How To Do SEO On Your Own: DIY SEO for Beginners

Search engine optimization (SEO) is quite popular as the key to Google Search ranking. SEO increases a site’s exposure in organic search results. It also increases the amount of organic traffic that visits your website. While it sounds like a challenge, you can learn how to perform SEO on your own. Website builders with built-in SEO capabilities can help make your efforts both more successful and seamless. Utilizing the best SEO tools for beginners is crucial for enhancing your SEO efforts and achieving success, as these tools provide the essential SEO toolkit needed for implementing SEO best practices, including keyword research and on-page optimization.

What Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

In simple terms, SEO improves a site’s visibility. It helps content rank higher in organic search results, attracting more visitors. Search engines index tens of billions of pages using web crawlers. Your SEO strategy is what differentiates your website from competitors. Proper SEO can increase the number of leads and conversions your site generates. 

You might also consider SEO to be the trustworthiness of your website. A reputable website satisfies the requirements of search engines. It addresses the concerns of the audience. As your website’s credibility increases, Google will also rank it higher. So, your website will receive high-quality traffic. Then, your company will have a greater presence in organic search results. 

Why SEO is Important

SEO is crucial for all businesses looking to succeed in today’s digital world. Why? Because it levels the playing field, putting you in front of customers actively searching for what you offer.

Here’s why SEO is a game-changer, backed by factual data:

• Visibility equals customers: The first page of Google captures 71% of organic search traffic, while the second page drops to a mere 6%. (Source: Backlinko)
• Higher ranking, higher trust: 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results. (Source: HubSpot)
• Credibility boost: 90% of searchers haven’t decided about a brand before starting their search (Source: bluetonemedia). This means a strong online presence through SEO can significantly impact their perception of your business.
• Direct impact on sales: Organic search leads to 51% of all website traffic, making it the most common way people discover new products and services. (Source: BrightEdge)

Investing in SEO isn’t just about rankings, it’s about connecting with potential customers when they’re seeking solutions. This translates to more leads, increased sales, and business growth..

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SEO Basics: Understanding its benefits

Learning the basics of SEO lets you take charge of improving your website’s visibility and performance. Here’s why it’s great to handle SEO on your own:

1. Improve Website Visibility

   • SEO helps increase your site’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), making it easier for potential customers to find you.

2. Increased Organic Traffic

   • By optimizing for relevant keywords, you can attract more targeted traffic to your site without paying for ads.

3. Enhanced User Experience

   • SEO involves improving site speed, mobile-friendliness, and content quality, which enhances the overall user experience.

4. Higher Credibility and Trust

   • Websites that appear higher in search results are often perceived as more trustworthy and credible by users.

5. Cost-Effective Marketing

   • Unlike paid advertising, SEO traffic is free. Investing in SEO can provide a long-term return on investment.

6. Better Conversion Rates

   • SEO attracts users who actively search for information related to your products or services, leading to higher conversion rates.

7. Insights into Customer Behavior

   • SEO tools and analytics provide valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and trends, helping you make informed decisions.

8. Competitive Advantage

   • Understanding and implementing SEO strategies can give you an edge over competitors who neglect these practices.

9. Adaptability to Market Changes

   • SEO strategies can be adjusted based on new search engine algorithms and user behavior changes, keeping your site relevant.

10. Long-Term Strategy

    • While SEO takes time to show results, it’s a long-term strategy that can ensure sustained online visibility and traffic growth.

How To Do SEO Yourself 

Doing SEO on your own can be rewarding, helping improve your website’s visibility and traffic without the immediate need for external experts. Incorporating internal links is crucial for SEO, as they facilitate site navigation and distribute authority throughout your website, enhancing its credibility and search engine ranking. Here’s a step-by-step guide to managing your SEO:

Off-page SEO plays a pivotal role in enhancing your website’s authority and visibility beyond its own pages. By optimizing third-party websites through activities like acquiring backlinks, securing brand mentions, and ensuring your content is shared on external platforms, you can significantly boost your site’s presence in search engine results.

