SEO – Search Engine Optimization, breaks in two parts first we will understand about the Search Engines, a platform we will be using to rank our website #1, later we will understand the optimization part. At the end there’s a bonus part which will help you track and analyze the work you we will be undertaking with this guided process.

1. SEO FOR BEGINNERS (A STEP BY STEP
GUIDE FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING)
Figure 1 SEO (an image by-wix.com)
Let’s Start,
SEO – Search Engine Optimization, breaks in two parts first we will understand about the Search Engines, a platform we
will be using to rank our website #1, later we will understand the optimization part. At the end there’s a bonus part
which will help you track and analyze the work you we will be undertaking with this guided process.

2. What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation is known for being full of technical jargon.
Today? I’m changing all of that…
I’m here to tell you that ​SEO doesn’t have to be difficult.
Unlike Google AdWords, Search Engine Optimisation increases your natural, organic visibility in search engines like
Google, Yahoo and Bing for targeted industry search terms and phrases (Keywords). Each step in this optimisation
process is executed with the goal of naturally increasing your business’s visibility within search results.
By doing this effectively, Search Engine Optimisation can boost traffic, lead generation and sales for your business better
than any other form of marketing, and transform your website from an un-optimised state, into one that sends the right
signals to search engines about what your website is about.
This makes SEO a vital tool for any business with an online presence.
In fact, this makes SEO ​the most important tool for any business operating today​.
Keep reading to kickstart your SEO journey.
Figure 2 Kickstart your SEO journey (an image by-SEO Services Malta)
When it comes to search engine optimization for a new website, some businesses can be intimidated due to the amount
of information out there. And often, if they don’t have the help of an experienced in-house SEO or consultant, they will
do nothing.
Today, we’re going to look at some easy things you can do to start your website’s SEO on the right foot – even if you
can’t hire a professional to help you out.

3. The Rules.
Google insists webmasters adhere to their ‘rules’ and aims to reward sites with high-quality content and remarkable
‘white hat’ web marketing techniques with high rankings. Conversely, it also needs to penalise websites that manage to
rank in Google by breaking these rules.
These rules are not ‘laws’, but ‘guidelines’, for ranking in Google; lay down by Google. You should note, however, that
some methods of ranking in Google are, in fact, illegal. Hacking, for instance, is illegal in the India.
You can choose to follow and abide by these rules, bend them or ignore them – all with different levels of success (and
levels of retribution, from Google’s web spam team).
White hats do it by the ‘rules’; black hats ignore the ‘rules’.
What you read in this article is perfectly within the laws and also within the guidelines and will help you increase the
traffic to your website through organic, or natural search engine results pages (SERPs).
Figure 3 Black Hat vs White Hat (an image by-Neil Patel blog)
White Hat vs. Black Hat
As you know, I’m playing the long-term entrepreneurial game, instead of just trying to get a quick buck out of it.
It’s the same with search engine optimization. Some people are in it to make a few grand really quickly, others
are in it for the long haul.
If you want to work SEO like a get-rich-quick scheme, you’ll probably end up doing what’s called black hat
SEO. This type of SEO focuses on optimizing your content only for the search engine, not considering humans
at all. Since there are lots of ways to bend and break the rules to get your sites to rank high, these are a
welcome way for black hat SEOs to make a few thousand dollars fast. Ultimately this approach results in
spammy, crappy pages, which often get banned very fast, often leading to severe punishment for the marketer,
ruining their chance of building something sustainable in the future. You might make a few grand this way, but
will continuously have to be on the lookout for search engine updates and come up with new ways to dodge
the rules.

