Step By Step SEO Tutorial For Beginners in 2023
(Our 12 Yrs Traffic Stats Included)
Did you know that 80% of SEO is extremely easy.
The other 20% is where things get difficult such as technical SEO, competitor research, backlink analysis, site audits etc. Have you ever heard about 80/20 Pareto rule?
It says, 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort. The same thing applies to SEO too.If you focus on the right SEO basics, you can get ahead of the game.
It’s as simple as that.If you’re still wondering, have a look at our blog i.e BloggersPassion organic traffic stats for the last 13 years.
As you can see above over the last 13 years i.e from 2010 to 2022, our total page views have improved from ~22k to nearly ~2.6 Million pageviews. If you look at the chart carefully, you’ll also notice the overall sessions are increasing every single year (despite terrible updates from Google).
Do you also want the same consistent growth in your traffic? This ultimate SEO tutorial 2023 for beginners is just for you then!
The reason we decided to write an in-depth SEO tutorial for beginners is to help YOU get into the right direction in 2023 and get the best results from search engines like Google.
Click This Link to Give a Try (Free for the next 14 days) to Semrush Tool (We are Using it for more than 6 years now)
Contents
What Is SEO And How It Works?
Before diving into SEO tutorial for 2023, it’s good to know what this SEO is all about and how it helps to grow your website traffic and sales.
Have you ever wondered how do search engines decide which one to show first, second, third etc in their search results?
There are hundreds of websites competing for a top place in the search results. But only those websites that follows SEO win the race. SEO is a set of rules that should be followed if you want to optimize your website for search engines and improve your search engine rankings.
Google now processes over 63,000 search queries every second which translates to 5.6 billion searches per day and approximately 2 trillion global searches per year worldwide, according to HubSpot statistics.
Just imagine what this number means and how it can change your business if you manage to get your tiny share of traffic from the billions of monthly searches. Search engine traffic is the most valuable source of traffic for any website and this can lead to more conversions. SEO is highly beneficial for your online success.
Here are the two terms that you need to understand in SEO world:
I divided this SEO tutorial step by step for beginners in 2 simple parts so that you can find it easy to digest and implement. Are you ready? Let’s get into the details without much ado.
PART I – Learn SEO Basics
1. On-Page SEO
If you’re just getting started with SEO, you need to understand the importance of on-page optimization.
How you optimize your content can have a BIG impact on its ability to rank in search engines like Google.
Whether it is the on-page SEO or off-page SEO, the goal is to optimize individual web pages to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page SEO takes care of optimizing content and HTML source code of a page, user-friendliness of your site.
Simply to say, it takes care of all the things that you can do ON your website such as page titles, internal linking, meta tags & descriptions, etc. On-page SEO consists of all the elements of SEO that you can control best.
Here are the three main things that you should take care of if you are serious about online business.
1. Create A Solid Content Strategy
Content is king. Why people should visit your site? If your site contains information that they are looking for then yes they do visit. A user feels happy when he finds the result that serves his needs in the best way. So, you should write excellent content.
Google decides whether to rank your site higher or not based on your content. Google always want to give the best to its users so, provide that best through your content
Here are the factors that make up a great content:
- Brainstorm for a while and then come up with a great compelling headline before writing content.
- Make writing a daily habit and you will reach to the awesome very soon.
- Once you start writing, make sure you include all the statistics and helpful information in your content.
- Without keyword research, even the great content fails. Include your targeted keyword in your post’s headline and throughout the article. Choose your keyword before starting to write.
- Keyword stuffing won’t work anymore so carefully use your keywords in a meaningful way.
- Google loves fresh content which is nothing but posting new content or updating your older posts.
- If you write a clear cut answer then Google recognize it as an answer to a particular question.
Quick note: If you want to get more out of on-page SEO, you need to do keyword research first. Find a primary keyword for every blog post you write. That way you can use that primary keyword in page titles, meta description, alt tags etc to increase website traffic quickly.
1. Put Your Primary Keyword In The Page Title
Title is what attracts the readers. Whether your article is read or not is completely depends on your blog post title. For Google, title is very important. Experts says that maximum you can include 50-60 characters in title.
You must use primary keyword in the page title. When a person searched with that keyword, search engine highlights that keyword and displays in search results.
2. Put Your Keywords In The Meta Description
After including primary keyword in page title, it is important to include that primary keyword in meta description section too.
How it helps? The main purpose is to drive massive traffic from Google search engine. However, search engine don’t use this meta description factor in its algorithm but it uses CTR(Click-Through-Rate) to determine whether your post link is good to show or not.
So, you must include primary keyword in meta description.
Keep this in mind while writing meta description:
- Use call-to-actions somewhere in the meta description like “Learn more”, “Grab the deal” etc. so that it instills enthusiasm in the readers to click the link.
- Always write unique content in meta description which is of around 135 to 160 characters. Never write more than that.
- Never stuff keywords which is not relevant. Users feel its spamming and hits the back button immediately.
3. Don’t Ignore Meta Tags
In every blog post, it is mandatory to write meta keywords. Both in meta keyword and meta description sections, use only targeted keyword. Under the meta tags section, use all possible relevant keywords for that particular blog post also include what type of keywords, users may search.
