ll need to make content on these specific platforms and then learn about their specific SEO strategies. For example, you can learn about YouTube SEO to figure out how to make good content that will rank for YouTube searches. You can learn TikTok SEO to learn how to find topics for your TikToks and get them found in TikTok search.
(Gen Z is searching for brands on YouTube and social media more than Google, so you should certainly consider other search engines as part of your content marketing strategy.)
Source: Emarketer
How do I get my articles to rank faster?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could check a few boxes and guarantee that your content will rank in the top spot? SEO agencies have been promising this for decades, but this kind of strategy is wishful thinking at best, and spam at worst.
If you want to absolutely rank for a search term, pay for Google ads. Other than that, you have to compete by creating the best content, being the best online resource for your topic, and building a real brand presence online. You have to be an actual expert in your field and know what you’re talking about. You can’t just generate stuff with AI and hope to win over the long term.
Google’s job is to give searchers the very best content, and that’s what they are trying their hardest to do. Anytime they sense that a website is trying to artificially improve its rankings without actually having the best content, they knock it down a few notches. If it continues, they even take manual actions and scrub them out of search results entirely.
Don’t be like those spammy SEO agencies. If you do it the right way, just like all things in business, you will win out in the end.
What is SEM? How does it compare to SEO?
SEM stands for search engine marketing. This is another word for paid search ads.
You have an SEM strategy if you have a plan for creating and placing paid ads for certain search terms. Those are those “sponsored results” at the top of Google searches. This means you are paying to be featured at the top of the page for that keyword, and when you stop paying, your ad disappears.
This is an example of a Google ad at the top of search results. This came up for “best SEO checker.”
On the other hand, you get ranked for keywords for free if you have a good SEO strategy. You don’t need to pay anything to be featured, but you do need to maintain your content and keep up your SEO efforts to keep your spot.
