What are basic steps for SEO learner?

[mariastro]

Hello friends,

What are basic steps for SEO learner?

[mts]

Hello friends,

What are basic steps for SEO learner?

I would preffer to watch something from Lynda.com series to get the basics (or there are plenty other courses online or in DVD)
follow blogs about seo news
learn seo strategies-tips-techniques
try to optimize your blog or website for one particular keyword (real, live job)

Remember that seo is not one day job- you will see results after several months only

[Surajrai]

All basic steps for SEO learner are shared in "Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide" you can read it here: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

[emedianetwork]

Understand the Basics of SEO: Grasp basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) principles like how search engines work, the importance of keywords, link building, and user experience. Books, articles, podcasts, and online courses can serve as excellent resources. Sites like Moz, SEMrush, and the Google Search Central Blog can provide needed insights.

Keyword Research: Keywords are the core of SEO. Understand how keyword research works. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer, and Semrush's Keyword Magic Tool can be useful in finding keywords related to your niche.

On-page SEO: This includes optimizing titles, meta descriptions, URL slugs, and the content itself for your target keywords. Also, practice implementing HTML tags, using anchor text, and optimizing images.

Technical SEO: Learn how to optimize your website's crawlability and indexability. Key aspects include XML sitemaps, website structure, JavaScript rendering, and loading speed. Familiarize yourself with terms such as '301 redirect', 'canonical URLs', 'robots.txt' etc. Also, learn how to use Google Search Console to identify and fix technical issues.

Off-page SEO: Off-Page SEO is the practice of increasing a website's visibility through external methods. This primarily includes link building but also social signals and brand mentions. Learn about 'dofollow' and 'nofollow' links, as well as how to identify good link opportunities.

Content Creation and Optimization: Content is king in SEO. Learn to write or produce quality content that is both optimized for search engines (uses targeted keywords appropriately) and provides value to the reader/user.

Understand User Experience (UX): Search engines care a lot about the experience of users on your site. Understand the principles of good UX design, and prioritize improvements to your site's load speed, mobile-friendliness, and navigational structure.

Learn SEO Tools: Get acquainted with the tools that can help with SEO, such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz.

Follow Google Algorithm Updates: Google frequently updates its algorithms to provide better search results. Staying up-to-date with these changes can help you understand shifts in your website's rankings.

Practice: Perhaps the most key aspect of learning SEO is practical application. Create a website or blog and practice what you're learning on it. Monitor your results and adjust your strategies as necessary.

Stay Informed: SEO is an ever-evolving field. Follow SEO communities like Moz's blog, Search Engine Land, or SEO subreddits to stay updated on new trends and techniques.

Evaluate and Adapt: SEO is not a one-time process - it requires continuous monitoring, evaluating, and adapting. Learn to perform SEO audits to find what's working and what isn't, and adjust your strategy based on what you find.

Learn About Local SEO: If you're providing a local service or if your business is location-specific, local SEO can help you reach potential customers in your area. Learn how to optimize your online presence for local search, including Google My Business listing and local keywords usage.

Understand E-commerce SEO: If you are planning to work on an online store or are involved in digital marketing for one, it's important to understand how SEO principles apply in an e-commerce context. This includes understanding buyer intent, optimizing product descriptions, and dealing with duplicate content.

SEO Experiments: To fully understand how SEO works, it's good to experiment. You could make changes on certain web pages and observe how these impact the rankings. This hands-on approach gives better insights into the workings of SEO.

Mobile SEO: With the advent of mobile-first indexing, it's crucial to learn how to optimally design and implement mobile-friendly sites. This includes understanding mobile design, speed optimization, and mobile user experience.

Structured Data & Schema: Structured data can help search engines better understand your content and can sometimes enhance your presence on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Learn about schema tags and how to implement them.

Voice Search Optimization: With the rise of virtual assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa, optimizing for voice searches is becoming increasingly important. Understand how to orient your content to answer voice queries effectively.

Video SEO: Videos are an engaging way to present content and have their own set of SEO practices. Learn how to make video content that is SEO-friendly. This includes making use of keywords in the video titles and descriptions, leveraging YouTube's features, and understanding the view-through rate and viewer retention metrics.

Attend SEO Webinars and Conferences: Distance yourself from the screen occasionally and network with SEO professionals. Conferences, webinars, and meet-ups are great places to learn about the latest trends and strategies from leading SEO experts, as well as to network with others in the field.

Learn About SEO Analytics: Any SEO campaign isn't complete without measuring the results. Learn about key SEO metrics and how to track them. This would include metrics like keyword rankings, organic traffic, bounce rate, time on page, and so on. Tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, and Ahrefs can help in this.

