SEO is the process of optimizing a website to improve its ranking in search engines. We really cannot remember the exact date when SEO was introduced. But ever since Google was launched, the voyage of search engine optimization started. With time SEO has evolved, and right now, it is an essential marketing strategy for every industry.

Search engine optimization focuses upon organic search results. And all the actions that you make in SEO are establishing your website as a quality source and ranking it higher for some desired search queries. It is difficult for even an SEO expert to know all the factors and exact algorithms Google uses to rank a website. But if you, as a beginner, are in the process of learning SEO, there is a lot to learn.

SEO In a Nutshell

If you want to understand SEO in short, there are three most important factors that you need to consider. Imagine the SEO to be a bowl of soup. The top three ingredients that will help the soup taste better are quality backlinks, technical stuff, and great content.

Now Let Us Understand the Three Key Aspects Of SEO:

• Quality Backlinks: Quality backlinks increases the authority of a website. Good domain authority makes Google believe that the website you are trying to rank is trusted. Creating backlinks is the process of fetching links from authoritative websites to your pages. Even though you have great content on your website, you still need to have quality backlinks.
• Technical Stuff: When we say technical in search engine optimization, we often refer to on-page SEO. Without on-page SEO, your SEO efforts go nowhere.
• Great Content: Content is an inevitable part of the entire digital marketing process. And SEO is a part of digital marketing that definitely requires high-quality content. Remember that low-quality content will take you nowhere, and you cannot expect any ranking out of it. It is that simple.

Some Useful Terms You Might Clash with While Learning SEO

As soon as you start learning SEO, you might come across some standard terms. And we want you to stay prepared beforehand to avoid any hiccups while learning. Most of the vocabulary used in SEO will come up with a literal meaning. Thus they will be understandable for you. But still, some terms would be a bit difficult such as:

1. On-page SEO and off-page SEO
2. 2. White hat SEO and Black hat SEO

On-page SEO and off-page SEO

Both are parts of your SEO activities, but they differ in the places where you perform them on your website. On-page SEO means everything you do on the website, from optimizing the content to all the technical steps. On-page SEO may include:

• Keyword research
• Content optimization
• Internal linking
• Title tag optimization
• Optimizing page performance

On-page SEO means providing your website with perfect content and UX. The purpose of on-page SEO is to show the search engines what the page is about. If somewhere you get to hear the term technical SEO, it is as same as on-page SEO.

Off-page SEO is mostly all about getting quality backlinks from other high authoritative domains to your web pages. The link building process may involve some techniques such as:

• Email outreach
• Guest posting
• Broken link building

Off-page SEO is highly connected with other aspects of online marketing, such as social media marketing and brand building. Additionally, off-page SEO has an indirect impact on building the authority and trust of your website. A successful SEO strategy would need both on-page and off-page SEO activities.

White Hat and Black Hat SEO

If you remember the old western movies, the white hat represented the good guys while the black hat represented the bad guys. In SEO also the terms are usually used to describe two different SEO practices. Suppose your SEO practice adheres to the rules set out by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. In that case, you are using white hat SEO, and if you don’t, it’s a black hat SEO technique.

White hat SEO refers to all the standard SEO techniques that follow the guidelines and rules. It is a long-term strategy to rank your website with optimization, quality content, and a user-oriented approach.

On the other hand, Black Hat SEO is a set of unethical SEO practices to improve your website’s ranking. Though the black hat SEO technique can take you higher on the search results in no time, you might end up getting penalized by Google.

How To Learn SEO?

There are a couple of resources that you can use while learning SEO, such as:

Reading From Reliable Resources: There are many trusted sources from where you can read and learn about search engine optimization. Moz and Ahrefs are some of the most trusted tools that can be advantageous for you as a beginner in learning SEO. You can also find some courses for SEO or other digital marketing techniques from those websites. The best part of learning from those resources is that you can learn at your own pace, and you will also get dozens of resources that they link to throughout their chapters.

Listening Podcasts: Podcast nowadays has become an inevitable part of marketing. And apparently, podcasts are good resources for learning too. There are various podcasts on SEO by experienced SEO experts to help you learn SEO. The best part of learning from podcasts is that they are informative and fun. If you prefer listening to audios over reading articles, podcasts are bliss for you. Find some of the top SEO podcasts here to start learning.

Get Hands-on Experience: Getting hands-on experience while learning is the best thing you can ever do. When you readily apply everything that you learn, you learn better. You can search for freelance SEO jobs and work as an assistant to apply your learnings.

Search engine optimization has created great opportunities for students and job seekers. Remember that everyone starts somewhere before they become a pro. All you need is to follow the steps attentively and apply your learning effectively. Like anything worth knowing, it will take time to understand SEO completely. But to learn SEO, you have to be patient and keep up with the changes in the industry.

Read Also:

• 8 Essential Tools Every SEO Company Must Know
• On-site and Off-site SEO optimization – Essential facts you cannot afford to miss
• Effective SEO Strategies for Real Estate Agencies to Increase Traffic and Conversions