Ensuring your website is fully accessible and understandable to search engines through technical SEO is essential for successful indexing and crawling of your site’s pages.

Step 1: Conducting Effective Keyword Research

Conducting effective keyword research is a foundational SEO task that informs content strategy, helps understand your audience’s search behavior, and ultimately improves your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Here’s a step-by-step guide to conducting effective keyword research:

1. Understand Your Niche

   • Start by deeply understanding your niche. Look at your existing content, products, services, and customer feedback. Identify the main topics your website or business covers. This understanding will guide your keyword research process.

2. Define Your Goals

   • Clarify what you aim to achieve with your SEO efforts. Are you looking to increase sales, boost traffic, or perhaps enhance brand awareness? Your goals will influence the types of keywords you target.

3. Create a List of Seed Keywords

   • Seed keywords are broad terms related to your niche or industry. They serve as the starting point for your keyword research. Think about the terms your potential customers might use to find your content, products, or services.

4. Use Keyword Research Tools

   • Google Keyword Planner: Great for finding search volume and competition levels.
   • SEMrush: Offers in-depth keyword data, including keyword variations, questions, and related keywords.
   • Ahrefs: Provides detailed keyword metrics and insights into competitors’ keyword strategies.
   • Ubersuggest: A user-friendly tool for keyword suggestions, search volume, and SEO difficulty.

5. Analyze Search Intent

   • Understanding the intent behind a search query is crucial. Keywords can typically be categorized into four types of intent: informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial investigation. Tailor your content to match the intent behind the keywords you target.

6. Study the Competition

   • Analyze the keywords your competitors are ranking for. This can give you insights into the competitive landscape and help you identify keyword opportunities they might have overlooked.

7. Prioritize Your Keywords

   • Not all keywords are created equal. Prioritize your keywords based on their search volume, keyword difficulty, relevance to your content, and alignment with user intent. Focus on those that are most likely to drive the desired outcomes for your site.

8. Incorporate Keywords into Your Content Strategy

   • Plan your content around the keywords you’ve chosen. Each piece of content should target a primary keyword and several related secondary keywords. However, avoid keyword stuffing; the focus should always be on creating valuable, engaging content for your audience.

9. Monitor Your SEO Performance

   • After publishing your content, monitor its performance in the SERPs. Use tools like Google Search Console to track rankings, impressions, and clicks. This data can inform future keyword research and content strategy adjustments.

10. Keep Updating Your Keyword List

    • Keyword trends can change over time. Regularly update your keyword list to include new search terms and remove those that are no longer relevant. This ensures your content strategy remains aligned with how your target audience is searching online.

Step 2: Writing Compelling Meta Tags

Writing compelling meta tags, specifically meta titles and meta descriptions is crucial for SEO and attracting users to click through from the search engine results pages (SERPs). Here’s how to craft these elements effectively:

• Meta Titles:

This is the title of a webpage that appears in search engine results. It should be concise and include relevant keywords to improve the page’s search rankings.

• • Be Descriptive and Concise: Your title should accurately describe the page content within 50-60 characters to ensure it displays properly in SERPs.
  • Incorporate Target Keywords: Place important keywords towards the beginning of the title, but ensure it reads naturally.
  • Brand Name: Include your name towards the end of the title, especially if it’s well-known.
  • Unique Titles for Each Page: Every page should have a unique title to avoid confusion in search results.

• Meta Descriptions

This brief description of a webpage’s content also appears in search results. A well-written meta description can improve the click-through rate.

• • Provide Clear Value Proposition: Summarize the page content to highlight the value to the reader within 150-160 characters.
  • Use Active Voice and a Call-to-Action (CTA): Encourage users to click with phrases like “Learn more,” “Get started,” or “Discover how.”
  • Include Target Keywords: Naturally integrate keywords to align with search queries, enhancing relevance.
  • Make Each Description Unique: Avoid duplicate descriptions to help each page stand out in search results. 

• General Tips for Both

  • Reflect the Page Content: Ensure both the title and description accurately reflect the page’s content to reduce bounce rates and improve user experience.
  • Use Numbers and Dates: When relevant, include numbers and dates (e.g., “Top 10 Tips for 2024”) to increase click-through rates (CTRs).
  • Avoid Overuse of Keywords: Stuffing keywords can lead to a negative user experience and may harm your SEO efforts.
  • Utilize Character Limits Wisely: Maximize the space without exceeding the limits to avoid truncation in SERPs.

Meta Title And Description Character Limit

• Meta Title:
  • Google: 60 characters (including spaces) is generally the safe limit.
  • Other Search Engines: Limits may vary slightly, but 60 characters is a good standard to follow.
• Meta Description:
  • Google: Around 160 characters (including spaces) is generally displayed.
  • Other Search Engines: Limits can vary, but 160 characters is a good target.
• Important Points to Keep in Mind:
  
  • Pixel Width: Google also limits the pixel width of titles and descriptions. It’s less about exact character count and more about how the text fits within the search results page.
  • Mobile: Mobile search results display less information than desktop results. Be sure to optimize for both.

Step 3: Create SEO-Friendly Content (And Optimize It)

This is essential for achieving a high ranking on SERPs. The best website builders for SEO make this easier. As you create content, the following are some important factors to keep in mind:

• • 1. Focus on High-Quality Content: This is the most crucial strategy. It involves creating helpful information for customers. Google can now understand search intent and the relevance and worth of content. So, your content must solve your audiences’ problems. It must provide answers to queries and offer value.
    2. Incorporate Keywords Naturally: To optimize content, discover the primary keyword associated with the page. You must naturally use them in the title and description. Keywords should be in titles, headers, and content.
    3. Structure Content with Headings: Use H1 and H2 for main headings and H3 for subheadings. You can improve readability and search engine optimization by using these. This allows readers to concentrate on the main ideas without going off the hook. 
    4. Optimize Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Title tags are an important ranking component. So, it is critical to optimize both title tags and meta descriptions. Ensure that the primary keyword you are targeting is included in title tags. Limit title tags to 60 characters. Meta descriptions usually appear behind page titles in SERPs. A good description can have a positive impact. 
    5. Simplify URL Structure: Be descriptive and include the page’s primary keyword. You should also use hyphens to split words. Also, use lowercase letters rather than integrating capital letters.
    6. Ensure Intuitive Navigation: Organize the website’s structure to ease user navigation. This is to ensure that search engines can crawl it. To improve readability, readers must be able to browse the website without hitches. 

Step 4: Optimizing On-Page Elements on Your Own

1. Headings (H1, H2, H3…)

   • Hierarchy: Use headings to structure your content clearly.
   • Keywords: Include keywords in at least your H1 and one H2 tag.
   • Clarity: Make them informative and relevant to the content below them.

2. URL Structure

   • Readable: Use URLs that are easy for humans and search engines to understand.
   • Keywords: Incorporate relevant keywords.
   • Simplicity: Keep URLs concise and avoid unnecessary parameters.

3. Content Optimization

   • Quality and Relevance: Ensure content is high-quality, informative, and addresses user intent.
   • Keyword Optimization: Use keywords naturally within the content, including variations and long-tail keywords.
   • Freshness: Regularly update content to keep it relevant and fresh.

4. Image Optimization

   • File Names: Use descriptive filenames including keywords.
   • Alt Text: Describe the image content accurately for accessibility and SEO.
   • Compression: Optimize images for web use to improve page load times.

5. Internal Linking

   • Relevance: Link to relevant pages within your site to guide users and distribute page authority.
   • Anchor Text: Use descriptive anchor text that includes relevant keywords.

6. Mobile-Friendliness

   • Responsive Design: Ensure your site is accessible and performs well on various devices.