Search engines gets information about your blog site through meta tags and thus indexes your site. Meta tags also describe what your blog post is about.
4. Optimize Your URLs
Keep your URL’s short and simple. If possible, try to use your primary keyword within it. Use clear and user-friendly URL’s for all of your blog posts. These are shown in web browser address.
Let’s say you wrote confusing URL for your blog post and there is another blog which writes similar content but write simple and clear URL, then search engines consider the simple ones.
So, optimize your URL for search engine.
How to do it?
- If possible, include keyword in URL but don’t stuff unnecessarily. It should make sense.
- Make it short as possible. It is said, 50 to 60 characters is good. If it crosses more than 100, probably you should re-write it again.
- It would be good if your page title and URL matches but in doing so, don’t write unclear URL’s.
- For example your post title is “7 best yoga exercises for women” then you can optimize URL as yourblogname.com/yoga-exercises-women
5. Use H2, H3 Tags As The Sub-Headings (By Including Your Keywords)
Heading tags, the name itself says that it will be used while writing headings. Obviously you should use heading 1 for the blog post title.
While writing sub headings in the post, use h2 and h3 tags. For the sub heading, use h2 tag and for the sub-subheading, use h3 tag. Why?
It gives the clear information to the readers what the post is all about and how it will be helpful for them? If they find it helpful they will read the entire article and share it on social media. So, writing interesting sub-headings is very important. It also helps Google to find the main topics very easily and it becomes user-friendly.
Just by reading sub-headings, users will get clarity. If possible include keywords in subheadings, but don’t stuff forcibly as it may lose its meaning.
6. Image Alt Tags Are Important
One image speaks louder more than thousands of words. So, in your blog post, use images related to your post.
Including images helps in getting shared in Pinterest and Twitter massively. Well, to improve the accessibility to your blog site, you must write alt text for the image you upload.
Alt text describes what the image is about.
How it is helpful?
- If Google fails to show up image at least the alt tag will be displayed. This is because, search engine find it very difficult to read. So search engine can understand if you write alt text for image.
- It also helps for visually impaired as they use screen readers. So, using alt text for image is a good practice. Always, be unique while writing alt text for an image.
- Use keywords in image alt text if possible as it increases the chances of image showing up in search results.
If you use WordPress, it is very easy to fill alt text for an image as it shows alt text dialogue box when you upload an image.
Read: Image SEO: How to Optimize Images for Google Search
7. Use Your Primary Keyword In The Introduction Of Your Post
Your blog post introduction should be very interesting to read. Don’t drag too much information here. Use some statistics in the introduction part that is related to your blog post. At least once, use your primary keyword in the introduction part.
8. Internal Linking Is Super Important
Internal links are nothing but links that refers one of your previous blog posts in your blog.
Why to do internal linking?
- Your older posts gets new life when you link in your new post. Include only relevant links. if you feel so and so previous blog post will be helpful to the reader while reading the current post then only include link.
- It enhances their search engine rankings by increasing their Page Authority(PA).
You can do internal linking only if you have lots of content. So, create great content. Write lots of posts in your blog.
Quick note: Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, I’ve a simple tip for you in this SEO tutorial for beginners: start using Rank Math SEO plugin. It’s free and you can do all the above things (on page optimization) easily even if you’re not a SEO master.
2. Provide Great Experience To User Through Site Architecture
A good website architecture provides a great experience to the user when he navigates your page. You need to optimize a few things in order for a great search engine experience.
- Make your website easy to crawl: Crawlability is the ability of search engine robots to crawl and index the pages on a website. If the links on your site are formatted in a way that is not search-engine friendly, then your site’s crawlability would be considered extremely poor. One of the best tools that you can use to estimate how a search engine robot will crawl your site is using Xenu’s Link Sleuth.
- Myths around duplicate content: Reposting your content on other websites or publishing your guest posts again on your own site doesn’t hurt your SEO. The best way to combat duplicate content is to set up a 301 redirect from the duplicate page to the original content page.
- Make your site mobile-friendly: Over 500 million Facebook users only use facebook through their mobile phone on a daily basis. You can check your mobile friendliness of your site using this Google’s tool.
- Page speed: Time is more than anything and long loading times can absolutely kill your conversions. Use pagespeed insights to check it.
- Change the structure of permalinks: Change your WordPress permalink structure. Go to Settings, under that click on Permalinks and select Post name. Include your targeted keywords in the URLs of your blog posts instead of dates or random things.
Off-Page SEO
In the above step, we just learned the very basics of on-page SEO. Now, let’s dive into off-page SEO.
Usually, most of the people think off-page SEO is all about links. No, it’s not just links, it’s even more. Off-page is all about building and growing your site’s authority through links, social shares, user engagement and so on.
Here’s what all you need to know about off-page optimization to take your website’s organic traffic, rankings and authority to the next level.
What Is Off-Page SEO?
Even though there is no proper definition for this, what I can say is, it’s an act of optimizing your brand’s presence both in online and offline by using content, relationships and link. Simply to say, it refers to the techniques that can be used to improve the position of a web site in the search engine results page (SERPs).
Benefits of off-page SEO:
- Increases website rank: The website will rank higher in the SERPs which also means more traffic.
- Increases PageRank: Google measures the importance of a website through Pagerank which is a number between 0 and 10.
- Your website gets more exposure: When your website is ranked high, it automatically gets more exposure, gets more links, more visits and more social media mentions.
Here are the four main things that you should take care of, if you are serious about getting more traffic to your website
Build Trust: Learn How To Build Trust
While ranking pages in the top 10 search results, Google considers PageRank. Trustrank is a way for Google to see whether your site is legit or not.
Here are the four ways that you can build up trust:
- Improve authority: The overall authority of your site is determined by 2 kinds of authority. One is Domain Authority that deals with how well known your domain name is and the other one is Page Authority that relates to how authoritative the content of a single page is.
- Bounce rate: It is the measure of how many people view only one page on your site, before immediately leaving again. Content, loading times, usability and attracting the right readers are all part of decreasing your bounce rate.
- Domain age matters: If you haven’t got your site up and running yet, then find an affordable, expired domain and start using it.
- Enhance your personal identity: Having a brand or personal identity online is a huge trust signal for search engines. However, it takes time to build.
Link Building: Most Effective Off Page SEO Method
Links are very important to Google. If there are no links pointing to your website then In fact, it’s almost impossible for Google to determine the value of your web page no matter how useful, fresh or in-depth content you have.
It is the most popular and effective off-Page SEO method. If you want to bypass your competitors and rank higher then you need to build external links to your website. Don’t just wait for people to link to you, take initiative and ask for them.
Make sure you follow these three factors while acquiring backlinks:
- Quality is everything: The quality of your links matters much more than the amount of links you have. Reaching out to the right sources and offer value in exchange for a solid link.
- Anchor text: The anchor text is the text used when other sites link to you
- Number of links: Build high quality backlinks at scale.
Get Socialized: Be More Active On Social Media To Get Better Rankings
When google recognizes your participation more on social networks, it’s more likely to show you results from those brands, or even personal contacts you have. Being active on social media helps you rank better.
Here are the two main factors of how you can influence on social media:
- Who shares matters to Google: If any influencer in your niche shares your content then that share has more value in the eyes of Google. How to make them share your content? Before you even publish, include them by quoting or interviewing them. You can find a similar article with the help of tools like Buzzsumo and find influencers who shared it. Then let them know you published a new piece on the same topic.
- Number of shares: If your content goes viral, then it automatically gets more shares. See that you publish great content that which is trending.
Engage In Forums And Related Boards
If you want to get noticed by your desired audience and the influencers then visit the most popular blogs in your niche and leave thoughtful comments. Engage more on Quora and Reddit related to your niche questions and topics.
The relationships built on these platforms have a way of paying huge dividends and can be invaluable for off-page SEO.
If anyone notices your comments on one of these platforms, and starts following you either on Google or LinkedIn to learn about you or your brand, then it ultimately leads them to your website which will end up either in sign up for your newsletter or subscribe to your blog.
Both on-page SEO and off-page SEO are highly important for the success of an online business. If you are doing an online business, then you need to understand the relevance of these two processes in order to get organic traffic from search engines.
These are the ones that helps your websites get found by the search engines whenever somebody searches for particular keywords relevant to your site.
Write Answers On Quora (Link To Your Content)
You can drive lot of traffic to your blog by writing answers on Quora.
What is Quora? It is Q&A website where you get quality answers for any question. It has more than 4.6 million registered users.
Just imagine, if you could write very good answers on Quora related to your blog niche, how much traffic you can drive just from Quora itself.
What you can do on Quora?
- Set up your bio, areas of interest.
- Use blog link in your profile bio. Never give any confused information because if any of your answers goes viral, majority of the people reads your bio. So, you should bring those visitors to your blog.
- Subscribe to only those topics that you want to see in the feed.
- Select topics based on your blog niche.
- Write useful answers to the most discussed as well as the most viewed question.
- Include your blog post link in the answer if that helps.
- If you don’t have any such post in your blog, then at the end of the answer, include your blog link.
- You can ask question and answer that question by yourself.
What you shouldn’t do on Quora?
- In the name of promotion, don’t give links in the answer like “Read the rest of the answer on my blog”, “check my blog”. Doing so, your answer will be downvoted.
- Never ever spam. There are so many successful entrepreneurs and business people also there. So, be careful while writing.
3. Attract High Quality Backlinks
If you want to gain more authority and achieve higher rankings in the search engines, then obtaining high quality, relevant backlinks to your site is one of the most important things you should do.
Apart from the content, links are the #1 ranking factor. Yes, Google cares more about links. But wait, not all links are equal, you need to be very careful when you start a link building campaign. Make sure that the links you build are natural so that Google won’t penalize your site.
The Importance Of Backlinks
If you are a newbie in blogging, you will be wondering how to get links from authority sites. To grow as a successful blogger, you should get some authority links to your blog.
Link building is a powerful strategy to increase rankings for your post in search engine. If you want your blog post to be displayed in the first page of search engine results, you must be very serious about building links from authority sites.
What are authority sites?
A site that has much influence in digital world and is trusted by several users. These are the sites that are ranked top of the SERP(Search Engine Results Page). These are the sites that provide high quality and useful content.
What benefits your blog gets if you can get links from authority sites?
- More organic search traffic to your blog.
- More number of social sharings for your blog posts.
- Increases Domain Authority(DA) of your blog site.
Well, now the question is how to get links from authority sites?
1. Do Guest Posting
Make a list of influential bloggers in your niche. Come up with topic idea and start contacting them through mail.
How you can find sites to write guest posts?
- Type “your blog niche” + “write for us” in Google. For example, “health blog” + “write for us” displays all the results that accepts guest posts.
- You can also check as “your blog niche” + “guest post”.
2. Fill The Gaps In Content
Not every blogger covers each topic completely. Even a great blogger misses some details while writing post. For example, in a post if it mentions, find your competitors and start link building. But they may forget to mention where to find.
This is incomplete information. When you find such blog posts with gaps in the content, reach out the blog owners and let them know. You offer them that you will fill the gaps in the content. So, that you can get credit to link to your blog.
Remember that you should find such blog posts only from authority sites and also related to your blog niche.
3. Spy On Your Competitors
It is not at all fault to spy on your competitors. Observe where they are getting backlinks and follow it. How to check?
- You can use Semrush and type the keyword of your niche, it will display all your competitor URLs.
- You can also use free tools such as open link profiler and submit each of your competitor URLs to observe their backlinks. Once you analyze their backlink sources, you can easily find various opportunities to attract those links to your sites.
4. Check Broken Links And Contact Site Owner
By checking broken or dead links on authority sites, you can get a link. How to check for broken links of your competitor’s so you can take benefit from them?
- Type keywords of your nice in Google and select one URL.
- Now go to broken link checker, submit the URL and search for broken links. If any of the displayed links goes to 404 error page, yes you found it.
- Now, mail to the blog owner and you can suggest to replace that dead link with your post link. Make sure that you have post related to that content in your blog.
5. Update Old Posts
It is recommended to update old posts every now and then in order to keep the site up to date. But it is impossible for the bloggers who has hundreds of posts in their sites.
If you can help them in updating their old posts, you will get backlink as a reward. So find the outdated content in authority sites of your blog niche and contact them that you will update it for free. There are many people (even me) who likes to get detailed and informative post contributions from others and I won’t mind giving a link back as the credit.
6. Interview Top Bloggers
Interviewing the influential bloggers in your industry is the quickest way to boost your online visibility, social shares, links and traffic.
To increase your credibility in digital world, to drive traffic to your blog, to build relationships with other bloggers, to attract readers to your blog, do interviews with top influencers in your blog niche.
While reaching them for interview, don’t ask them too many questions. Top bloggers are usually very busy so ask them few questions but important and that helps your readers. Here are 2 more effective ways.
- Broken link building: Find broken links on a website related to your niche and email the content owner and notify them about broken link. Suggest with the similar link from your website and ask them to update their post. Download and install the Google Chrome plugin called Check my Links to discover broken links. When reaching out, be friendly and introduce yourself.
- Use infographics: It is one of the most popular methods for bringing traffic to your website and gaining valuable backlinks. Follow the current trending topics and see what people are looking for, then create your infographic using statistical data. Then submit your infographic to the directories like visual.ly, Reddit, submit infographics.
Also build internal links: These are very important for running a successful blog. With a good internal linking structure, you can help users easily navigate through your website and increase the overall user experience.
You can spy on your competitors’ backlinks using Monitor Backlinks. You can use Semrush tool to analyze from where your competitors getting authoritative backlinks. If you want to build backlinks to your website, you have to do it with caution and knowledge. Never ask any webmaster for a link directly. By doing so, you will damage your relationship with them.
Now, you know the basics of SEO. Create a beautiful content and promote it. Do email outreach to promote your best articles.
PART II – Mastering The SEO
Optimizing your content for search engines and your website visitors is one thing, improving rankings for your content is another thing.
If you want to know how to jumpstart your search rankings, off-page SEO is the key.
4. Build A List Of Profitable Keywords
You need to figure out the RIGHT keywords to your blog. If you can make a list of all profitable keywords then it is so easy to drive massive traffic. Once you have the pretty good list of keywords then you can start writing content around it.
Before going to build the list, you need to know about long tail keywords.
If you are not using long tail keywords in your content, then it means you are missing out a lot of search traffic. These are the keywords that are profitable to target. Do you know that Amazon makes 57 percent of their sales from long-tail keywords?
If you consistently publish in-depth content around long tail keywords, you will see an increase in search traffic and will attract paying customers.What are long tail keywords?
Long tail keywords are four or more keywords that are more specific that get less search traffic but will usually have a higher conversion value.
Here are the tools that will help you can find long tail keywords for your niche:
- Google keyword planner: You can get information directly from Google which is the search engine you are most likely to target when optimizing your website. iT generates plenty of long tail keywords.
- Ubersuggest: This tool provides you with all of the keywords and data that you need to make informed decisions. It also provides you with keywords that are not available through the Google Keyword Planner.
- Soovle: This free keyword research tool provides autocomplete suggestions from a variety of sources to help you boost your search volume.
- Bulk keyword generator: If you are searching for local keywords for your business then this tool serves your purpose. Just enter your service location and click “Generate keywords”. You will be given a list of keywords.
- 7search: Visit 7search and click on Advertisers tab then click the “enter your keywords” tab to continue. Enter your keywords, for example “Marketing tips” then click the green button. You will be given a list of long tail keywords.
Always start with your seed keyword to find long tail variations. You can add commercial intent to the keywords Commercial keywords are the ones that modify or qualify the long tail keywords. It has words like Buy, Review, Coupon, Discount, Deal, Order etc.
By using any one of the tools above, you will have a list of long tail keywords. Using Google keyword planner, you can get the rough idea of traffic levels for those keywords.
Now, you have the long tail keywords. Let’s analyze how difficult it will be to rank for a certain keyword. For this purpose, download SEOQuake Chrome extension . It turns the relevant SEO data of each site that is displayed below each search result.
You can choose what parameters to be displayed.
Based on age and traffic for the list of keywords you made, optimize your content around those profitable keywords.
5. Create Long-Form Of Content
Everyone says write lengthy and amazing content to get more traffic and to get potential readers. Every blogger is well aware of the fact that short content is dead. There is no scope for the articles with 600-word count.
For a new blogger writing lengthy content is very challenging. To increase Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA), to drive search engine traffic writing lengthy content is very crucial.
Just because you wrote lengthy content, won’t fetch any results. What else is needed? It should be keyword centric and useful.While writing content, you need to make sure that you are following these:
- Who are my target audience? What exactly I am gonna convey to them through this content?
- How it will be helpful to them? How this post can solve their problem?
That being said, how to create lengthy content? How to structure your blog post for lengthy content?
Well, I say, more than writing lengthy content, you must write quality content that is useful to your readers. You are not alone. There are lots of people who struggle to write lengthy and useful content. To drive organic search engine traffic, you must create 1000 to 3000 word length article and they also help you get more social shares. See the image below!
When you search for something say, “yoga poses for weight loss”, search engine displays plenty of articles. To compete with, your content should be the best.
Content is king and this should be accepted. If you want to stand in the crowd, only content can help you in this regard.
While creating lengthy post, there is a chance that your readers may get boredom. So, to make it interesting, follow these while writing:
- Add visuals in your post so they can make your content even more interesting.
- Never repeat what your competitors also saying about it. Be unique.
- Write content that engages your reader. If you give public speech, how you will say…in the same way reflect that in your content too.
- Use statistics related to your post. This increases trust in your readers.
- Make use of charts wherever it is necessary.
- Write catchy headings in your blog post to make your readers read your post further. For example, “How I lost 15kgs in 15 days?”
- Research, research, research. To write lengthy content, first of all you must have some information to write. So, do extensive research before even start writing content.
- Format your article properly. Use sub headings and sub subheadings.
- Give up to date information in your content. See what is trending in your niche topic. To check for top performing content in your niche, use Buzzsumo.
Break you content into smaller pieces. For example, say you are writing about “weight loss”. Make a list of ideas related to it and try to discuss that in your blog post.
- Is it possible to lose weight in 1 month?
- What diet has to be taken?
- What exercise will help in weight loss?
- What happens to your body if you lose weight immediately?
Likewise you need to make list of ideas to support your topic. Now make killer headlines in your post. Make it more engaging rather than simply writing tips. Speak out practically rather than logically.
Some tips while writing:
- Start writing every single day.
- Avoid distractions while writing. Turn off social media sites till you finish writing.
- Focus while writing. You can check grammatical mistakes once you start proofreading your article, Just go with the flow.
- Draft your article. Make an outline and start expanding.
- Keep deadlines and reward yourself once done.
- Analyze your competitors.
- Make sure you write content around keywords of your blog niche.
- Use videos or images or quotes or presentations in your content.
What happens if you write 3000 word article?
- It connects you with right audience.
- It attracts backlinks thereby increasing organic search traffic.
- You will get loyal audience, If you are keeping in-depth information in your content, readers won’t go for other websites as they get all the information they want.
Everything seems to be difficult in the beginning but once you start it becomes easy. The same with writing 3000 word article.
Did you know that the famous blogger Neil Patel’s most shared articles are of 5000 words. If one can achieve the best results by creating long form of content regularly, you too can.
Start creating long form of content from now on if you want achieve SEO success.
6. Spy On Your Competitors And Reap The Benefits
If you want to grow your business, then spy on your competitors. In order to dominate your competition, you have to know what your competitors are doing from every angle like for what keywords they are ranking? How are they engaging in social media? From where they are getting quality backlinks? What strategy they are using for marketing?
Competitor analysis is a vital part of marketing. A successful marketing strategy is based on analyzing the customer behavior and doing extensive competitor analysis.
You may be wondering how to get more shares and ultimately grow the audience. You can get all this information by analyzing what your competitors are doing. This you can do with Semrush.
With this tool, you can easily analyze which are the best performing keywords of your competitors. It also enables you to analyze competitors display ads and get the right keywords for both your SEO and PPC campaigns.
