SEO for Dummies: The Basics of Getting Started

30/03/2020

SEO can be a minefield and is always changing. This is a short guide to the basics of getting started with SEO.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation is a technique used online to improve a website’s ranking in organic search, especially on Google. This is done because the higher your website ranks on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs), the more likely you are to obtain traffic. 

Additionally, it is used often as a technique for generating traffic for free, outside of paid search or ads. Therefore, providing more consistent and highly converting traffic to your website.

Google in m&ms for SEO basics

What are the Basics of SEO?

Optimising your website for search engines includes many different factors and elements.

On-page SEO:

  • Website speed
  • Keywords and relevance
  • UX
  • Content visual and textual
  • Metadata

Off-page SEO:

  • Link Building
  • Authority and trust
  • Engagement
  • Social
  • Brand Identity
  • Bounce Rates

Both on-page and off-page SEO are very important and effective in improving website ranking when techniques are combined.

Where to Start with SEO

Here are the most important areas of SEO on your website that you should implement straight away.

Keywords, Context, and Relevance

Conducting keyword research is essential for your website itself and the content that you produce. Including keywords in your content is extremely important for SEO as these keywords are how your audience finds you.

Keywords are analysed by search engines in order for the content to evaluate the relevance of content to the search query. Keyword research can be conducted using search engine suggestions and online SEO tools.

With the BERT update in Google, it is even more important to research keywords and search terms thoroughly to ensure your content is relevant, specific and useful for your audience.

User Experience (UX)

The user’s experience of your website is important for both your website visitors and SEO.

UX covers on-page SEO areas such as:

  • page speed
  • navigation
  • redirects and error pages
  • visual content
  • readability

The way your website functions is analysed by Google and affects the ranking. Additionally, if your UX is not positive, this can affect bounce rates and how long they are on your site. Which also impacts your website’s off-page SEO.

Therefore, UX is important to the upkeep and set up of your website. To check on your website’s user experience, you can complete a site audit. This offers a really in-depth analysis of your website and how well it is performing for you to improve. 

Link Building

Links are one of the top contributors to the website’s SEO. Links, especially do-follow, send signals to search engine crawlers to follow the link, that this website can be trusted and has authority. Additionally, effective links can also bring traffic from those websites which are another benefit.

Link building can include guest posting, forums, commenting, broken link building and high-quality content creation. All with the aim of obtaining high-quality, authoritative links from trusted websites. The more links more, the more is contributed to your website’s SEO.

These are the 3 basics of SEO that are great at getting you started and improving your website’s ranking from the get-go.

If you want to learn more about SEO and how to conduct keyword research and link building techniques, check out and download our in-depth SEO Guide.

Posted in SEO