SEO 2017: A Beginners Guide (Search Engine Optimization)

Are you a new blogger? If so, you’ve probably already discovered that there’s much more to running a successful blog than just writing the occasional post. One of the steepest learning curves for new bloggers is mastering the art of search engine optimization, or SEO.

Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

Search engine optimization refers to the practices that make your blog or website the friendliest to search engines. Creating a search friendly site increases your Google ranking, which increases the likelihood that readers will find you. Since everyone wants their site to have visitors, SEO is an extremely important skill to learn.

There are literally thousands of articles on the web about how to improve your SEO. This can be overwhelming for beginners, so today we’ll provide a crash course in search engine optimization complete with a handy infographic. When you’re done, you’ll have up to date information about SEO and be ready to make your site more search friendly.

The number one thing you can do to optimize your websites for search engines and for the visitors that find your site through them is write great content. Updating your site frequently will improve your SEO. Writing articles of over 300 words every time, including images, and making sure you are providing helpful information for readers will also be helpful.

When you’re creating this content, you’ll want to write short, easy-to-read, active voice sentences. A good blog is usually written in a way that a seventh grader can understand. Sentences of less than 20 words are more search engine friendly than longer sentences. Finally, learn to use the active voice. Writing in the active voice can be a bit tricky, especially if English isn’t your first language.

In the active voice, the subject performs the action. Alternatively, in the passive voice, an action is performed to the subject. As a quick example, this sentence is in the passive voice: “The active voice is more difficult for search engines to read correctly.” This sentence is written in the active voice: “Search engines can read active voice sentences more easily.”

Next, you’ll want to build links to your blog. There are lots of good ways to do this. You can share links using your social media accounts and encourage others to share, as well. You may want to seek out other blogs in your niche and link to your blog in the comments if you have something to add. You may also find it helpful to seek out guest posting opportunities on other sites. There are a number of guest posting services that can help you with this process.

If you have a WordPress site, there are several good SEO plugins that will help you with this process. Yoast is one of the most popular search engine optimization plugin, and it’s absolutely free to use. An SEO plugin will help you choose keywords for your content. Keywords are those words that you want the search engine to associate with your page or site. You’ll usually want to include them several times in your text.

There are many other tips for improving search engine optimization. Several can be found in the infographic below.