Search Engine Optimization is a topic of interest to almost everyone working in the digital space, directly or indirectly. However, many people don’t even know where to start. It isn’t obvious because it’s such a huge topic. There are many sites offering SEO courses online, both paid and unpaid. And if you are looking to save a few bucks, you could benefit from free SEO courses from Local Client Takeover. You get comprehensive direction on all relevant areas, so you go from a beginner to a pro in no time.
Interested in taking a free SEO course? Here’s what you should expect to learn first.
Keyword Research
Keyword research involves finding words or phrases people are typing into search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo to find information about your website or business. This can be done manually or with an automated tool like Google AdWords or Bing Ads.
The goal is to find keywords relevant to your business but not too competitive—so that your site will appear on the first page of search results when people search for them.
For example, if your business sells t-shirts, it would be a good place to start with the word “t-shirt” itself. You could also look for variations on that word (e.g., “trendy t-shirts”).
Backlink Basics
Backlinks are the cornerstone of SEO strategy. They help you achieve your goals by sending traffic to your website, improving your ranking, and increasing your visibility on the web. However, backlinks can also be confusing to new users.
You can get these in two ways:
- You can ask other people or businesses to link to your site by adding a link to it on their websites (this is called an “external” link). It is called an “inbound” link because it brings visitors from other places to your site.
- You are directed elsewhere by outbound links. It takes you to a different webpage or website.
URL Management
Ensure your URLs are easily read, memorable, and optimized for search engines. Considering how people search for your content rather than just focusing on keywords or phrases already relevant to your site or brand is essential.
For your website to be indexed, it needs to have a URL structure that makes sense and is organized in a way that makes sense for humans as well (for example, if you make a blog post about [topic], you should probably name it something like [topic]_blog).
It makes it easier for people who want to find information about [topic] on the web to do so quickly. It also allows search engines like Google and Bing to crawl your site more easily—and when they do this more effectively, they’ll be able to index your site more quickly.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is writing content to attract more people to your site, then turning them into customers. Once they’re there, you can try to convince them to buy something from you; this could be a product or service, like a book or membership site.
Many think content marketing means writing blog posts or social media posts about your business. But that’s only half of it! The other half is learning how to promote those posts effectively so that people see them and click on them. You’ll want to learn how to find the right audience for your posts—whether they’re on Facebook groups or Reddit—and how to craft compelling headlines and descriptions that will get people interested in what you have to say.
Structuring Your Content
Structuring your content makes it easy for search engines to index and understand. It means ensuring there are headings and subheadings, paragraphs with enough space between them, and links between different site pages (so Google knows where one topic ends, and another begins).
You can also use special HTML tags called meta descriptions which tell Google what each page is about and encourage them to show it higher up than longer pages with less information!
Web Analytics
Web analytics collects, organizes, and analyzes data about your website’s visitors. This information can help you decide how to optimize your site for search engines and increase your traffic. Web analytics tools are essential to understand how users interact with your website, what they’re looking for, how they find it, and how they engage with it.
Many different web analytics tools are available today, ranging from free services like Google Analytics to paid services like Adobe Analytics. Some of these tools offer more advanced features than others, so you must choose one that meets all of your needs before beginning to learn web analytics.
Website Management
Website management is a set of practices that website owners can use to increase their chances of ranking well in search results, including:
- Choose a domain name relevant to the business and its products or services.
- Adding content to your website that is original and relevant to your business.
- Ensure that your site is easy to navigate, making it more likely for users to find what they’re looking for.
So start by learning how to plan for SEO when building a new site or redesigning an existing one. Then move on to learning how to optimize existing pages on your site through content optimization and XML sitemaps. Finally, learn to monitor and track your progress over time by tracking analytics data like traffic sources and conversion rates.
Local SEO
Local SEO refers to optimizing your site for local search engines like Google Maps, Yelp, and others. It’s valuable if you have a business that only serves customers in your city or surrounding areas.
The first step when learning about local SEO is understanding what makes up a successful site—and then making sure yours has all of those elements. These include:
- Having an accurate address on your site.
- Including photos of the actual building you operate out of (if applicable).
- Having reviews from customers posted on your site.
- Using keywords related to your business’s location in all of your online presence (including social media profiles).
You’ve learned the basics of organic search engine optimization. With that knowledge, you can dive deeper into the field while passing on some powerful search engine optimization tips to your clients. There are still many other aspects and advanced strategies to learn in organic search engine optimization. However, focus on learning just one of these advanced strategies as you begin to apply the major concepts discussed. Otherwise, things can get confusing fast.