4. White hat SEO, on the other hand, is the way to build a sustainable online business. If you do SEO this way,
you’ll focus on your human audience, trying to give them the best content possible and making it easily
accessible to them, by playing according to the search engine’s rules. black hat white hat. You might make a
few grand this way, but will continuously have to be on the lookout for search engine updates and come up
with new ways to dodge the rules.
White hat SEO, on the other hand, is the way to build a sustainable online business.​ If you do SEO this
way, you’ll focus on your human audience, trying to give them the best content possible and making it easily
accessible to them, by playing according to the search engine’s rules​.
HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?
Search engines have two major functions: crawling and building an index, and providing search users with a ranked list
of the websites they've determined are the most relevant.
Figure 4 Crawling & Indexing (an image from Moz-The-Beginners-Guide-To-SEO)
Imagine the World Wide Web as a network of stops in a big city subway system. Each stop is a unique document (usually
a web page, but sometimes a PDF, JPG, or other file). The search engines need a way to “crawl” the entire city and find
all the stops along the way, so they use the best path available—links.
Search engines have two major functions: crawling and building an index, and providing search users with a ranked list
of the websites they've determined are the most relevant.
1. Crawling and Indexing
Crawling and indexing the billions of documents, pages, files, news, videos, and media on the World Wide Web.
2. Providing Answers
Providing answers to user queries, most frequently through lists of relevant pages that they've retrieved and ranked for
relevancy.
The link structure of the web serves to bind all of the pages together. Links allow the search engines' automated robots,
called "crawlers" or "spiders," to reach the many billions of interconnected documents on the web.

5. Once the engines find these pages, they decipher the code from them and store selected pieces in massive databases, to
be recalled later when needed for a search query. To accomplish the monumental task of holding billions of pages that
can be accessed in a fraction of a second, the search engine companies have constructed datacenters all over the world.
These monstrous storage facilities hold thousands of machines processing large quantities of information very quickly.
When a person performs a search at any of the major engines, they demand results instantaneously; even a one- or
two-second delay can cause dissatisfaction, so the engines work hard to provide answers as fast as possible.
Figure 5 Providing Answers (an image from Moz-The-Beginners-Guide-To-SEO)
Search engines are answer machines. When a person performs an online search, the search engine scours its corpus of
billions of documents and does two things: first, it returns only those results that are relevant or useful to the searcher's
query; second, it ranks those results according to the popularity of the websites serving the information. It is both
relevance and popularity that the process of SEO is meant to influence.
How do search engines determine relevance and popularity?
To a search engine, relevance means more than finding a page with the right words. In the early days of the web, search
engines didn’t go much further than this simplistic step, and search results were of limited value. Over the years, smart
engineers have devised better ways to match results to searchers’ queries. Today, hundreds of factors influence
relevance, and we’ll discuss the most important of these in this guide.
Search engines typically assume that the more popular a site, page, or document, the more valuable the information it
contains must be. This assumption has proven fairly successful in terms of user satisfaction with search results.
Popularity and relevance aren’t determined manually. Instead, the engines employ mathematical equations (algorithms)
to sort the wheat from the chaff (relevance), and then to rank the wheat in order of quality (popularity).
These algorithms often comprise hundreds of variables. In the search marketing field, we refer to them as “ranking
factors.”

6. Constantly Changing SEO
Figure 6 Constantly Changing (an image from Moz-The-Beginners-Guide-To-SEO)
When search marketing began in the mid-1990s, manual submission, the meta keywords tag, and keyword stuffing were
all regular parts of the tactics necessary to rank well. In 2004, link bombing with anchor text, buying hordes of links from
automated blog comment spam injectors, and the construction of inter-linking farms of websites could all be leveraged
for traffic. In 2011, social media marketing and vertical search inclusion are mainstream methods for conducting search
engine optimization.
The search engines have refined their algorithms along with this evolution, so many of the tactics that worked in 2004
can hurt your SEO today. The future is uncertain, but in the world of search, change is a constant. For this reason, search
marketing will continue to be a priority for those who wish to remain competitive on the web.
Some have claimed that SEO is dead, or that SEO amounts to spam. As we see it, there's no need for a defense other
than simple logic: websites compete for attention and placement in the search engines, and those with the knowledge
and experience to improve their website's ranking will receive the benefits of increased traffic and visibility.

