SEO For Beginners: A Basic Search Engine Optimization Tutorial for Higher Google Rankings

Every day 3.5 billion

search

es are made on Google. Seriously, no matter what you do, people

search

for your products and services on Google; Cell phone repair shop: 1,700 monthly searches. iPhone charger: 34,000 monthly searches. Best smartphone: 41,000 monthly searches. And these search volumes are only for US-based searches. But here's the thing: although there are billions of searches every day, our recent study shows that 91% of content receives no traffic from Google. So how do you join the other 9% of websites and start getting free, consistent, passive traffic from Google? If you're new to SEO, you'll want to check out this full

tutorial

because I'll show you how to start attracting customers from the world's largest search

engine

.

Stay tuned. What's wrong with everyone? Sam Oh here with Ahrefs, the SEO tool that helps you increase your search traffic, research your competitors, and dominate your niche. This

tutorial

is called "SEO for Beginners" because even if you don't have the slightest idea what SEO is, you will have very clear and easy action items that you can implement on your website right away. So we'll cover the most important things you need to know to make sure your website is optimized for search. Let us begin. So what is SEO? SEO means search

engine

optimization

. It is the process of optimizing your website and web pages to get free organic traffic from search engines like Google.

Think of Google as a filing system in a library. The library has billions of books with hundreds of billions of pages. So let's say you want to find something about "global warming." Google will then search these books and extract pages that contain your keywords or closely related words. But as I'm sure you know, the search results are not returned in any random order. Google attempts to return the most relevant results first by using sophisticated algorithms. And they are so good at this that most of us never have to click on page 2 of the search results. No one knows exactly how these algorithms work or the exact factors they consider to rank a web page, but we do know many of the so-called "Google ranking factors", so we can make some

optimization

s.

So your job is going to be twofold: Number 1, we need to make sure that it's easy for search engines to understand what your page is about and create that content that matches what we call "searcher intent," right? And number 2, we need to show Google and other search engines that you are “worthy” of ranking. So, throughout this tutorial, let's say that I am a new and budding photographer and I live in Toronto, Canada. New wedding photography business called "Sam PhOHtography". Yeah, I'm pretty awesome... but I don't have any friends, so references are out of the question. Alright, step 1 is to find relevant keywords that people are searching for and see how these search queries fit.

The easiest way to start finding relevant keywords is to put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer. So I think a bride or groom looking for some magical wedding photos would search for “Toronto wedding photographer.” Makes sense, right? Then I'll go to the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer tool, which is one of our SEO tools that provides valuable data on Google searches, and I'll enter that search query here. I will also change the country. to Canada, since people in other countries probably don't look for a Toronto-based photographer as often. Now, I'll run the search and you can see there are only about 60 monthly searches for this keyword phrase. which is far from exciting, but if you look below you will see that the main topic of our consultation is different.

The main topic determines whether you can rank for your target keyword, i.e. the one we originally entered here, while targeting one more. Instead, general theme on your page. In this case, the top topic shows that more people are searching for “Toronto wedding photographer” rather than “Toronto wedding photographer.” Now, if we scroll to the bottom of the page, you can see the top 10 Google

rankings

for your target keyword and a bunch of keyword metrics. In this video, I'll only touch on two of them: traffic and keywords. Look at these two ranking pages. You can see that they generate over a thousand search visitors each month, and you'll also see that each page individually ranks for hundreds of keywords if we click on the number of keyword

rankings

.

Here, you can see all the different keywords and ranking positions in Google search. This is good because you already know that Google ranks this single page for all keywords, so why wouldn't you? to rank for these keywords and maybe even more. Try to remember this part, because we'll explore things like keyword usage several times throughout this tutorial. Ok, now that we have a list of keywords, it's time to optimize your pages. In the search engine optimization world, this is called “on-page SEO.” Since we know the keywords people search for on Google, it gives us clues about the language we should use so that both Google and potential customers know what your page is about.