This is how you can use Semrush for doing competitor analysis.
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Login to the dashboard and enter your competitor’s site URL. You can also choose the country you wish to analyze. Here I entered “amazon.in”
Clicking on “positions” under “Organic Research” will display the keywords where your competitor is ranking organically. To know about their paid search positions, click on “positions” under “Advertising Research”.
This is how you can use Semrush data:
- Enter your top keywords in Semrush search bar and it will list several websites.
- Make a note of these and check your top 5 competitors.
- Click on each of these in turn and note the same information. It’s useful to find out the top 5 keywords they are using and also their top 5 competitors.
- Compare their keywords with yours.
- Now, click on “Positions” in the left hand menu and examine the more detailed information on your own site and that of each competitor. This will give a more detailed understanding of the performance of the various keywords each is using.
You can compare your competitor traffic with yours and any paid traffic they have. From this, you will know how well your competitors’ sites are performing relative to yours and what keywords they are making best use of.
Semrush offers a unique suite of tools to carry out effective analysis of the keywords that your competitors are using to achieve Google ranking.
Apart from keyword research and competitor research, this tool also helps you to accomplish two other important things: one is site audit and the other one is backlink analysis. Through its site audit tool, you can do a thorough audit of your current on-site SEO and ensure your pages are optimized properly for your most important keywords.
With Semrush’s Backlink tools, you can see where they are getting links and try to get some of those same links for your website.
You will be able to see the following information about your competitor’s links like total number of backlinks, number of referring domains, number of referring IPs, number of follow and no-follow links, type of link (text, image, etc.), a list of the backlinks for any given domain, anchor text for each link, number of external links and internal links.
With the backlinks comparison tool, you can compare the links of up to 5 different domains and this is a great tool for monitoring your progress against your competitors as well as another avenue to see their link profiles.
Semrush shows you the search engine results pages (SERPs) and keywords all updated in real time. As it gives real-time keyword and competitive insights, you can create content that will interest your readers.
7. Track Your SEO Progress
Once you are done with practicing both on-page SEO, building backlinks and off-page SEO, it’s time to monitor your results by tracking your SEO progress.
The Importance Of SEO Tools
As I said, SEO is a huge ocean and you can’t dive into it without having access to the right tools. Yes, there are hundreds of SEO tools available but the majority of them don’t give you the right results. I’ve used hundreds of tools over the last 6 years and here are a few SEO tools that I highly recommend to begin your SEO journey.
Rank Math SEO: I so much love this plugin. It’s free and easy to use. If you want to boost your on-page SEO (which will be covered later in this massive beginner’s guide to SEO), this plugin is a must for you.
Semrush: I’ve been using this SEO tool for over 6 years and not only have I tripled my overall search traffic but also the website sales. This is a MUST-have tool for anyone who is serious about getting better search rankings and sales.
Here are a few things you can do with this tool.
- Competitor’s research
- Keyword research
- Backlink analysis
- Check traffic of any site
- Domain to domain comparison
- Site audit to fix your site issues
- PPC
- Ad research
You can literally find everything about any website in the world (including their best performing keywords, ads, backlink sources) using Semrush. So it’s the perfect tool for all your SEO needs. Here’s an unbiased Semrush review that can be helpful for you to know why you need it.
Exclusive Deal: For a limited time, you can get Semrush pro account free for 14 days. Use this special link to get it free ($129.95 offer!).
Here are few main tools you can use for this purpose:
- Google Analytics: Wanna learn more about your visitors? Then monitor your organic search traffic sources to see what keywords people are using to find your website in search results. So that you will understand what keywords you should be targeting with your SEO campaign.
- Authority Labs: You can use this tool to track keyword rankings for your website so that you can see if they are moving up in search results. Create a free account which you can get after using the 14 day trial of the pro account.
Start with these tools to learn more about whether your SEO efforts are making a difference or not.
- 12 Ways to Create High Quality Backlinks Like a Pro
- Use These 10 FREE Tools To Find Traffic Of ANY Website In The World
- Best Semrush Alternatives: Free & Paid Tools Included
- How to Check If a Website Is Penalized by Google?
- How to Get Google to Index Your New Website Quickly?
- Moz vs Semrush: An Honest Comparison
- Top Ahrefs Alternatives: Free & Paid Tools
- Best Backlink Checker Tools to Check Backlinks for a Website
- People Also Search For: How to Rank for These Queries?
FAQs About SEO For Beginners
Here are a few important questions around SEO for beginners in 2023 and beyond.
1. What are the most powerful SEO types?
Although there are a wide range of SEO categories available but the most important ones are;
- On page SEO (it refers to all the actions taken within the website to get better ranking and to get better traffic from search engines and includes inserting your keywords in titles, meta description, URL, image alt tags etc)
- Off page SEO (it refers to all the actions you take outside of your site to influence your site rankings which include building links using tactics such as guest posting, influencer marketing, email outreach, social bookmarking etc)
2. What are the best SEO tools for a beginner?
There are literally thousands of SEO tools out there for beginners but here are few great tools you can use.