Become a Part of SEO Communities: Participating in SEO communities online can be a great way to learn from experts and stay updated. You can find such groups on social platforms like Reddit or professional ones like LinkedIn. Plus, SEO blogs, forums, and discussion boards are also a good place to ask questions and share your learning.

Take SEO courses and Certifications: Several online platforms offer SEO courses and certifications that can help you structure your learning and validate your skills. Some popular programs are offered by Google, SEMrush, Coursera, Udacity, and Moz.

Understand International SEO: If the content of your website is intended for visitors from different countries or languages, you need to understand how to optimize it correctly. International SEO includes practices such as setting up hreflang tags and having a proper URL structure.

SEO For Different Platforms: SEO is not limited to websites alone. There's app store optimization for mobile apps, Amazon SEO for products on Amazon, Pinterest SEO for pins on Pinterest, and so on. Knowing how to optimize for these platforms can enormously benefit businesses active in these spaces.

Content Marketing: SEO and content marketing go hand in hand. Master the art of content marketing to support your SEO strategy. This includes understanding how to create a content strategy, how to produce high-quality and SEO-friendly content, and how to promote your content to generate backlinks.

Digital PR for SEO: Digital PR can be a great way to get high-quality backlinks to your site which consequently can improve your SEO. Understand how Digital PR works and how you can leverage it for your SEO strategy.

UX and SEO: UX (User Experience) has become an increasingly important ranking factor in Google's algorithms. Learn about Core Web Vitals and how they influence your site's ranking. Understand how to optimize website speed, interactivity, and visual stability.

Competitor Analysis: Understanding your competitors' SEO strategies can provide insights that you can leverage. Learn how to analyze competitor's keywords, backlinks, content strategy, etc. to inform your own SEO strategy.

SEO Agencies and Consultancies: If you're considering a career in SEO, awareness about how SEO agencies and consultancies operate will be beneficial. This could also aid if you're looking to outsource SEO efforts for a business.

Penalties and Recoveries: Google penalizes websites that do not abide by its guidelines. Learn about Google Manual actions and Google Algorithmic penalties and how to remedy them if your website is affected.

SEO For Different Types of Websites: SEO can be different for different types of websites such as news sites, ecommerce sites, informational sites, etc. Also, some industries might have space for niche SEO tactics that you can capitalize on.

Ethical SEO Practices: Learn about White Hat SEO (ethical SEO practices recommended by search engines) and Black Hat SEO (tactics that are discouraged). Strive to understand and follow the best, most ethical practices.

SEO Laws and Regulations: Certain laws and regulations such as GDPR, ADA, CCPA can have impacts on SEO practices such as digital analytics tracking. Understand these to ensure you're abiding by these laws when implementing your SEO strategy.

SEO as a career: Finally, if you're aiming for SEO as a career, explore different job roles within the SEO industry. This could range from SEO Specialist to SEO Strategist, SEO Manager, Content Marketer, Link Builder, and many more.

SEO Tools Mastery: Familiarize yourself with using various SEO tools - both free and paid. These include keyword research tools, analytics tools, link analysis tools, technical SEO tools, and more. Examples are Google Search Console, Google Analytics, SEMRush, Moz, Ahrefs, Majestic SEO, etc.

Study Google's Algorithm Updates: Google frequently updates its search algorithms, and these updates can significantly impact your SEO strategies. Keep yourself informed about these changes and adapt accordingly.

Understand Page Experience Signals: Page experience signals, including mobile-friendliness, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines, are now factors in Google's ranking algorithm. Understanding them will make your SEO strategy more comprehensive.

Read Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines: This guide helps Google's raters evaluate the quality of search results. By studying it, you can gain insight into what Google considers high-quality web pages.

Role of Social Media in SEO: Social signals may not be a primary factor in Google's algorithm, but they can influence your SEO success indirectly. Learn the interplay between social media and SEO.

On-Page VS Off-Page SEO: Understand these two distinct aspects of SEO and how to optimize both. On-page involves elements like content and HTML source code of a page, while Off-page SEO involves promotional efforts outside of your website.

Understand the Role of Machine Learning in SEO: Google uses a machine-learning AI system, RankBrain, to help process its search results. Understand the basic principles of how AI and machine learning are applied in SEO.

Collaboration Skills: Often, you need to work in teams that include content creators, web developers, and other marketing professionals. Knowing how to collaborate effectively can make your SEO strategies more effective.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): While SEO helps attract visitors to your websites, CRO is about converting those visitors into customers. Learn how these two areas interact and can be optimized together.