7. Page Speed

   • Optimization: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and fix issues slowing down your site.

8. Structured Data Markup

   • Rich Snippets: Implement structured data to help search engines understand your content and enhance your listings in SERPs.

Step 5: Improve Your SEO Authority by Building Links 

The next step is to begin building links. The link that one website obtains from another website is a backlink. Backlinks boost SEO and brand exposure, as well as referral traffic. Backlinks show search engines that other websites believe the content to be reputable. Google prioritizes the quality of links pointing to your website. They help to determine your search position. 

Here are some benefits of backlinks:

• Improves Ranking: In search engine optimization (SEO), backlinks benefit your rankings. Search engines consider the quality and quantity of the links to be sources of authority. So, the more backlinks on your website, the higher it ranks for search terms. On-page SEO and page speed are other aspects you should consider.
• Increases Website Growth: SEO backlinks allow websites to flourish in different ways. You must differentiate yourself from competitors to rank on the first page of SERPs. If a high-quality website links to yours, you can profit from that association. Their customers may begin to show interest in you.
• Increases Domain Authority: Backlinks also boost domain authority. Higher domain authority increases your SERP ranking chances. Although domain authority is not a ranking element, it helps to assess improvement. Hence, you can determine whether your efforts are increasing your ranks.
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Step 6: Measure Your SEO Success

To measure your SEO success, start by measuring keyword rank. This can be done with Google Search Console. It helps you track the most relevant keywords to your business. It will come up with ways to improve your performance. Website, mobile app traffic, and events can be tracked using Google Analytics. There are several metrics to track SEO success. These include average CTR, bounce rate, search visibility, and backlinks.

Another crucial element is monitoring Google PageRank. Google uses your website’s Page Rank to estimate its importance online. A higher Page Rank indicates that your site will be among the top results for the terms people search for. Also, use traffic from organic search results to track your progress. Organic traffic growth shows website success.

Setting Up Essential SEO Tools

For SEO activities, starting with the right set of tools is crucial for analyzing your website’s performance, identifying opportunities for improvement, and monitoring your competitors. Here are the initial tools you should consider setting up for effective SEO activity:

• Google Analytics: This free tool from Google is essential for tracking website traffic and understanding user behavior. It provides insights into how visitors find and use your website, which pages they visit, how long they stay, and what actions they take. This information is crucial for making data-driven decisions to improve your SEO and content strategy.
• Google Search Console: Another free tool from Google, it allows you to monitor and maintain your site’s presence in Google Search results. It helps you understand how Google views your site and optimize its performance in search results. Features like search analytics, URL inspection, and sitemaps submission are invaluable for SEO.
• Bing Webmaster Tools: Similar to Google Search Console but for Bing’s search engine. It provides search diagnostics, reports, and other tools to help you understand your website’s performance on Bing and improve your visibility in its search results.
• Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz: These are comprehensive SEO platforms that offer a wide range of functionalities, including keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink tracking, and site audits. They can help you develop a robust SEO strategy by identifying what works for your competitors and finding opportunities for your website. While they offer free limited access or trials, full features require a subscription.
• Yoast SEO (for WordPress users): This is a popular SEO plugin for WordPress websites. It helps in optimizing your content, generating sitemaps, and adding meta tags. It’s an essential tool for making your website as search engine-friendly as possible.
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: A desktop tool which crawls your website’s links, images, CSS, and script from an SEO perspective. Useful for quick audits, it helps identify SEO problems like broken links, missing meta tags, and duplicate content.
• Google My Business: Essential for local SEO, this tool lets you manage your online presence across Google, including search and maps. By verifying and editing your business information, you can help customers find your business and tell them your story.
• Ubersuggest: A free tool by Neil Patel that offers keyword suggestions, SEO audit reports, and competitor insights. It’s a great starting point for beginners to understand keyword strategies and content opportunities.
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Choosing The Right Platform for SEO Success

Choosing the right website builder is crucial for SEO success. Here’s what to look for in a platform to make sure it’s SEO-friendly. 