For example, knowing that “Toronto wedding photographer” is another option. more popular search query than “Toronto wedding photographer,” which will help us make smarter writing decisions. So for your homepage content, you might want to say, “Hi, I'm Sam, a Toronto wedding photographer.” blah blah,” instead of “Hi, I’m Sam and I do wedding photography for couples in Toronto.” But I need to make two things very clear: First, you don't need to use the exact match keyword as Google has gotten pretty smart about understanding what your page is about. And secondly, it is very important to note that you should not do it.

Don't try to trick Google by using keywords that don't apply. Your first priority should be optimizing for people because, last time I checked, robots won't pay you for your services. Here is an example of what you should do. Don't do it: "I'm a Toronto wedding photographer doing Toronto wedding photography for your Toronto wedding." This is known as keyword stuffing and, simply put, it does more harm than good. So, key takeaway? Do not do it. So for on-page SEO, I want to convey 4 very

basic

but important tips that you can use on every page you optimize. The first thing is to optimize the title tags and meta descriptions.

When you look at Google search results, you will see this part in blue and the text below. The top part is called the title tag and the other part is the meta description. The purpose of these is to entice someone to click on your page. And if people actually click on your page, that tells Google that your page is probably relevant to the reason they searched for the query in the first place, right? And you can see that Google even bolds these keywords and similar keywords in the search results to make them stand out. With that in mind, I might create a title like “Award-Winning Toronto Wedding Photographer” and then my brand name.

But of course, if you're going to do something like this, it should be true. Then, for the meta description, you can explain in a couple of short sentences what the page is about. But instead of putting in a generic description that everyone else does and calling yourself the best, you can put something like: “Sam Oh was rated the best Toronto wedding photographer by the star. He combines creativity with science to capture the happiest day of life in a million pixels.” Awww...how sweet is that? Now this would make me as a consumer want to know who this amazing photographer is.

The last part of page optimization is the most important and is the actual content of the page. For a typical wedding photography homepage, you might have a few images, a short "about us" or "about me" section, possibly the services I provide, and some testimonials from happy brides and grooms. Without making things too complicated, you'll probably want to use your main keyword phrase in the main title, often called the H1 tag. And if you look at one of the top ranking pages, you'll see that they did this same thing here. An example of what you probably shouldn't do is something like this: Hello.

The H1 or header tag here says "hello", which doesn't help anyone understand what the page is about. And remember, your job is to help Google better identify your page as relevant to the user's search query. I'll go back to the organic keyword report in Ahrefs to look at one of my competitor's keyword rankings and see if there are any other insights that can help Google better understand what my page is about. You can see other relevant keywords here, such as girlfriend, photos, and GTA, which stands for Greater Toronto Area. So, as you write your page text, you may want to keep them in mind and distribute them where it makes sense and reads naturally to visitors.

Alright, let's take this example from Sam PhOHtography one step further. Let's say my business was growing, I gained a lot more experience and discovered that I have some mad skills in areas like landscape, portrait, travel and product photography. So I decided, heck, I'm going to offer those services too! Instead of trying to rank my home page for keywords that aren't exactly related, I could easily create new service pages. Then I would do the same by going to Ahrefs Keyword Explorer first. Then I type something like “Toronto product photographer” and quickly look at the search volume and see that it has about 100 monthly searches in Canada.

Then I'll take a look at the main topic which has around 200 searches. And here's a quick but very interesting side note. Among wedding photographers, people seem to search for “Toronto wedding photographer” the most, while people searching for product photographers in Toronto search for “product photography in Toronto.” Therefore, this step is vital to ensure that you are targeting keywords that will give your pages the most exposure. So, for our services page, we would do the same thing we did before with the title tag, meta description, and. page content. The last thing you need to do is include your primary keyword phrase in the page URL.

