SEO 101: 13 Things Every SEO Newbie Needs to Know

If you find yourself a bit intimidated whenever the subject of SEO comes up, you are certainly not alone. While some aspects of SEO get technical and require coding experience, a lot of it is more intuitive than you think. It’s amazing what just a little bit of base knowledge can do to start building up your confidence.

Whether you are a small business owner, new to the marketing industry, or just someone looking to level up your digital marketing acumen, here are 10 fundamental SEO concepts (all explained in plain language):

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing your website to get more traffic from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

No matter how simple or complex, all SEO tactics share the same goal. They want to get more visitors to your website for… wait for it… little to no cost. The more your website appears for keywords and search inquiries related to your business, the more qualified leads you could get without paying high advertising costs. And the higher your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), the more likely your website is to get clicked.

2. Search engines use proprietary “algorithms” to decide which websites will appear for various search inquiries.

When I was first introduced to SEO over 12 years ago, I was told: “Don’t try to be smarter than Google, you’ll never be smarter than Google.” While there are certain things we know for certain are factored into search engine algorithms (more on those below), the algorithms are constantly being updated by some of the smartest people in the tech world to ensure the average person can never beat the system.

3. Search engines must be able to “crawl” your website and “index” your web page content.

When people ask how Google finds and catalogs website content, SEO pros often use a spider metaphor. Imagine Google has a bunch of little spiders they send to “crawl” around your website. These spiders store the content they find in an “index” they can refer back to when they receive a relevant search inquiry. But if the spiders cannot crawl and index your web pages, they also can’t direct users to them. You can use Google Search Console to check the indexing status of all your individual web pages.

4. Keyword research is an essential SEO practice.

Determining what types of keywords or phrases your target audience is likely to type into Google’s search bar is fundamental to the art of SEO. However, Google is getting more advanced. “Search intent” can now be detected even if certain keyword combinations are not used. An example could be “makeup with clean ingredients” versus using the keywords “organic makeup.” There are incredible tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs that can help you find the most commonly used keywords and search terms for your business.

5. There are “brand terms” and “non-brand terms” and ideally you want your website to rank well for both.

Simply put, brand terms include your business name in the keyword set and non-brand terms do not. An example could be, “Becki’s Custom Paintings” versus “custom paintings.” It’s obviously quite a bit harder to rank for non-brand terms with so many competitors targeting the same keyword combinations. But non-brand terms also generate more traffic and have a higher potential to bring in new customers.

6. “Long-tail keywords” generate less traffic volume but offer an opportunity to rank higher than your competitors.

Long-tail keywords are keyword combinations that are highly specific and have a much lower volume of inquiries. An example could be, “how to protect your painting from sun damage.” There may not be a ton of users Googling that information each month but if you had highly-relevant content on your site directly related to that inquiry, you have a greater likelihood of ranking above your competitors.

7. Blogs are a fantastic tool to leverage the SEO power of long-tail keywords.

A blog provides an opportunity to dive deep into specific, niche topics that may otherwise feel too granular for your standard web pages. The wider the range of blog topics you cover, the wider the range of searches you could show up for. On average, businesses that blog get 55% more traffic to their websites (source: Wordstream, 2022).

8. “On-Page SEO” refers to anything on your web pages that can be optimized to help your SEO rankings (hint: not all of them require coding knowledge).

Headlines that contain appropriate keywords and make your web pages more scannable help search engines and users better understand what type of content they can expect. And although the names sound technical, the title tags and meta descriptions that you see on search engine results pages are very important for SEO (click the links for each term to get a visual – you'll recognize them immediately!) Google will do its best to write these for you, but you also have the option to write them yourself. This provides you with a unique opportunity to incorporate target keywords and get more strategic about how you communicate your web page content to Google and potential visitors.

9. Images can also be manipulated to boost SEO.

Image file names are another way Google determines what type of content is on your site. Going back to the custom painting example, it would be much better to name an image file of a dog oil painting “beckis-custom-paintings-dog-oil-painting.jpg” rather than “IMG-1234.jpg.”

You can also update what is called “alternative text” for images. Alternative text (or “alt text”) are the words that are read aloud by screen readers to describe an image for the visually impaired. But fun fact – search engines also crawl alt text to help index web page content. For example, for that same image, I could set the alt text to “dog oil painting from Becki’s Custom Paintings.” That is much more helpful to Google as well as those with visual impairments.

10. Google wants to give its users the most up-to-date content.

We’ve all had the experience of Googling something and an article comes up from 10 years ago. Not super helpful. The internet moves so quickly that what once felt fresh can quickly become outdated. Removing or updating old content and reducing duplicate web pages can really help your SEO rankings. While this is pretty easy for small websites, it’s extremely difficult for large websites with multiple content publishers. For those sites, performing routine website content audits is an absolute must.

11. Google wants to send users to websites that work very well (especially on mobile).

The mobile version of your website now officially matters more to Google than your desktop experience. Make sure your site looks great on all devices and screen sizes. And how fast your web pages and images load is also critical. There are some amazing tools like PageSpeed Insights you can use to monitor and optimize your site speed.

12. Backlinks are a critical SEO ranking factor but not all backlinks are created equal.

A "backlink" is any link to your website from another website. Backlinks help improve your SEO score because they tell Google you are an authority on a specific topic. But quality is more important than quantity. The SEO world has a term for evaluating the credibility of websites, web content, and content creators. It’s called E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). If a trusted expert in your industry links to your website, that carries much more weight than a website or creator with low E-E-A-T. And companies that blog receive 97% more backlinks than those that do not (source: Backlinko, 2022).

13. Google and users love a website where they can quickly and easily find what they need.

Having an intuitive website structure helps both Google and users navigate your site and retrieve the content they need more efficiently. This can look like well-planned primary and secondary navigation options, prominently placed buttons, and a smart internal linking strategy. And using target keywords in your page URLs (if appropriate) is also beneficial. For example, beckicustompaintings.com/holiday-gift-guide for a Holiday Gift Guide landing page.

SEO can actually be really fun once you dive in, but you have to be patient. It’s not a quick fix or something that delivers overnight results. SEO is an ongoing practice with a set of principles that should be infused into every aspect of your website strategy. It’s not icing you put on the cake at the very end. But if you keep working at it, the results will come. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console provide you with the data you need to measure the effectiveness of your efforts over time.

So while we may never be smarter than Google (sigh), whenever things get too complicated, circle back to what SEO is at its core. SEO is consistently delivering relevant, high-value content for your target audience through a superior website experience. If you just keep striving for that, you will continue to rise above every Google algorithm update. I promise.

There’s obviously a lot that I didn’t get to cover, but I hope this article leaves you a little less intimidated by SEO and excited to learn more. If you are looking for more information, some of my favorite website resources on SEO are SEMrush's blog, Moz’s blog and Search Engine Journal.

But if you'd still rather leave SEO to the pros, that’s fine too. If you are looking for a skilled professional to audit your existing site or help you build a new website with a killer SEO strategy, I’d love to chat!

And stay tuned for my next post on AI and the role I see it playing in the future of Marketing…