Search engine optimization (SEO) is a valuable marketing tool that drives organic traffic to your website. SEO is essential, especially for small business owners and those who run e-commerce websites. If you don't have a huge marketing budget to spend on hiring SEO experts, don't worry: There are plenty of simple SEO tricks you can implement and easy-to-use tools to help you.
Learning SEO can seem overwhelming. It's a complex subject, and the industry is rife with misinformation. But with a little time, effort, and the right roadmap, it's something anyone can learn.
Once you've learned the basics of SEO, you can decide later if you want to take it to the next level by hiring an SEO professional. For now, here are the 7 steps to get results with DIY SEO:
- Learn The Basics of SEO
- Set Your Organic Search Baseline
- Research Keywords and Relevant Search Queries
- Publish Optimized Content
- Analyze Your Backlinks
- Explore Technical Issues
- Stay Informed
Learn The Basics Of SEO
If you are not already familiar with the basics of SEO, this is where you should start. You need to understand how search engines work and the four main facets of SEO. Let's quickly review these elements.
How search engines work
Search engines work by finding content and storing it in a large database called an index. Think of it as a library, but one that stores web pages instead of books. When you run a search, the search engine finds and returns matching results in the index. Finally, complex processes, called search algorithms, rank the results.
So when you search for something on Google, you are not searching the entire Web. You are only looking for the pages contained in Google's index.
This is important for one simple reason:
If you're not in Google's index, you can't be ranked in its search results.
Google builds its index from two main sources:
Sitemaps - A sitemap is a file listing all the important pages on your website that you want search engines to index. You can submit your sitemap to Google to let them know that your pages exist.
Links from known web pages - Google already has billions of pages in its index. If you get a link from one of these pages, Google can "follow" the link to discover your page.
Known web pages are not always found on other websites. Google can discover new pages on your website by "following" links from known pages on your website.
For example, let's say Google already has your blog's home page in its index. If you add an internal link to a new blog post from that page, Google can "follow" that link to find the post.
Keyword search
Keyword search is the process of finding out what your customers are looking for. This is important because you won't be discovered if people aren't searching for the keywords you are targeting.
Unfortunately, Google doesn't exactly make this information available. So the best way to find keywords is to use a keyword search tool like Keywords Explorer from Ahrefs. To use it, type in one or more general topics related to your industry, run the search, and then access one of the keyword suggestion reports. You'll see monthly keyword search volumes and some other SEO metrics.
In Keywords Explorer, you find the "Traffic Potential" metric for each keyword. This is an estimate of the traffic from the top-ranked page for the keyword. This is usually a good indicator of how much traffic you can get by ranking #1.
You can also look at search volume, but "traffic potential" tends to be more accurate. This is because pages are usually ranked for more than one keyword.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is about optimizing the content of your page to achieve higher search engine rankings. It's mainly about understanding what searchers want and giving it to them - a process known as search intent optimization.
For example, if we look at the first few results for the keyword "best protein powder," we see that these are blog posts comparing top picks:
This tells us that, while people are looking for a protein powder, they are still evaluating their options and aren't quite ready to buy. Therefore, it would be difficult to rank an e commerce product page for this query. That's not what Internet users want.
Link building for SEO
Link building is the process of acquiring backlinks from other websites to your website. This process is important because backlinks are one of the top three ranking factors for Google.
This is probably why there is a clear correlation between linked websites and organic traffic:
However, not all links are equal. Links from relevant, high quality websites generally have more impact than links from irrelevant, low quality websites. In other words, if your website is about bitcoin, a link from a website about crypto-currencies will likely have a more positive impact on rankings than a link from a website about travel.
Building high quality links to your website is arguably one of the most challenging aspects of SEO and one of the most in-demand SEO skills.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO allows search engines like Google to find, crawl and index your content. If they can't do these three things, it's unlikely that your pages will appear in search results.
Let's look at these three elements in more detail.
Search - Google first needs to know that your page exists and where to find it.
Crawl - Google must now get permission to crawl the page. This is when a computer program downloads the page's content.
Index - Google must now get permission to add your page to its index.
You can solve the first part of the process by making sure that your page links to other known pages on your website and that it is included in a sitemap that you have submitted to Google.
As for crawling and indexing, you need to make sure that you don't prevent Google from doing either of these things. To do this, you need to use a file called robots.txt (crawling) and a meta tag called meta robots (indexing).
Define Your Organic Search Baseline
SEO is about improving your website's ranking in search engines. The first step is to determine your baseline: What is your website's current visibility? Domain Overview gives you the answer. SEMrush lets you see how visible your domain is on mobile and desktop devices, and you can get an overview of organic and paid traffic (for example, from paid ads on Google). The comprehensive reports even cover metrics such as backlinks.
An SEO audit should not only focus on your website. It should also include your competitors' websites so you can get a better idea of their share of your industry search volume. Domain Overview tool highlights your top organic competitors - the websites that are competing in your field for online visibility. This allows you to identify potential areas for growth and can serve as a source of inspiration.
Setting Up Search Analytics
Tools offered by Google and Bing are other tools marketers can use to set a baseline for their search position. Below is a step-by-step guide to tracking your domain using one of these analytics tools.
Here's how to set up a Google Analytics account:
- Create an Analytics account.
- Set up your "property" (your website).
- Set up the "report view" on your property. This allows you to filter the data, for example, based on IP address or defined sales regions.
- Analytics will then ask you to insert a tracking code on your website, which will allow Google to collect data.
- You can then start viewing the data. This guide from Google explains how to filter the different views to focus on the data points you find most relevant.
