13 Proven Skills To Boost Your SEO On Google In 2022. A Mini SEO Course

Starting A New Business? I feel the budget is the main concern for you. Right? Or you are just a newbie who wants to learn SEO strategies?

Either way, this mini SEO course is for you.

In this course you will learn the following -

1. Popular SEO Terms

2. Keyword Research

3. On-page SEO

4. Off-page SEO

Why SEO is necessary for new Business? Investing in advertisements to get customers may be difficult as your company has not even started making any profit yet.

At the same time, your new business also needs an audience in order to grow, and without an audience, your business will be stuck in this endless loop.

All you need is to create a fully professional website and get traffic to your website. Creating a website is easy; just follow my step-by-step tutorial here.

But wondering how to get Traffic? One word answer is from Google. Yes, that's correct Google gets over 5.5 billion searches every day. Now isn't that astonishing?

Well, if your website wants to get traffic from Google, then follow my 13 principles listed below to get free traffic from Google by working on a term called SEO.

What does SEO stand for?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a technique used to help your website rank top on search engines, especially on Google searches.

For example, when you type a keyword in Google Search, you can see several websites show up in the Google search results. Websites are listed in the order that Google things are relevant to your keyword.

Google and other engines are built on algorithms that will help you find a relevant answer that you are looking for with the minimum clicks possible.

SEO is a set of principles that will help you to crack search engine algorithms and rank your website top on search results in order to get free traffic.

In this article, I'll teach you Top 13 skills to boost your SEO ranking on Google.

Benefits Of SEO?

1. Get a quality traffic for your Website

2. SEO is Free for everyone

3. SEO builds trust & credibility

4. SEO can help your business grow

Popularly Used Terms in SEO

Before you learn your SEO skills, it's important to note down these popular terms used frequently in SEO.  

What is On-page & Off-page SEO?

On-page SEO is a process for optimizing the content on a web page; for SEO, it is also known as "on-site SEO". All steps mentioned here are On-page SEO.

Off-page SEO is anything you do outside of your website that has the potential to affect search engine rankings. Off-SEO includes backlinks, guest posts, social media strategy, influencer marketing, etc.

What are Keywords?

A keyword is a search term or phrase that is typed into search engines. All SEO strategies begin with a Keyword, so it becomes important for us to find the right keyword for our website in order to rank well on Google.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword Research is a process of finding popular terms or phrases that are searched on Search Engines.

Keyword research can be done using various free methods which I'll be explaining later in this tutorial, while there are also some premium tools available that make the entire process easy.

What is Keyword Research Tools?

These are specially designed premium tools that help you find the right keywords by carefully checking a few key factors using the tool's advanced features.

What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority, or DA, is the scoring system prepared by various SEO companies to help us determine how much reputation or authority that a domain holds to help it rank top on search results.

So more the DA, the easier it is for a domain to rank well on Google. DA is calculated by the domain's age and the count of relevant websites that link back to it.

What are Backlinks?

A backlink is created if another website adds a link to your website. The more backlinks higher is your chances of ranking top on search engines.

What is Keyword Competition?

Keyword Competition is a process of evaluating how difficult it is for your website to rank top in the search results for a particular keyword when compared to other competitive websites.

What is Keyword Difficulty (KD)?

Keyword Difficulty or KD is a scoring system placed to determine how easy it is to rank for a particular keyword. Less the KD score, the easier it is to rank top in search results.

What are Long-Tail Keywords?

Long-tail keywords have relatively low search volume and competition levels. In addition, long-tail terms tend to be longer than 3 words than many other types of keywords. These are the keywords that beginners can target.

What is Pagerank?

Page rank defines the position of your website in search results for a particular keyword search.

What is robot.txt file?

robot.txt file is again kept in the root folder of your website. This file helps search engines decide what pages or posts are to be indexed and what not to be indexed. Please read the article here to know more.

What are Sitemaps?

Sitemaps are the XML file (This can be dynamic incase of CMS) kept in the root folder of your websites. It lists all your created posts & pages in XML format.

This becomes extremely necessary for search engines to index your webpages if in case if some pages are not linked from your homepage.

Usually sitemaps are included in almost all CMS'S like WordPress, you can try to go to /sitemap.xml. Please submit this sitemap to search engines.

How to Submit Website to Search Engines -

1. Google Console: Submit your website for crawling on Google Search Engine.

2. Bing Webmasters: Submit your website to Bing/Yahoo Search Engine.

Google Search Console Submission Demo:

#1 Keyword Research

Finding the right Keywords can help your website to rank top in Google search results.

So what's the right keyword? These are the keywords that are widely searched on search engines (higher search volume)  at the same time have low competition (Keyword Difficulty Score or KD). These 2 factors determine how easy or difficult it is to rank top on search engines like Google.

Example 1: If a keyword has a monthly search volume of 75,000 and a Keyword Difficulty Score of 80, that means it is difficult to rank for that keyword.

Example 2: If a keyword has a monthly search volume of 1000 and a Keyword Difficulty Score of 16, that means it is easier to rank for that keyword.