So, for a product photography services page, your final URL might look like this: If you're a Wordpress user, you can simply click here and edit it using dashes to separate spaces. So in this case I would change it to product-photography-toronto. A really quick trick you can do is look at the top 10 rankings and see how they are doing. I optimized those pages to rank there. So if we look at the Google search results for “Toronto product photography,” we can see that some of the pages contain keywords in the title tags and that the meta descriptions are a little cheesy or cheesy.

They are truncated. When you click on this result, you can see that it is just a classifieds site, similar to Craigslist, so it is clearly not optimized. When you click on this, you can see that they included their keyword phrase in the header and title tags, but there is virtually no content on the rest of the page. And then when you click on this one here, it seems to be overly optimized for your keyword target. And if I make a “find” for the word “photo”, you will see over 110 examples of it on this page, which again will do more harm than good in the long run.

What you are seeing here is an opportunity to surpass these search results. Basically, Google has no choice but to choose the best options from a set of poor pages. Alright, up to this point, we've optimized our main pages for our different services and covered the

basic

s of on-page SEO. And if you've done this for all of your key pages, I can assure you that you're miles ahead of many of your competitors. The next and possibly most important part of achieving high Google rankings is off-page SEO. Off-page SEO often refers to link building. And link building is the process of getting other websites to link to your web pages.

Basically, the links act as votes or other people endorsing your website and saying, "Hey, these people are really good at what they do and I trust them enough to send my visitors to their website." It works similar to how you would recommend your friend buy a product at any store because you tried it, used it, and loved it. In general, the more quality backlinks you can get from relevant pages, the

higher

you will rank onGoogle. Now I'm putting emphasis here on the word "quality," because there are many different types of links you can get, such as forums, directories, and editorial links, to name a few.

But if you think about it, a place like a forum where virtually anyone can post a link will probably have less value than a link from someone else's blog. But to be clear, other types of links will still have some kind of value, but probably not as much as links like editorials. So if you're focused on quality, you'll probably want to prioritize editorial links. And the main way to get links from other people's blogs is through something SEOs often call "outreach." And the disclosure is exactly what it sounds like. You are reaching out to people and asking them for a link.

But you can’t just email someone and say, “Hey! I need a link. Connect it." It doesn't work that way. There are three things you need to make your outreach campaigns more successful. 1. You need people who are really interested in what you do. 2. You need a good reason to contact them. 3. You need a speech that will somehow benefit them. Let's go over some examples, shall we? First we need to identify the people who are interested in what you are doing. The most sensible ones in the context of link building are the websites that you already linked to. competitors.

You can find these pages by going to the Ahrefs Site Explorer and entering a domain or URL. Then I'll go to mangostudios.com, which also does wedding photography in Toronto. I'll also limit our search to pages that link to just their home page. From here, I can click on the backlinks option in the left column. And here, I'll use this filter to limit the backlinks to links within the content only, since I mentioned that I want to get some editorial links. On the left side, you can see the websites they linked to the target URL or domain and on the right side, you can see which page they linked to and the context of the backlink.

Next, let's click on "Stunning and Beautiful Wedding Flower Ideas". You can see that there are a lot of images of flowers. And hey! In fact, I have a great one that is much better than all of these. So let's check that off our checklist for successful outreach. Now we have perspective. Then I can contact the author, Nicole, and tell her about one of my photographs that was published in some kind of wedding magazine, because it's that amazing. So this now meets checkbox #2. We have a good reason to contact her because we have something relevant to her piece.

And of course, she would give her the right to post my photo, which also marks number 3. As a side note, that doesn't mean she will post my photo or give me a link. As a general rule, the better "excuse" you can find to contact the author, the better her chances of getting the link from her. Another good reason to contact someone is to offer them a guest post. Blog owners are always looking for new content and since your site is new you will be in front of someone else's audience in exchange for some of your time and content where you could easily use some watermarked photos you have taken . .