Here's how to set up Bing Webmaster Tools (the Bing version of Analytics):
- Create a Bing Webmaster Tools account. You can use a Facebook, Google, or Microsoft account.
- Add your website to your account.
- You must verify that you are the owner of the website. Bing offers three ways to do this: XML file authentication, meta tag authentication, or adding a CNAME record to DNA.
- You can then upload your sitemaps and start tracking the data. This Getting Started Guide explains the process in detail.
Researching Relevant Keywords and Search Queries
Keywords are the heart of a good SEO campaign. These are words or phrases that searchers type into a search engine like Bing or Google that bring them to your website. It is essential to identify target keywords that match your website content and your target audience's search intent. You can use a keyword search tool to find out which keywords perform best.
For example, there are several tools that make keyword search easy. This organic search tool allows you to see which keywords are the most searched and which ones are driving traffic to your competitors' websites. Easily discover new organic competitors, see who you're competing with for top positions in the SERPs, watch domain positions change, and much more!
Semrush also offers tools to see how your website is performing for your keywords and content. You can see the associated keywords to help you decide which ones to target with your future blogging efforts (especially those that could be low-hanging fruit for a quick gain in rankings).
Publish Optimized Content
Once you've identified useful keywords, you can start developing high-quality content that will be an important part of your content marketing strategy. Wondering how to create your own SEO content? Follow these basic rules:
- Include a main long-tail keyword naturally in the text. Don't practice "keyword stuffing." Search engine algorithms do not respond positively to excessive keyword usage.
- Include the main keyword in the title as an H1 heading.
- Choose secondary keywords that logically complement the main keyword. For example, if you are creating a web page about root canals for a dental site, the main keyword could be "root canal", and a logical secondary keyword could be "cavities". For future content, you might also consider creating content pages for these secondary keywords, and then providing internal links to those pages.
- Include at least one piece of "rich" content, such as an image, infographic, or video. Search engines recognize that this adds value to the content and will rank the page higher accordingly.
- Include the main keyword in the title tag and meta description of the page.
- Consider using all available plugins to optimize your content. For example, WordPress offers many plugins that can help you improve your on-page SEO efforts.
- If you are updating content, make sure your new content is uploaded to the existing landing page or delete the old content before producing your new page. This will help you avoid duplicate content, which can hurt your Google search engine rankings.
- If you're having trouble updating meta tags, text, and other page elements because your development team is facing a large backlog of change requests, check out a solution like PageImprove. PageImprove and Edge SEO solutions allow you to make instant, indexable, and reversible changes to your website.
Analyze Your Backlinks
Search engines give priority to content that is valuable to the end-user. Google has even established general criteria for assessing value, the EAT principle: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Backlinks (links from other websites to yours) help establish your EAT. Links from domains with high authority and traffic are the most valuable and worth pursuing as part of your digital marketing strategy.
Backlink Analytics provides details on referring domains, including anchor text and IP distribution. You can also use a backlink gap tool to identify websites in your niche that have earned the most backlinks in the past. This is a fantastic way to discover backlinks that you might be missing. You can then fill in those gaps. There are many effective methods of link building, from creating infographics to sharing to writing guest posts on other platforms.
Explore Technical SEO
Content aside, your DIY SEO strategy should also consider technical issues. This technical SEO checklist is a great place to start. For example, you need to make sure you're using the HTTPS protocol, a known ranking factor in search engines. This provides encryption that keeps data that passes through your site, including potentially sensitive customer data, secure. The aforementioned guide also provides tips on how to improve page speed, fix crawl errors, and more.
Stay Informed
Search engine optimization is a constantly evolving field. That's why experts devote their entire careers to it! Search engines like Google are constantly updating their algorithms and changing the factors that influence search engine results pages (SERPs). Following industry bloggers and keeping up with SEO news will help you stay on top of the latest developments. The Google Search Central blog, formerly Google Webmasters, is a great place to start.
SEMrush Makes DIY SEO Easy To Do Yourself
If you've been asking yourself, "Can I do SEO myself?" the answer is definitely. You don't need to hire an outside agency to improve your SEO, and this guide gives you some basic tips to get started. We offer a full suite of DIY SEO tools to help you implement the steps above. With these resources, you'll be able to excel in your SEO efforts and give your website visitors a better user experience.
FAQs About How To Seo Marketing
Can I do SEO on my own?
You can totally do SEO yourself or DIY SEO (Do It Yourself SEO). With a little research and a lot of practice, anyone can learn how to do SEO for their business. A quick way to get started with SEO is to enter your URL here, then focus your SEO efforts on the recommended actions.
Is Shopify good for SEO?
For the most part, yes. Shopify has mastered all the basic SEO features. It has many built-in features and applications that help index and rank your page effectively in search engines.
What is the Semrush tool?
Semrush is an SEO tool that performs your keyword search, tracks the keyword strategy used by your competitors, performs an SEO audit of your blog, searches for backlinking opportunities, and much more. Semrush is trusted by Internet marketers around the world. It is also used by a number of businesses, large and small.
Can I learn SEO on my own?
It is possible to learn how to do SEO by yourself, you don't have to be a specialist or an expert in SEO. The first thing to do is to convince yourself that SEO is not difficult. If others can do it, you can too. All it takes is a willingness to learn and time.
Does SEO require coding?
The short answer is: no, SEO usually doesn't require much (if any) coding. You can do a perfectly good job of SEO without touching the code. But the longer answer is that yes, a good sense of how programming works, or even an ability to code a little yourself, is always a useful skill to have.