SEO Keyword Research step by step:

In these steps, I'll teach you how to master SEO in 2022 with easy steps. All SEO starts with keyword research, so before we begin, let's choose a keyword that you want to target to rank on Google.

Step #1: The first step is to go to Google Suggest. Type in your keyword in the Google Search box, then it will show a lot of keyword suggestions below.

These are some of the keywords that people are looking for on Google. I would recommend going for long-tail keywords since they have low competition. For example, in our case, it may be "Coffee maker with grinder".

If you hit search and then scroll down from the search results, you can also find some additional keyword suggestions. Just make a note of all these keywords.

Step #2: Next step is to go to trends.google.com to check how popular is the keyword and also check if the particular keyword term is trending or declining.

In the above example, we can see that the search term "Coffee Maker" has shown a steady search volume over the years.

You can also note that the demand for search increases during the month of November, probably because of winter people love to drink coffee. So the best time to post a blog post would be before a week in November.  

You can also make out the during the year 2020 in November the search term topped the ranking over the years, probably because most of the businesses were closed and people tend to spend more time indoors.

I have given a basic idea on how to do your research on a particular keyword & decide if your chosen keyword is good enough to rank on Google.

Step #3: Next we need to check the search volume of a keyword & keyword difficulty score. To check this information we need help from an SEO tool. There are several SEO tools available in the market, but the most popular ones are Ahrefs, SEMRush & Ubersuggest.

I personally use Ubersuggest which is made by popular SEO expert personality, Neil Patel. In addition to that, the Tool is also budget-friendly and easy to use for beginners. Ubersuggest also offers 3 free usages per day.

Go to www.ubersuggest.com, type in the keyword you want to post about and choose your relevant country.  For example, let's say your keyword is "Coffee Maker".

You can see from the above image that the keyword has a very good search volume, but the SEO difficulty score is very high. Ideally, the SEO difficulty score should be below 35. Else it becomes difficult for your post or page to rank on google.  

Step #4:  If your chosen keyword is not good enough, you can go to Keyword Ideas where the tool will suggest some related keyword ideas. Always use this feature to get more related keywords.

Make sure you filter keyword volume is above 100+ and SEO difficulty score is below 35. Shortlist all the keywords that have less difficulty score but higher search volume. You may use these keywords in your web page or blog post.

Step #6: List down all the keywords and choose one keyword with the most search volume and low competition. This keyword is also called Primary or Focused Keyword.

On-Page SEO

Step #7: Set the right Meta Tags for your homepage, internal pages, or blog posts. In the source code of a page, meta tags describe the content of that page; they do not appear on the page itself but on the backend of the page.

Several Meta tags are used for various purposes on the website; however, the important meta that we need to take care of for SEO is the Meta Title and Meta Description.

Most of the CMS allows you to enter meta title and description data. In case you are using WordPress CMS, you can add an additional plugin called Yoast. After installing, go to a post or page; scroll down to see the following options.

This example is shown for the home or landing page. If you have multiple pages, kindly do the keyword research again for that particular page topic and repeat the process that you learned for all other pages.

Step #8, SEO for Personal or Corporate websites: Next important step in SEO is to mention your primary keyword in the web page's title i.e. (H1 Tag). Also mention the primary keyword in 1-2 subheadings of the page I.e. (h2 Tags).

Let's assume that the primary keyword (Long Tail Keyword) for a photographer's website is "Wedding photographer in Tokyo" since he is targeting wedding photography in Tokyo.

So it's advised for the photographer to mention the primary keyword at least once with a H1 tag & one or more times with H2 tags.

If you have content then please mention your primary keywords as well as other shortlisted keywords in the content.

This example is shown for the home or landing page. If you have multiple pages, kindly do the keyword research again for that particular page topic and repeat the process that you learned for all other pages.

Types of contents:

Here is the 5 basic ideas of how a website's content can be categorized.

1. Blog Posts Content

2. Videos Content

3. Product Pages for Ecommerce Websites

4. Category pages

5. Landing pages

Step #9, SEO for Blogs:

SEO for Blogs may be slightly different since it's more about providing valuable and quality information. Google algorithm is smart enough to make the difference between a blog or different websites.

• The blog should also have the primary keyword mentioned in the H1 tag as a blog title and mentioned in sub-headers as H2 tags at least 2-3 times.

• Sub-headers or H2 Tags can also contain other researched keywords which help you in ranking for other keywords.

• Primary keywords & other researched keywords should be mentioned in your content.

• Make sure you don't overload the keywords in the blog post; your web page may receive a negative ranking from Google.

• Its highly advised to keep your blog post at least 1000+ words.

• Blog Titles: Titles are really important because they're the first thing that users note before clicking the article. this Uses clickbait titles, this helps more clicks from the search results.

• Its also recommended to include numbers or figures in the blog titles; this will lead to more clicks from search results. Example: Top 13 holiday destinations to visit under $900.

• Using words to generate curiosity, emotion or credibility, for example, secrets, proven, Free, etc, in your blog title, can increase the click-through rate by 10x. Check out some beautiful examples here.

• Putting odd numbers like 7, 13, 23, etc can also help click-through rates in the searches.