7. HOW TO RANK IN GOOGLE?
You probably already know that Google uses about 200 ranking factors in their algorithm…
But what the heck are they?
Well today you’re in for a treat because I’ve put together a complete list.
Some are proven.
Some are controversial.
Others are SEO nerd speculation.
But they’re all here.
Figure 7 google-ranking-factors (an image by backlinko.com/blog)
By Brain Dean-Founder of Backlinko.
But which of the 200 have the biggest impact? Or more importantly, which factors should YOU focus on to get higher
rankings for your site?
Well you’re in luck because I’ve put together this checklist that will show you how to make sure you tap into each of the
10 most important Google ranking factors.
1-KEYWORD IN BEGINNING OF YOUR TITLE TAG
Google gives more weight to keywords found in the beginning of a title tag.
For example, let’s say you wanted to rank for the keyword “weight loss tips” and you were deciding between
two headlines:
​HEADLINE #1​ ​HEADLINE #2
Weight Loss Tips: 10 Strategies for ​OR ​How to Drop 10 Pounds with

8. Shedding Pounds. These Weight Loss Tips.
Google would see the headline #1 as MORE about the topic of “weight loss tips” than the second one.
So you’d want to go with headline #1.
ACTION STEP:​ Include your target keyword in the beginning of your title tag.
Figure 8 Include your target keyword in the beginning of your title tag. (an image from GOOGLE RANKING CHECKLIST-BACKLINKO)
2-CONTENT LENGTH
Several industry studies (like this one by SERPIQ) have shown that longer content (1500+ words)
ranks significantly higher in Google:
As you can see, the top 10 results have an
average of 2000 words.

9. ACTION STEP:​ Write at least 1500 words for content that you’re trying to rank in Google.
3-PAGE LOADING SPEED
This is HUGE.
Page Speed is one of the few ranking signals that Google has publicly confirmed. It’s that important.
You can easily evaluate and improve your site’s loading speed using Google’s own PageSpeed Insights tool.
ACTION STEP:​ Use the Google ​PageSpeed Insights​ tool to figure out your site’s loading speed.
Wordpress plugins ​W3 Total Cache​ and ​WP Smush It​ (both free) can help speed things up.
Figure 10 (an image from GOOGLE RANKING CHECKLIST-BACKLINKO)
4- KEYWORD PROMINENCE AND POSITIONING
Sure, Google may not pay much attention to keyword density these days. But that doesn’t mean they stopped using
keywords…far from it!
Including your target keyword in strategic places on your page – like in your URL, in the beginning of your article and in
H2 tags – sends a message to Google that your page is about that keyword.
ACTION STEP:​ Include your target keyword I the beginning of your title tag, in the first 100 words of an article and in an
H2 or H3 tag. You can learn more advanced on-page SEO strategies at: ​http://backlinko.com/on-page-seo
5-PAGE AUTHORITY/PAGERANK
The authority of your page – determined by the quality and quantity of inbound links – is by far the most
important ranking signal that Google uses.
The fact is, unless your page is authoritative, Google isn’t going to rank it (why would they?).
ACTION STEP:​ Incorporate white hat link building strategies like ​Guestographics​ to build your page’s authority.

10. 6-DOMAIN AUTHORITY
When ranking a page, Google also factors in the authority of the domain as a whole (that’s why sites like Amazon and
YouTube rank for almost everything). You can check your Domain Authority using Open Site Explorer. As we already
went over, a link’s authority (as measured by the PR of the linking
page) is really important.
But Google is paying more and more attention to the relevancy of
the links pointing to your site. In fact, an ex-Google recently
employee stated that “relevancy is the new PR”).
So make sure that most of your links come from sites that are on
the same topic as yours. So if you ran a site that sold organic dog
food, make sure you’re getting links from other pet-related
sites…not sites about trucks and tattoos.
ACTION STEP:​ Focus on building links from authoritative AND
relevant sites.
ACTION STEP:​ Build up your Domain Authority by creating (and promoting) awesome content. For example, with The
Skyscraper Technique.
7-LINK RELEVANCY
As we already went over, a link’s authority (as measured by the PR of the linking page) is really important. But Google is
paying more and more attention to the relevancy of the links pointing to your site. So make sure that most of your links
come from sites that are on the same topic as yours. So if you ran a site that sold organic dog food, make sure you’re
getting links from other pet-related sites…not sites about trucks and tattoos.