- Semrush
- Ahrefs
- Ubersuggest
- Moz tools
- Rank Math SEO
- SpyFu
Here’s a list of some of the best SEO tools that you can use to improve your search traffic. So make sure to check out the list of great SEO tools.
3. What is robots.txt file?
Robots.txt is a most important text file that tells search engine robots which pages on your site to crawl and which pages not to crawl. Search engine robots main aim is to read your website data. When search engine crawlers visit your site, they will be looking for some special file which is robot.txt file. This file tells to search engine spiders which pages of your site should be index and which pages of your site should be ignored.
4. What is better SEO or PPC?
SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization which is the most powerful FREE way to generate more traffic and leads to your site but it often takes time to generate results.
PPC refers to Pay Per Click (and also known as SEM, Search Engine Marketing) is a powerful PAID promotion strategy to increase your site’s traffic from search engines really quickly.
SEO is better if you’re looking for long term results (which is also free) and PPC is better for you if you’re looking for faster results.
We’ve written a detailed comparison post between SEO vs SEM where you can find all the details.
5. How to measure a website’s SEO performance?
Here are a few things you need to analyze if you want to measure the SEO performance of your site.
- Keyword Rankings
- Bounce Rate (the lower the better)
- Mobile Traffic (visitors coming from mobiles)
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- Domain Authority (here are a few tips on increasing your domain authority)
- Backlink profile
- Organic Traffic
- Time Spent on Page (also known as dwell time)
Browse more SEO Tutorials 2023:
- Best On-page SEO Techniques to Get Top Rankings on Google in 2023
- Off Page SEO Techniques to Get Top Rankings on Google in 2023
- Top White Hat SEO Techniques to Boost Search Rankings in 2023
- Top Gray Hat SEO Techniques to Uplift Your Website Rankings
- Black Hat SEO techniques to Avoid at All Cost in 2023
- Increase Your Pinterest Visibility: 2023 SEO Strategies
Final Thoughts On SEO Tutorial 2023 For Beginners
SEO is not hard. I’ve been doing it for many years and I know it becomes easy when you get the basics right.
That’s why I’ve decided to write a detailed SEO tutorial for beginners to get better search rankings and traffic in 2023. If you’re just starting out, focus on one SEO technique (be it on-page SEO, site audit, or link building) at a time to reap the best rewards.
So what are your thoughts? Did you like this SEO tutorial 2023 for beginners? Do you have any more tips to share? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Hi Anil,
This huge SEO guide is enough to start learning SEO and after doing practice on that technique which you tell in this article its will be a lot to learn the major SEO part. As we know the SEO is the most significant part of any blogger or digital marketer life that’s why we need to learn those things in an effective way. and you made it easy for us. So thanks for this awesome guide, Almost every week I read your guide, again and again, So I do not go to the wrong path.
Can you tell whats the major change you observed in SEO this year 2021 is (Good or Bad for bloggers)?
Hi Anil,
This is very nice blog on SEO. This is ultimate simplification of SEO post that made very easy to understand.
Hello Anil bro.
I believe from my bottom of my soul you are the ultimate for SEO. I’ve read a-z this content really helpful with a clear picture. I also follow your blog when I feel any trouble related SEO issue. Big thanks to you dear for your helpful creation.
Regards
Mohit Bhargav
Hello Anil nice post. I have recently started a blog and want to ask you that do external links pass on more value than internal links. And do external image links have any value ? Thank you.
Amey you should build both types of links. Both of them are important. No doubt links coming from other sites (if they are relevant) will have more benefits than internal links. But internal links are something you can build with ease and you have full control over things in this case.
External links will have more value than internal links if coming from relevant sources. But internal linking is something which is in your control and you can build any amount of links to a target page from relevant blogs on your content where it makes sense.
Hello Anil Sir,
It’s a full value-packed SEO tutorial for beginner. After reading this post, I understood what is SEO! It’s very complicated to learn SEO by video but this article makes it easy to learn SEO.
I think everyone should read this article.
Thank you Anil Sir for writing a valuable SEO tutorial for us!
Hey Anil Sir,
You have came back with another amazing blog post. You have described all the aspect which is very very essential for every blog.
I am employing most of the point which you have covered. Rest of them will try soon.
Thanks for sharing such a beneficial article.
Keep sharing and keep growing.
Archana
Regards
Thank you for this post. How many backlink should create daily ?
Himanshu just go for high quality and relevant backlinks only. And when it comes about quality, you will not be able to build too many in a day as it takes lots of effort in building high quality backlinks. If you create just 30-40 backlinks in a month and if they have high quality, they are good enough to move things forward.
SEO is not tough thing but google aplly the changes day by day many social bookmarking site also blocked that a reason it’s going to tough. i write question and answer book for getting certification.
Hi There
Appreciate it for your relevant post. I got well knowledge of off page and on page SEO techniques. I scrolled down and spend 1 hour gaining some knowledge from this post. Highly recommended post. If you are beginners in SEO. This post is perfect post for everyone who wants to be successful in SEO.
Hey Anil! Thanks for this amazing piece of content but my query is I am using Adwords for keyword research but some of the keywords and their related terms have the same search volume so I just want to know whether that search volume is accurate or not or else I have to go for Semrush.