With guest posts, your reason for contacting them is quite reasonable and will provide them with value, which is free content (which should be good), that benefits them and/or your website. The next outreach prospect you can find are companies in a non-competitive side niche. So, as a wedding photographer, you may want to contact other local florists, reception halls, and wedding planners. If you look at the article "amazing flowers", you can see that there are two people mentioned in the article. There's Mango Studios, which is the site we're looking at, as well as an event planning and design company.

You can contact these people to form meaningful relationships. Just think about it for a second. Your businesses go hand in hand and you can pass references to each other, you can link to each other as a "preferred supplier" or link to each other's content in guest posts when relevant. And this is not just limited to local businesses. This applies to everyone. So, find strong partners who are on the same journey as you in a lateral niche and help each other. Now, with link building, there are numerous tactics and strategies, so if you want to expand your knowledge in this area, I recommend that you watch our series on link building where you will get a comprehensive look at how to do it effectively.

Alright! We are at the last SEO tip that I see many

beginners

avoid. Now, if you have something to sell, setting up your homepage and product/service pages is probably the first thing you will do or did, and for good reason. These are the pages that will directly generate leads and revenue for your business. But here's the last tip: start blogging. Now, I'm not telling you to write about how you changed your store sign from red to green. By blogging, I mean providing actionable content that can and will help your potential customers solve problems. In Dr.

Jonah Berger's book, Contagious: "Why Things Catch On," he shares his research into why content gains popularity and even goes viral. Content that provides “practical value” was one of the key success factors. People don't just share funny cat videos or emotional stories. They share things that help others. And the same goes for getting links. People are more likely to link to your content if it is useful, actionable, and solves a problem. See what we do for the Ahrefs blog. We have numerous SEO tools, but we address different important topics, such as keyword research and link building. And even if you don't use our tools, you can still get a lot of value through these monster posts.

But you will see that we include shortcuts or tricks where our tool can make doing SEO much easier. To further prove my point, if you look at the “top pages” report within Site Explorer, you will see that the pages generating the most search traffic for us are mostly coming from our blog articles. Blogs allow you to reach large audiences. For example, we saw that Toronto wedding photographer was doing around 900 monthly searches in Canada. Let's search for something like "wedding venues in Toronto" in Keyword Explorer. You can see that he has around 1400 monthly searches in Canada. If you've been in the wedding photography business long enough, you've probably done photo shoots in numerous locations.

So you can create a post with useful and practical value. For example, I could create an article of some of the best places I took photos and feature pieces from my portfolio in the blog post. I would also detail the pros and cons of each venue, pricing information, location details, items on your catering menu, or anything else that would be really useful to a person visiting this page. And if you think about it, people usually book the venue before the photographer does. Therefore, there is a good chance that after people see some of your stunning watermarked photographs, they will check out your portfolio and contact you for a quote that can generate more clients for you.

And if you think about it, they may never have discovered you through other means because they didn't type in a key phrase like "Toronto wedding photographer" or their friends didn't recommend you. For these ideas, put yourself in the place of the seeker. What would you be looking for and what would help you resolve the query? Now, when you choose topics, try to choose those that add value to your business. Photographer, I would almost always like to show my work because I would be judged by my portfolio. As a software company, we show how our tools can help people's SEO process because people will buy our tools if they see how it benefits them.

As a coffee roaster, you could show them how to brew the perfect cup of coffee or an article on how to roast beans. I can't emphasize enough that a blog can help you boost your SEO efforts. It's a great way to get ahead. from your competitors who have been in the game longer than you, but have been targeting only these "obvious" keywords. From here, you can simply rinse and repeat the process of keyword research, on-page optimization tips, and continually building links to your content and articles and start climbing Google search rankings. We have a ton of really helpful videos where we expand on these topics, so I'll leave links to them in the description.

Be sure to subscribe for more practical marketing and SEO tutorials and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I'll be happy to chime in and help. Sam PhOHtography, signing off.