11. ACTION STEP:​ Focus on building links from authoritative AND relevant sites.
Figure 12 (an image from GOOGLE RANKING CHECKLIST-BACKLINKO)
8-DWELL TIME
What tends to happen when a Google searcher lands on your page?
Do they stick around and visit other pages on your site…or do they quickly bounce back to the search results?
Google pays VERY close attention to how people interact with your site in Google. The amount of time they spend on
your site – known as dwell time – is a super-important ranking signal.
ACTION STEP:​ Make the “above the fold” area of your pages compelling and clutter free. The more interesting that area
is, the higher your dwell time – and rankings – will be.
9-RESPONSIVE DESIGN
More than half of the web’s traffic now comes from a mobile device. Google’s official stance is that they prefer
Responsive Design vs. a separate mobile website (source). A fast-loading, mobile-friendly responsive design can give you
higher rankings for people searching on smartphones and tablets.
ACTION STEP:​ Make sure your site loads quickly for mobile users and runs on a responsive design.

12. Figure 13 Device Compatibility (an image from GOOGLE RANKING CHECKLIST-BACKLINKO)
10-THIN OR DUPLICATE CONTENT
Google wants to rank sites that have robust, original content. In my experience, many older sites have accumulated
“junk” pages over the years, like archive and category pages. Junk pages are thin, duplicate or both – which can hold
down your site’s rankings.
ACTION STEP:​ Do a site audit and delete or “noindex” thin pages or pages with duplicate content.
Keyword Research and Analysis
It all begins with words typed into a search box. Keyword research is one of the most important, valuable, and high
return activities in the search marketing field. Ranking for the right keywords can make or break your website. By
researching your market's keyword demand, you can not only learn which terms and phrases to target with SEO, but
also learn more about your customers as a whole. It's not always about getting visitors to your site, but about getting the
right kind of visitors. The usefulness of this intelligence cannot be overstated; with keyword research you can predict
shifts in demand, respond to changing market conditions, and produce the products, services, and content that web
searchers are actively seeking. In the history of marketing, there has never been such a low barrier to entry in
understanding the motivations of consumers in virtually any niche.
Ask yourself...
Is the keyword relevant to your website's content?
Will searchers find what they are looking for on your site when they search using these keywords?
Will they be happy with what they find? Will this traffic result in financial rewards or other organizational goals?
If the answer to all of these questions is a clear "Yes!" then proceed ...

13. Understanding the Long Tail of Keyword Demand
Going back to our online shoe store example, it would be great to rank #1 for the keyword "shoes" ... or would it?
It's wonderful to deal with keywords that have
5,000 searches a day, or even 500 searches a day,
but in reality, these popular search terms actually
make up less than 30% of the searches performed
on the web. The remaining 70% lie in what's called
the "long tail" of search.
The long tail contains hundreds of millions of
unique searches that might be conducted a few
times in any given day, but, when taken together,
comprise the majority of the world's search
volume. Another lesson search marketers have
learned is that long tail keywords often convert
better, because they catch people later in the
buying/conversion cycle.
A person searching for "shoes" is probably
browsing, and not ready to buy. On the other hand,
someone searching for "best price on Air Jordan
size 12" practically has their wallet out!
Understanding the search demand curve is critical. To the right we've included a sample keyword demand curve,
illustrating the small number of queries sending larger amounts of traffic alongside the volume of less-searched terms
and phrases that bring the bulk of our search referrals.
Keyword Research
1. Working Smarter, Not Harder
Keyword research can be simple or hard, but it should always be fun. For the sake of the Blueprint, let’s do keyword
research the easy way.
The biggest mistakes people make with keyword research are:
1-Choosing keywords that are too broad
2-Keywords with too much competition
3-Keywords without enough traffic
4-Keywords that don’t convert
5-Trying to rank for one keyword at a time
The biggest mistake people make is trying to rank for a single keyword at a time. This is the hard way. It’s much easier,
and much more profitable, to rank for 100s or even 1,000s of long tail keywords with the same piece of content.

14. Instead of ranking for a single keyword, let’s aim our project around a keyword theme.
2. Dream Your Keyword Theme
Using keyword themes solves a whole lot of problems. Instead of ranking for one Holy Grail keyword, a better goal is to
rank for lots of keywords focused around a single idea. Done right, the results are amazing.
I assume you know enough about
your business to understand what
type of visitor you’re seeking and
whether you’re looking for traffic,
conversions, or both. Regardless,
one simple rule holds true: the
more specific you define your
theme, the easier it is to rank.
This is basic stuff, but it bears
repeating. If your topic is the
football, you’ll find it hard to rank
for “Super Bowl,” but slightly easier
to rank for “Super Bowl 2014” - and
easier yet to rank for “Best Super
Bowl Recipes of 2014.”
Don’t focus on specific words yet -
all you need to know is your broad
topic. The next step is to find the
right keyword qualifiers.
Figure 15 Keyword Targeting (an image by moz.com/blog/how to rank)
3. Get Specific with Qualifiers
Qualifiers are words that add specificity to keywords and define intent. They take many different forms.
Time/Date: 2001, December, Morning
Price/Quality: Cheap, Best, Most Popular
Intent: Buy, Shop, Find
Location: Houston, Outdoors, Online
The idea is to find as many qualifiers as possible that fit your audience. Here’s where keyword tools enter the picture.
You can use any keyword tool you like, but favorites include ​Wordstream​, ​Keyword Spy​, ​SpyFu​, and ​Bing Keyword Tool
and ​Übersuggest​, ​Moz​, ​Google Adwords​, ​Google Trends​,​ ​Advertising​, ​Wordtracker​.
For speed and real-world insight, ​Übersuggest​ is an all-time SEO favorite. Run a simple query and export over 100
suggested keyword based on Google’s own Autocomplete feature – based on actual Google searches.
4. Finding the best

15. At this point you have a few dozen, or a few hundred keywords to pull into Google Adwords Keyword Planner.
Pro Tip #1:​ While it’s possible to run over a hundred keyword phrases at once in Google’s Keyword Planner, you get
more variety if you limit your searches to 5-10 at a time.
Figure 16 Find keywords (an image by moz.com/blog/how to rank)
Using “Exact” search types, we’re looking for 10-15 closely related keyword phrases with decent search volume, but not
too much competition.
Pro Tip #2:​ Be careful trusting the “Competition” column in Google Adwords Keyword Planner. This refers to bids on
paid search terms, not organic search.
5. Keyword Competition Analysis
So you’ve found a popular keyword with strong commercial intent.
Nice work.
There’s only one thing left to do: check out the competition on Google’s first page.
If you see a page littered with authoritative, big brand results, you might be better off moving onto the next keyword on
your list.
But if you take the time to evaluate keyword competition, you can usually find keywords that get great search volume
AND have little to no competition.
That means that you need less content, links and promotion to claim your spot on page one.
And in this chapter I’m going to show you how to quickly evaluate a keyword’s competition in Google’s organic search
results.
First Step:​ Install The MozBar

16. There’s a free browser toolbar that makes evaluating Keyword Competition faster and easier: The MozBar.
Here’s how to install and set it up:
MozBar Head over to ​this page​. Click the big yellow button:
Figure 17 Keyword Competition (an image by backlinko.com/keyword-competition)
And install and activate MozBar.
When you do a search in Google you should see information from MozBar in the SERPs:

17. Figure 18 MozBar set up-Keyword Competition (an image by backlinko.com/keyword-competition)
Now that you have the MozBar set up, it’s time to size up the competition.
Rest of the aspects of MozBar is explained by backlinko.com/keyword-competition, link will be given below in reference.
The next tool you can check out is ​SEMRUSH​- enter competitor’s website and see the magic!
But, before you jump into tools and playing with it. Let’s look on the optimization part of SEO which is radically
important to understand unless your optimization part goes right, you are not into competition.

