Search Engine Optimization Tips for Total Beginners

People who lack the necessary technical background and proficiency perceive SEO as a highly complex online marketing tactic. In truth, there are plenty of things you can achieve, even without in-depth knowledge and experience. If you already have a website or if you plan on building one, you should also start creating your SEO plan. Not sure where to start? Below is a short list of the easiest search engine optimization tips that even newbies like you can handle.

Create and Optimize a GMB Account

Having a Google My Business listing should be among your top priorities when optimizing your website, especially for local search. A GMB listing allows you to provide your business contact information as well as your opening and closing hours to potential customers. It also allows you to put your business on the map.

To claim or create a GMB listing, you need to sign up or claim a business listing on Google Maps. Fill out the form provided and verify your listing via postcard, email, phone, or through Google’s instant verification option. Provide as much information as you can and make sure to answer questions and respond to customer feedback to boost your listing’s searchability. This means you’ll want to gather as many positive reviews on your Google My Business listing as possible. Positive reviews serve as a powerful means of social proof that will increase your brand’s legitimacy and image when customers are searching for you.

Additionally, the best way to gather traffic and business through Google My Business is by uploading numerous photos that potential customers can look through. Photo count is one of the highest determining factors of Google’s traffic in addition to reviews.

Conduct Thorough Keyword Research

Looking at the keywords used by your target customers is an excellent way for you to gain valuable market insights. The most frequently used search keywords reflect the intent of your dream clients. These also help you identify gaps that your business can fulfill.

New York SEO professionals like Pomelo Marketing mostly use premium tools like Moz, SEMRush, or Ahrefs Keywords Explorer to find the best set of keywords to target. However, these can be costly, especially for a business with a limited budget. Thankfully, there are some budget-friendly or free tools that you can use. Once you generate your target search term, you must rank them according to their search volume, CPC rates, and ranking difficulty.

Take Advantage of Google Search Console

Setting up a Google Search Console account won’t cost you anything, and yet it can provide you with a ton of useful information. Using the data generated by your GSC account, you can detect possible issues that can affect your site performance. The tool is user-friendly and comes with a detailed guide you can refer to in case you have a hard time navigating through the different features.

Get to Know Your Competition

Most of the time, business owners don’t know which companies or websites they compete with on search engine results pages (SERPs). You need to gauge the performance of your competitors’ sites to set your expectations and your campaign goals. It will also help you determine possible ways for you to outrank them.

To do this, make a list of your target keywords and manually type these in the search bar. Find out what types of content gets included in the SERPs. For example, if you see plenty of images or videos, then you should consider adding similar types of content to your website.

Use SEO Plugins Like Yoast

If you use WordPress as your CMS, it’s highly recommended to install the Yoast Plugin. It’s a popular tool used by webmasters when optimizing their pages for search. The tool will help you customize the page title and meta description. It can also guide you in creating SEO content by telling you the main issues that you need to address. It’s a freemium tool that even newbies can easily use.

Generate SEO Content Regularly

Start writing blog posts on your site. Use the list of keywords you have from your research as well as the main offers of your company to create a content map. You can start writing pillar content and work your way through the different sub-topics. Then, you can look for topical in your niche. Writing the most current topics in your industry can help you stay relevant.

It will also help you provide additional insights to customers who want to explore specific news or topics. To look for ideas, you can use tools like Buzzsumo or Google Trends. You can also subscribe to authority websites in your niche to stay on top of the latest events.

Even with very little SEO knowledge, you can surely make a lot of progress. Use the SEO tips provided above as your first few steps. From there, you can try to learn more skills or tactics that you can use. Apply the knowledge you get from your learning resources and take note of the results. You should also keep abreast of the latest search engine algorithm updates to know what adjustments you need to include in your SEO plan.

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