• Use sentence cases for your blog titles.

• Use internal linking, linking your current post to another post of yours; this is also sometimes called link juice.  This will not only help Search Engines rank other articles but will also help users stay longer on your blog.

• Use external links on your blog, this will help your written article to build more credibility when it points to other domains with high DA scores.

• Use a passive tone in the written article, make use of phrases like You and I in the blog posts, this will build relationships among readers, and search engines will get some extra points.

• Don't write big walls of paragraphs; it becomes hard for the reader to scan the article. Instead, write 2-3 lines per paragraph. Make sure they are sufficient gaps between lines.

• Never use script fonts for your blog, use simple and right readable sized fonts.

• Re-check your articles for grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes. Use plugins like Grammarly or writer to minimize the mistakes. Send your articles to close friends to read them before you publish the article.

• Make sure your article contains very high-quality non-copyright protected images to make it attractive; you can also include infographics, to sum up, the entire article into individual infographic images.

• Use videos in the images, you don't necessarily have to use your own videos; you can also place random but relevant videos from YouTube.

Step #10, Types of Content Formats for Blog Posts:

1. How-to guides: Basically can be informative on how something is done. Example: How to make a coffee using a french press.

2. Step-by-step tutorials: Teaches people a detailed tutorial about something. Example: Step by Step tutorial to rank top on Google.

3. List posts: Pillar posts are basically a list of something with a brief explanation.  Example: Top 12 destinations to visit 2022 under $900.

4. Opinion editorials: These can be any news portal. Example your opinion on politics or sports.

Analyze Your Competitors & Write it Better:

• To analyze your competitor posts to prepare your content head on to google.com and search your primary keyword.

• Open at least five results from Google search results. Analyze the type of post written on most of the websites in search results.

• Posts can be categorized into the 4 types that are mentioned above.

You can take inspiration from other competitor's websites that are targeting similar keywords, but you write it much better and longer.  

If your competitors have written 15 things to know, then you write 16 things. This technique is also called the Brian Dean Skyscraper technique.

Step #11, SEO for Selling:

Unlike blogs & other websites where the content is highly informational with the intention to sell any product, it is mostly transactional. For online stores or services, etc, we look forward to selling something rather than expecting users to just read the article.

Just like other websites, e-commerce will follow the same steps, but the keyword research here is highly transactional.

We need to target and rank for the transactional keyword. Here are some ideas for transactional prefixes for product titles -

1. Buy

2. Coupon

3. Order [city-name] type of stores

4. Cheap

5. Purchase

6. Price

7. Pricing

8. Review

9. Brand Names

10. Product Names

Step #12, Image SEO:

Images are absolutely necessary for any piece of content, whether it is blog posts, eCommerce, or corporate websites. Images used should be copyright free, today there are plenty of free stock image websites available for download.

An important thing to note while inserting an image is to add an ALT Tag to describe the image.

Usually search engines don't understand what the image is about, so it becomes necessary for us to describe the image so that it gets indexed on image-based search engines based on Keywords added to ALT Tags.

Posting images like infographics, screenshots, graphs, etc in your blog posts can also help you increase your ranking on search engines.

Step #13, Website Speed:

Google & other search engines take website load speed verification seriously. Users who are searching for a keyword want to get information as quickly as possible; otherwise they will leave the website and look for other websites in the search results.

Hence it becomes absolutely necessary for search engines to show the website which loads at the top. Google search engine recommended load time should be below 3 secs.

Bonus Step, Backlinks & Social media with Off-page SEO:

Backlinks or Link Building:

This is a strategy used in SEO to increase your Google Page Rank by exchanging your links with other websites.

Remember that the website should be relevant to your topic & it should be at least slightly DA than your website.

A simple tip to request free exchange links is by mentioning other website links in your blog posts & writing a mail to the website owner informing them about their link in the article & requesting similar favor on their posts.

Guest Posts: Guest posts are SEO-friendly posts written by yourself which you will be sharing to another blog to post for them for free. In exchange, you will be mentioning your backlink in the article.

Paid Links: As the name says you will pay to mention your link in their posts.

Forums & Blog Comments: This is also a good source for backlinks, but make sure you genuinely post or reply and not with the intention of just building links.

Quora: Quora is a question-and-answer website. You can search for users questions and try answering them; In exchange, you can also post your links, which can certainly help you to get backlinks.

Social Media:

Social media is another important factor for SEO. Sharing valuable content on social media with your links can impact your search engine ranking.

Search engines like Google also monitor what websites are trending on social media, and that also a number of people sharing the links.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you have successfully completed a mini course in learning SEO strategy.

By the end of this course, it's safe to say you have mastered the SEO implementation to rank websites in  search engines.

What have you learnt?

1. Popular terminologies

2. In-Depth Keyword Research

3. On-Page SEO for Corporate & E-commerce

4. On-Page SEO for Blogs

5. Off-Page SEO Tactics

Learning this course can help you in:

1. Building SEO for your own websites

2. Start a successful career in SEO

3. Start a Freelancing/SEO Agency

Any questions you can email at hey[@]azfar.co.