18. OPTIMISATION
Before you can begin the SEO process for a keyword, you must first select the landing page you hope will rank for the
phrase. In most instances, the best landing page to select for Google can be found with the following query:
site:example.com keyword phrase. This will show you what page from your site Google considers to be the most
relevant for the keyword. If you decide to create a brand new page for the targeted phrase, then you should utilize the
keyword in the filename. Once you have selected the landing page you can then begin the following search engine
optimization process.
Figure 19 Optimizing landing page (an image by i-ads.co.uk)
Phase 1 – Optimize your Landing Page (On-Page SEO)
1-Use keyword phrase in the Title tag. Phrase should end within first 70 characters.
2-Use keyword phrase in Meta Description. Phrase should end within first 156 characters.
3-Use keyword phrase in <h1> tag if there is one.
4-The keyword phrase should be used in the page's text-based body content at least twice. On pages more than 500
words in length, make sure that keyword density is at least 1.5% (but no more than 6 or 7%). Keyword usage should be
evenly distributed throughout the page.
Keyword Density-
The keyword density percentage for a particular phrase in the body content of a page can be calculated with the
following formula:
Keyword Density %​ =
(Number of instances of keyword phrase) (Number of words in phrase)
Total # of body words on page
x 100
Phase 2 – Internal Off-Page SEO

19. 1-Identify additional pages on your site that can also be optimized for targeted keyword phrase.
2-Once the support page(s) has been identified, maximize the link relevance passed on to the landing page by: a) using
the keyword phrase in page Title and Meta Description, b) using the keyword phrase in non-hyperlinked body content,
and c) hyperlinking one instance of the keyword phrase to the intended landing page.
3-Maximize the number of optimal internal links to your landing page. Vary the anchor text going to your landing page
by using slight variations of the keyword phrase (e.g. singular/plural,
synonyms, long-tail variations, etc.)
4-This phase can be extended by creating more pages support the landing page. But unless you have significantly fewer
pages than your competition, then you would probably be better served to move on to Phase 3.
Phase 3 – External Off-Page SEO (Link Building)
After you have optimized as many of your pages as possible and linked them to your landing page, you should then
move on to external link building. There is no simple step-by-step process for this phase. You will have to determine how
to make your content more linkable so that you can develop links naturally. You should also research your competition
to find the most relevant links to your landing page. Keep the following guidelines in mind as you try to build external
links for Google search engine optimization:
1-Always seek quality instead of quantity. Focus on finding pages that are
relevant for your targeted keyword.
2-The optimal link from a 3rd party site is the same as an optimal link from
one of your own pages. The targeted keyword phrase will ideally be in the
Title and Meta Description, body content and the linking anchor text.
3-Avoid site-wide (i.e. global, run-of-site) links in all circumstances. This is
an especially important guideline if the site is not keyword-relevant. Your
landing page will more than likely get filtered for the targeted keyword
unless you have high quality links to legitimize the relevancy.
4-Brainstorm link bait or link magnet ideas so that inbound links will hopefully develop naturally.
5-Unfortunately, the most relevant links are only attainable by providing an incentive to the site owners. Advertising
relationships, partnerships and bartering possibilities should be explored to obtain the most valuable links.
6-Do not pay for a link from a non-relevant site unless it has significant traffic potential.
Monitoring Your Results
Last, but not least, you will want to keep track of your SEO progress by monitoring your results. The two most important
tools you can use to monitor these results are the following.
● Authority Labs​ – Create a free account which you can get after using the 30 day trial of the pro account. Use this tool
to track keyword rankings for your website so you can see if they are moving up in search results.

20. ● Google Analytics​ – Use Google Analytics to learn more about the visitors to your website. In particular, monitor your
organic search traffic sources to see what keywords people are using to find your website in search results. By setting
up goals, you can see which keywords lead to visits where visitors do what you want them to do on your website
such as sign up for a mailing list or purchase a product. This will help you learn what keywords you should be
targeting with your SEO campaign.
There are a lot of other valuable SEO tools out there, but these are the best ones to start with to help you learn more
about whether your SEO efforts are making a difference.
Figure 22 Referral sites (an image by i.pinimg.com)

21. 1-​moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research
2-​backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors
3-​neilpatel.com/what-is-seo
4-​moz.com/blog/how-to-rank
5-​seocipher.com/basics/step-by-step-guide
6-​blog.kissmetrics.com/simple-guide-to-seo
7-​backlinko.com/keyword-competition