Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the big words inside the e-commerce, online business or online entrepreneurship. And this might scare you as a newbie in this e-business world – but it shouldn’t have to. So today we will be going to talk about “Understanding SEO for Beginners – #1Rule”.
SEO has grown in complexity today, but today I want to simplify it as much as possible. A wise man said once to me “It takes a minute to learn, but a lifetime to master”. This quote applies to almost anything but when it comes to SEO – this is definitely what you have to bear in mind.
SEO is basically how it sounds like – an optimized website for search engines.
Understanding SEO for Beginners -#1Rule
How Do Search Engines operate?
There are two (2) major functions in search engines:
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1. Crawling and building an index.
Crawling and indexing the billions of documents, files, pages, videos, news and all kinds of media on the entire World Wide Web (WWW).
If you can imagine the World Wide Web as a big city with a huge network of a subway system. Each unique document, like a webpage, pdf, jpg, etc, represents as a stop in a subway system.
Now, imagine the search engine as your car GPS or navigator, wherein you need a “way” to locate something in the whole city. The GSP will then “crawl” the whole city to locate all the stops along the way – and will show you the best path available – LINKS.
Links allow the search engines’ automated robots, also called “spiders” or “crawlers”, to locate the billions of documents, which are interconnected on the web.
These billions of documents and files (stored in massive databases) can be accessed in a spit of a second, where search engine companies have constructed datacenters all over the world.
When a person searches something at any of the major search engines, they demand spontaneous results, so the engines work hard to provide answers as quick as possible.
2. Provide answers.
Providing search users with a ranked list of websites, which are determined as the most relevant.
Search engines are answering machines. When you try to make an online search, the search engine will be going to scour its databases of billions of documents.
Two things happen (1) search engine will show only those relevant and useful results to your query and (2) search engines will rank those results according to the popularity of the websites, which serve the relevant information. That means it is both the popularity and the relevance that influence the process of SEO.
Determining Relevance and Popularity for Ranking.
How do search engines determine these two factors in SEO? Relevance means more than finding a page that contains the right words. There are hundreds of factors that influence relevance with regards to ranking.
On the other hand, the search engines normally assume that the more popular a site, document or page, the more valuable the information it contains must be. This assumption has been proven through result satisfaction with search results.
The algorithms
Relevance and Popularity are not manually determined by the search engines. The search engines actually use mathematical equations, called the algorithms, in order to determine the relevance and ranking according to the quality of information or the popularity.
Search engines’ algorithms contain hundreds of different variables, also known as the “ranking factors”.
How does SEO affect your online business?
Ranking on the search engines is one of most strived factor we need for our online business. The higher the ranking, the better. That means your online business delivers a level of quality information which creates a trust for our target clients or customers. This will, of course, mean that you can expect more traffic and visitor your website. More visitors… more potential sales.
Basically, SEO simply means optimizing your website for search engines – by allowing search engines to actually locate and visit your website easily. This is by (1) having an easy navigational structure, (2) having a good website layout and (3) having well-structured contents. This will enable the search engine robots to index your website easily.
However, getting indexed in search engines is not enough. Getting a higher ranking in the search engines is where optimization plays in. You need to optimize your website and your contents in order to get a higher ranking than all other pages for particular keywords.
For example, if someone performs a search on the google for “best tips for passive incomes” and your content is #77 in the google search results, then you probably make $0 from people searching for the keywords. On the other hand, If you are #1 for the search keywords, you can expect more sales.
What else can you do to optimize your website?
There are many ways of optimizing your website. These include internal and external links, keywords densities, domain names, permalink structures, and many more. There are literally thousands of ways to improve your SEO.
It is truly overwhelming at first but it shouldn’t have to. As a beginner, you need to start with the basics of SEO and continue working from there. Remember that you can not master SEO in a minute of learning… it is a lifetime learning process.