Understand and Implement A/B Testing: A/B testing involves comparing two versions of a webpage to see which performs better. It's useful in validating updates or changes to your website.

Crisis Management: Websites can lose traffic due to various reasons – algorithm updates, site hаcks, and more. You should know how to deal with these situations and regain lost traffic.

Accessibility and SEO: Make sure your website is accessible to people with disabilities. Not only is it a good practice, but it also positively affects your SEO as search engines prefer sites that can be used by everyone.

The Interplay of SEO and Pay-per-click (PPC): While these are different strategies, understanding how SEO and PPC can work together may help maximize your online presence.

Understanding the Basics of SEM (Search Engine Marketing): While deeper knowledge in SEM might not be essential for SEO, a basic understanding can help in overall strategy planning.

Keep Up-to-Date Through Continuous Learning: The world of SEO is constantly evolving, so it's vital to keep learning. Stay up-to-date by following SEO blogs, podcasts, webinars, and other resources.

Use Structured Data: Structured data helps Google understand the content of your page and can result in the page appearing more prominently in SERPs. Learn about Schema.org and how to implement structured data on your site.

Mobile SEO: As more people use mobile devices to access the web, mobile SEO has become even more important. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly with responsive design, and understand how to optimize for mobile search.

Voice Search Optimization: With the rise of smart speakers and virtual assistants, voice search is becoming increasingly popular. Learn about how to optimize for voice search, which often involves focusing on long tail keywords and natural language queries.

Image and Video SEO: Images and videos can also drive traffic to your site when they're properly optimized. Learn about image optimization (including alt text and file size) and video SEO techniques.

E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness): Google uses these markers to determine the quality of websites. Make sure you understand E-A-T and how to boost these signals on your site.

SEO Audits: Conducting an SEO audit helps you evaluate how well your website is conforming to best practices. It's an important skill to develop, and there are many tools available to assist with the process.

Internal Linking Strategies: Understand how to effectively link between pages of your website. A well-planned internal linking strategy can help distribute page authority throughout your site, and enhance your users' browsing experience.

Understand the Synergy Between SEO and Content Marketing: While SEO can bring visitors to your site, content marketing keeps them there and encourages them to come back. Learn how to develop strategies that align these two approaches.

SEO Copywriting: Writing for SEO involves balancing readability for users with the inclusion of keywords for search algorithms. Understand how to write content that both users and search engines will love.

SEO Ethics: It's important to stay on the right side of the 'white hat' vs 'black hat' line. Make sure you understand Google's Webmaster Guidelines and the potential penalties for unethical practices.

Keep Up with Changing SEO Platforms: Google may be the biggest game in town, but it's not the only one. Make sure you understand SEO for other search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo.

Local SEO: If your business serves a local area, understanding local SEO is crucial. Learn how to optimize for "near me" searches and how to utilize Google My Business effectively.

Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced SEO: Understand that SEO skills range from beginner to advanced. Constantly challenge yourself to learn and apply more advanced techniques as you continue to grow.

YouTube SEO: YouTube is the second largest search engine. Understand how the YouTube algorithm works and learn about video keyword research, optimizing video titles and descriptions, creating YouTube playlists, and more.

SERP Features: From featured snippets to local pack listings, SERP features offer a way to stand out on search results pages and get more clicks. Learn how to optimize your content to gain these spots.

[EsferaSoft]

For a seo learner..
First thing is regularity in the work.
and Most important thing is updation with the updating google algorithms.

[Engineman312]

I would say stay away from "easy traffic" "fast results" and those kind of things. Because most of them would not work, some might give you those exact results but would almost always put your site at risk in the long term.

[Worldeyeglasses]

Avoid any kind of spam work is the basic thing. Website should provide good quality information which can attract users. Take backlinks from only quality websites to avoid spam.

[dragon]

Reading, Updating and Experiencing are the basic steps for a beginner. First thing is understand properly what exactly is SEO, what actually happens in it. This can be done by regularly following SEO blogs, active participation in forums, following experts in social media or some other source. Next thing in updating - as we are in digital world very day you get new methods, techniques, new terms etc. So regularly you have to update the things. Finally is experiencing - how much ever you read or listen without you working on it, you can the original feel of it so experiencing plays a major role. Finally what ever you do keep quality in mind and proceed on your work.     

[DarrellPollock]

The basic steps for SEO learner is to know about all techniques used by search engines or algorithms. You should proper understand the term Search Engine Optimization after that you are able to proceed for link building.