Built-in SEO-Friendly Features

Analyze the features and capabilities of website builders, looking for tools that offer complete keyword research skills. These tools enable you to investigate search volume, competitiveness, and similar terms. Being able to track the ranks of keywords across different search engines is essential. You can use WordPress plugins and Wix to track keyword rankings. 

Inherent Mobile Optimization

Using mobile-first indexing is what Google does. It is, thus, essential to focus on mobile SEO. In other words, it provides mobile users with an excellent experience. The platform of choice should guarantee this result. As a result, you would not need to build or adjust for mobile SEO. Tools like WordPress offer mobile-friendly plugins and themes to optimize for mobile devices.

Enhanced Site Speed

The speed at which a page load is essential to SEO. A slow website might discourage users and affect search engine rankings. Choose platforms that incorporate speed enhancement features. Some of these e-commerce platforms are WordPress, BigCommerce, and Wix. A website’s user experience improves with a decent speed rate. Search engine algorithms favor websites with a high-speed rate by offering higher engagement and lower bounce rates.

Automatic HTTPS Security

Websites that use HTTPS are secure. They help users develop trust in the website. Use platforms that provide SSL certificates to secure your website. This fosters trust among site visitors, particularly on e-commerce websites. Website builders like Wix, Weebly, and WordPress are popular HTTPS providers. 

Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Let’s look into some of the most common SEO for beginners mistakes. Understanding them further can help you avoid them. 

1. Avoid Black-Hat SEO Techniques

These include keyword stuffing, cloaking, and using private link networks. Such practices can result in penalties from search engines.

2. Don’t Overlook User Experience

A website that’s difficult to navigate or slow to load can drive users away. Focus on creating a positive user experience across all devices.

3. Don’t Ignore Search Intent

Creating content without considering the intent behind search queries can lead to irrelevant traffic and high bounce rates. Align content with user needs.

4. Avoid Duplicate Content

Publishing the same or very similar content across multiple pages can dilute your search rankings. Ensure all your site’s content is unique and serves a purpose.

5. Don’t Neglect Meta Descriptions and Title Tags

Skipping meta descriptions and title tags, or writing them poorly, can impact your click-through rates. Each page should have a unique and descriptive title and meta description.

6. Avoid Unnatural Link Building

Acquiring backlinks inorganically through purchases or exchanges can be flagged by search engines. Focus on earning links naturally through quality content.

7. Don’t Use Non-Responsive Design

With mobile traffic increasingly dominating web usage, not having a mobile-friendly website can negatively affect your SEO and user experience.

8. Avoid Thin Content

Publishing pages with little or no valuable content just to rank for specific keywords can harm your SEO. Aim for comprehensive, high-quality content.

9. Don’t Disregard Analytics

Failing to monitor your site’s performance and not using data to inform your SEO strategy can keep you from achieving your objectives. Regularly check your analytics to make informed decisions.

Conclusion 

Anybody can master SEO best practices and perform SEO for their website. After reading this SEO for beginners guide, you’re ready to optimize your website! But keep in mind that search engine optimization comprises many other elements. The best website builders and e-commerce platforms for SEO integration will help your SEO efforts truly come to life.

FAQ 

Q: Can I do SEO myself?

A: Yes, you can do SEO yourself by learning the basics, conducting keyword research, optimizing your site, creating quality content, building backlinks, and regularly monitoring and updating your strategies.

Q: How can I track my SEO progress?

A: You can track your progress using different SEO analytics tools. These include Semrush, Google Search Console and Ahrefs. With these tools, you can measure keyword ranking, organic traffic and more.

Q: Can I Use SEO tools for free?

A: Yes. Some SEO tools allow for free trials. These include Semrush, Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, and AnswerThePublic.

Q: What website builders can I use for SEO integration?

A: Some of the best website builders include WordPress, Wix, and GoDaddy.