One effective thing you can apply is by comparing two similar websites. When you try to search for particular keywords or phrases and look closely on the ranking of the results – Now compare the website’s content ranking as #1 with the website’s content ranking as #15. Then ask yourself – what makes their ranking results that way?
Remember The Number 1 Rule: basic SEO is what you need to get started as a beginner, but never stop learning SEO to become a good online entrepreneur.
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I hope you enjoyed the article. If you have any question or comment, please free to write them below. An email address is required but it will not be shared with anyone, put on any list, or used for any kind of marketing, just to alert you if there are any replies. Thanks and God bless.
Thank you for the reminder, Che. Could you explain a bit on how to know what a great keyword is? So far I have been ranking ok on some posts, but I am having a hard time finding relevant keywords with traffic. Is there some method that I am overlooking?
You’re welcome Colleen.
As mentioned, SEO is a continuous learning process – there are a lot of algorithms that influence our ranking.
If you are using Jaaxy (you can read my review here – explaining more about keywords). One of the best tips I can recommend, especially if you are not so familiar with algorithms, is the “Search Analysis”, where you can “spy” your competitors – This function at Jaaxy can show you the details of what makes your competitor #1 on ranking – like the Meta Keywords density, backlinks etc.
Another shortcut is “spying your competitor” by means of looking at their actual page and compare it with yours.
Hope it’ll help.
Have a great weekend.
Che
A lot of great information here! As one just learning about WordPress, SEO, rankings, etc., this article is most helpful.
While explaining SEO, you also give a clear explanation of it’s importance – something to always keep in the back of our minds when writing content – which leads to the importance of knowing your audience.
Thank you for sharing this!
Susan
Hello Susan.
Thanks for dropping by. It is truly important to have SEO in mind when writing a content.
I’m glad it helped.
Have a great weekend.
God bless.
Hey Che! I know so well how important SEO is. Content is king and keywords are extremely important. With Wealthy Affiliate, you’re taught everything about SEO, keywords, internal and external links and everything you need to get traffic to your website. SEO is all about getting on the first page of Google and being number 1. If you can’t get on page one, you most likely will not make sales.
Thanks for some awesome information!
~Rob
Hello Rob
I couldn’t have said it better.
Thanks for sharing your thought.
Have a great weekend and God bless.
Che.
Hello Che!
I am quite new to online marketing and I started just recently to read about SEO.
Also, I am trying now to focus on my content and to make it valuable to my visitors.
However, sometimes I am struggling a bit with keyword research, especially as my niche is quite narrow, so coming up with keywords that have high search results is not always easy.
I am also using Google Analytics to check how much visitors I receive for a certain keyword. It’s an amazing tool for SEO.
Thanks again!
Mia
Hello Mia
You’re welcome.
Google Analytics is indeed a good tool.
However, if you are using Jaaxy as your keywords tool, you can actually use more of its features like the Niche refinement, SEO and competition analysis. You can Read my jaaxy review here and see how IT Works.
Goodluck. Have a great weekend. God bless.
Your article has made me know what SEO is, but I don’t know how SEO started the first step. I hope that the following articles can introduce it.
If I have an adaptive network, it can be opened on the PC or opened on a smartphone. How do I perform SEO on the PC and smartphone?
Hello there,
I’m glad this article has led to more information. SEO is very important in monetizing your website. SEO for mobile (smartphone) today has also to be focused because there are a lot a people using mobile devices in their daily lives.
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Join our community at Wealthy Affiliate (WA) for Free and learn more about SEO. Remember that SEO is a lifelong learning process as an online entrepreneur. So, it is very important that you have a place where you go to whenever you need help. WA is a perfect place.
Good luck & God bless
Che
Great post!
I love how you used the car GPS example to explain how indexing works.
I also agree that it’s a lifelong learning process. I’ve been at it for a while now and it almost feels like I learn something new every day.
The next time somebody asks me about SEO I’ll just send them this link.