Other than that your all blogs are very useful and explained in a great manner. Keep Sharing…
SEO gives the best benefits in company ROI and also it is good for organic search results.SEO increase the traffic on the website but you should know the right keywords.
Hey Anil !
Very detailed post at here. I am thinking about new Google updated algorithms recently.
You can addon some information into this post.
Against, keeps your valuable information.
Thanks
My website is 8 months old and I am doing only on-page seo but not off-page seo. Does the on-page seo is enough to get decent traffic to my website.
How much traffic you’re currently getting? 8 months old blog should get at least 100 visits a day so if you’re generating 3K views a month, you’re on the right track. If not, you should focus on finding low competitive keywords, tweak your content strategy and learn SEO to bring more traffic. And yes, on page SEO plays a key role in bringing more traffic.
Hi both, on page and off page are equally important. In fact, off page seo is even more important as involves in link building which helps you get better rankings in search engines. So make sure to focus on link building and we’ve written a detailed post around it https://bloggerspassion.com/ways-to-create-quality-backlinks/ (you can read from here) where you’ll find few great ways to build links.
Really amazed by this great piece of content which covers all the corners of strategies which a blogger/SEO guy need to grow their website (or) blog.
I really appreciate this article Anil Bro, It means a lot for newbies and experienced as well. And here the things I like very much are Broken link building, Longtail keyword strategy, Spying on competitors.
Keep up the great work!!
Cheers
Karthik Reddy
Hi karthik, glad you found it useful. We wanted to make this article a one stop tutorial for beginners who want to learn about SEO and that’s why it’s so detailed. If you’ve any questions, you can ask in the comments.
I started a blog 3 weeks ago. Really enjoyed the blog as a platform to share my thoughts and ideas but when I start thinking about traffic, it gets demotivating. Has been dismal. I am trying to do some of the things you and others suggested but when it comes to SEO and some of these other ‘tech stuff’, I get turned off.
I like the way your post is written, loads of info in a simple way. Since you started in 2009, I figured that I should start seriously worrying if my visitors rate do not spike up in the next couple of years. Thanks for the time spent to teach.
Hi Anil Bro,
Since SEO is quite difficult after Google Algorithm updates but I think the tips you have mentioned in this article will help bloggers to rank their site in SERP. But Really Anil Bro you have Mentioned Great Knowledge about Off page SEO and ON Page SEO.
Thanks Anil, so detailed and fascinating! It’s really good tips for on page and off page SEO. The recommended links are awesome too and got the several meaningful information from there.
Great post i follow both seo – onPage seo and offpage seo buy my traffic drop dramatically. Can you me ideas how to fix them?
Hey Anil Really superb post.
The SEO is the backbone of any website as it drives organic traffic from search engines. The tips and tricks you explained in this article is superb and sure I will try out in my website.
There is always some updates from google about its algorithm and it bit difficult to track all. Your opinion on this if any. Thanks in advance
Hey Anil great post.
Just a question you mentioned that one should build quality backlinks at scale for your website. Do you mean building do-follow links or on the websites having high trust rank.
And do social shares of a page have any weigh on the google search ranking for that page.
This is a great tutorial. I learned a few new things. Also thanks for including links to some of the tools that are out there. I look forward to reading more articles you write.
This is epic post bro. Very insightful to all newbies out there. Each and every blogger should speak, eat, sleep and breathe SEO. People forget on page SEO and start chasing Off page SEO tactics. On-page SEO is equally important. I would suggest people research on topics before writing any article. Semrush + Buzzsumo are the ideal combinations for keyword and content research.
Hi Rupesh, glad you liked this SEO tutorial for beginners. That’s a great quote, but you don’t have to take SEO so much seriously especially when you’re starting out. Instead, look for ways to add value to people with your content. Yes, on page SEO important if you want to get better rankings for your target keywords.
As I’m a beginner in SEO the things which you mention here is really awesome for SEO guys. Can anyone tell me I m only know Off page SEO how can I do on page SEO or have you any tutorials for on page SEO. Please give me.
If you’re looking for on page and off page SEO tips at one place, I recommend you to check out this post: https://bloggerspassion.com/seo-tutorial-for-beginners/ where you can learn everything about SEO in 1 or 2 hours, must read guide for beginners, Alok.
Very good post. Both on page and off page SEO are necessary for a website. I am working on page SEO now.
This post is great for beginners as well as some professionals.
Hi Saurabh, yes, both on page and off page SEO are necessary for a website to rank well in search engines. Just make sure to take small steps instead of focusing on too many things at once. I recommend you to check out this post: https://bloggerspassion.com/seo-tutorial-for-beginners/ if you want more info about best SEO tips.
Hello Anil,
Great Post. SEO is considered as backbone of your site traffic. It will help you to drive huge organic traffic free of cost. By implementing the right SEO strategies anyone can rank their site. Since SEO is quite difficult after Google Algorithm updates but I think the tips you have mentioned in this article will help bloggers to rank their site in SERP.
Hi Vishwajeet, yes SEO is hard because Google makes a ton of changes every year. Just focus on timeless SEO related stuff such as creating great content, attracting quality links and so on and you’ll get long lasting results.