{"id":179731,"date":"2023-01-16T11:14:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T19:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/?page_id=179731"},"modified":"2023-09-09T20:08:31","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T03:08:31","slug":"simple-seo-guide","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/seo\/simple-seo-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Simple Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guide Step-by-Step"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)<\/a> is the practice of using various strategies to improve a website\u2019s visibility and increase traffic in unpaid, algorithm-driven search engine results.<\/p>\n

The main goal of SEO is to improve a website\u2019s ranking on search engine results pages by fulfilling users\u2019 search intent with relevant, high-quality and authoritative content while providing the best possible user experience. The techniques used in SEO include on-page edits, off-page techniques, web server changes, and an understanding of Google RankBrain, EEAT, and other AI systems. That is what this free SEO guide does – it lays out the success steps for your SEO project. <\/p>\n

If you consider these simple steps to be too basic then it is time to do deeper technical SEO dives. We recommend that you take our SEO training<\/a> then follow our more technical multi-step SEO Guide<\/a>. <\/p>\n

SEO is a very complex process but so many website owners need a basic guideline for how to get going that we are offering this help. For a free overview to SEO<\/a> please view our YouTube training video.<\/p>\n

Overview<\/h2>\n

It is important that you take a training course. The above links are good and the video is only an hour. Please start there.<\/p>\n

You start your journey by researching important words and phrases that you think are relevant to your website and content. This includes identifying your target prospect (persona) and what they are searching for, using several SEO tools (listed later) to help find popular and useful keywords. You must also analyze your competitors’ websites to locate additional keywords, and then create a combined list of keywords for your website. IMO you should focus more on what are called long-tail keywords \u2013 phrases that are longer (more words) and that are thus more specific phrases – and add them in a natural speaking style on your website. This is not a once-and-done step and you will need to check and make adjustments to your keyword strategy as needed.<\/p>\n

Next make sure your website is easy to use and to understand for both people and search engines. This often means you need to organize your content into different sections (Silos)<\/a>, using a simple and overtly clear hierarchy of pages with keyword-specific page titles and heading tags, using internal links to connect theme related pages, speeding up your website’s loading time<\/a> (often requiring programming or server changes), and using special codes like structured data<\/a> and schema markup. Yes, this is technical SEO work and not suitable for a novice.<\/p>\n

It’s vital that the content on your website be high-quality, unique, and useful for your audience. This includes many things: understanding your target audience, becoming an expert on the topics you write about, planning for regular updates, using keywords naturally, avoiding copied content, incorporating multimedia elements, and sharing your content on social media and email. There are many SEO Best Practices as well that will need to be followed.<\/p>\n

Yes, we do need to consider inbound links. Acquiring quality links<\/a> from authoritative and relevant websites can also boost your website’s rankings and popularity. You should avoid buying links or participating in link trading schemes as that is the kiss of death. Only acquire links from reputable sources and mix up the anchor text if you can influence it. Be sure to share valuable content that others will want to link to. And by all means, be sure to monitor your links and remove any links that are not good (disavow file entries).<\/p>\n

By performing research on keywords and phrases<\/a>, making your website usable and understandable by all, creating high-quality and unique content, and acquiring links from reputable sites then you can improve your website’s SEO visibility in search engine results.<\/p>\n

Note that our Search Engine Optimization Guide will not advise you to do things that are a bit on the dark side. We believe that given enough time that such practices will be detected by Google AI and punished. As such, we advise you to follow our guidelines and to not stray from the path.<\/p>\n

SEO Guide Step-by-Step Sections<\/strong><\/p>\n