What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, which simply put is optimising your website and pages to get them to appear in the top results on a search engine. There’s multiple search engines such as Bing and Yahoo, but Google is the biggest and most used and most SEO is done to meet Google’s specified factors of how they rank websites.
Why is SEO important for your blog?
You may be asking ‘why is it even important for you to appear in search results?’. Most of your current views may be coming from social media, or direct referrals but search engines are an additional and often longer-term traffic source. Once your content is optimised for search engines, it can market itself without you needing to do anything with it, which means less time promoting your posts on social for the same views. Plus, it’s free to optimise except in time as long as you know the right keywords.
The Basics
If you’re using WordPress.Org the first thing you should do is download the Yoast plugin! It lets you know where you’re going wrong and right as you write each post and it’s an easy to use tool.
If you don’t, here’s some simple tips to follow to start optimising your posts:
Keywords
The main part of SEO is choosing the right keywords and phrases that you want your content to rank for. For example, this post’s chosen keyphrase is ‘SEO for beginners’. This will be placed strategically within the post.
Title
A good title is needed for SEO. The keyword or phrase should be present, and it should remain eye-catching and encourage readers to click through. From the title into the content, utilising keywords should be in a way that fits the sentences being used and makes sense.
Linking
Both internal and external links are important for SEO. You need to include links which link internally to your own website, as well as externally to others. Links into your website from others are also an important factor. However, spam links and links from those with less authority will be flagged by Google and may reduce your rankings. So be selective as to who you work with and get links from.
Images
Before uploading images to your site, make sure the name of the image has the keyword in it’s name. Then use the ALT text and description fields to describe the images you’re using, by using the keywords and phrases. This metadata helps inform the search engines find out what the page is about, and so keywords are vital in these areas.
Tags and Categories
Another important signal for search engines is what categories and tags are being used. They should be chosen carefully to describe what the post is about, and use multiple keywords which may be used to search for that particular piece of content.
HTML
HTML is how your webpage is set out in code and what the search engine reads. Therefore, utilising the correct HTML which tells the search engine what is going on is important. Heading tags signal which parts of the text are more important and segment the page into key sections, topics and/or phrases. Your main title will be <h1>, and your subheadings should start at <h2> and go in order as your headings are further segmented.
Comments
15 responses to “Blogging 101: SEO for Beginners”
very helpful post becky! 🙂
i didntknow that about images at all, so mine are likely a mess but heres to a change for 2019!
Glad I could help! & If you have any questions feel free to DM me 🙂
Awesome post Becky! And one where I could actually understand something about this SEO everyone is mentioning lol. Like Lauren, I didn’t know a thing about the photos. I’m taking notes for 2019 though!
Thank you and really happy it helped! (and that it’s easy to understand lol I tried to make it sound easy!) I’ve got a few more posts coming out about SEO this month too if you want a bit more in depth for certain things – and you’re always welcome to message me on social/discord if you have any questions!
Becky,
This was such a nice refresher. I have been listening to lectures on this topic and, man, do I feel overwhelmed. I have been blogging for ages, but I didn’t really have much of a direction or a steady schedule. Your site is all kinds of goals for me. Okay, I have a silly question for you: how do you determine keywords? I try to see on Google but so far, it seems like there aren’t really any suggestions on how to make the content more focused and easy to find.
I am off to check out your other social media accounts because you sound lovely and kind. It’s nice meeting you, by the way.
Hey! So glad you enjoyed the post – I was hoping it would be an easy read!
For determining keywords I would recommend thinking about the post you want to write, and what could people be searching for that would lead them to it. For example, I write a lot of book reviews, so my keyword/phrase is normally just ‘Book Title Review’ or ‘Book Title and Author Name’ because when people search for a book, they either want to buy it or find reviews. My keyword for this post was simply ‘SEO for Beginners’ because that’s what someone who wanted to know about SEO would search. There’s also tools like answerthepublic.com which lets you search for a word or phrase and it gives you a massive list of possible searches around it! Feel free to send me a message on Twitter or Instagram if you need any more help though! Nice to meet you too and thank you reading!
Thanks for making such an informing post! I have it bookmarked to look through this weekend when I have time to learn all about the SEO!
No problem – thank you for reading!! Hope it’s easy enough to understand but I’ve got some more posts about it scheduled this month and feel free to send me any questions you may have!
super helpful post, Becky!
Glad I could help 😄
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