Our SEO Beginner’s Guide Will Definitely Get You Started

by: Maud David

Published on: January 3, 2017

If you have a new website or are currently building your startup website, you know about the importance of getting a high visibility in the search engines. But where to start with your SEO activities?

It can be quite difficult to get familiar with the diversity of SEO tactics and tools, so we wrote this guide to help you get started with Search Engine Optimisation.

Why do you need SEO?

SEO is basically a set of tactics to help you attract organic visitors to your website – people who are looking in search engines for a product or services like yours but who don’t know you yet. Hence the importance of a well thought out SEO strategy to get visitors to your website. If you recently launched your business, chances are high that you have a brand new website which is not indexed in the search engines yet. You may want to explore as many tactics as possible to drive relevant traffic to your website, such as social media, paid advertising, pay per click (PPC) and of course SEO. This starter’s guide will help you to build your strategy step by step and find the best resources to help you along the way.

But first, let’s get a better understanding of what SEO actually is:

How do search engines work?

Search engines have been improved over time to both deal with the increasing number of information available and deliver the most relevant information. There are more than hundreds of factors influencing the relevance of a page for a specific set of keywords. You should keep in mind that search engines focus on delivering the best user experience possible. You should above all develop your website for your visitors and not for the search engines.

A good start is to have a look at the search engine guidelines, it will give you a solid base of understanding on where to focus your efforts.

Top 4 Must-Do’s When Starting SEO For A New Website

When I started to learn about SEO, the best advice I would have like to receive was, think about your SEO strategy before your website is launched. Too often we spend an incredible amount of time trying to fix the mistakes we did when building the website. If you can manage to do these 4 things right, your website will have greater chance to rank higher in the search engine results.

#1 Choose Your Company Name Carefully

Your company name should be original, different from your competition and easy to spell. Make sure your company name domain is available.

#2 Research Your Relevant Set Of Keywords When Building The Content Of Your Website

Define which keywords are relevant to business to focus on creating content around them. Good keywords are first of all specific to your business, they drive enough traffic, have medium or low competition and finally be specific (ex. “cars” versus “sporty hybrid car”).

#3 Craft Great Content

The first rule in SEO is to design content for your readers not for search engines. A great content is not only easy to read but also unique and add-value. Once you have wrote a great piece, you can make some small optimisations to make it more search engine friendly.

Add title and description tags
Make sure each of your page content is around or longer than 1200 words
Use H1, H2, H3 and H4 title tags in the body of your article
Use image alt tag to describe to content of your image

#4 Build A Functioning Website

Search engines also sanctions websites based on technical criteria such as page speed load, duplicate content or a complex website architecture. When building your website, make sure to follow these 4 pieces of advice & keep checking your website once launched.

Use static URL instead of dynamic URLs
Build a XML sitemap for your website, it will help search engines to better understand the structure of your website
Use 301 redirects to consolidate your main domain version of your website
Use canonical tags to tell which piece of content is original

These Are The Best Resources To Bookmark

SEO is not a fixed science, there are daily updates and new strategies. If you want to expand your knowledge quickly, follow the top SEO influencers and websites: