SEO for dummies
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Search engines like Google (with 92+ percent market share) do a lot of preprocessing and prepare an index of data. If you manage to get your website on the index, it will start appearing in the search results. The question then is - how to make sure your website is on the index? Here is my understanding of SEO for beginners. Let's explore a few search engine optimization techniques that is used in digital marketing.
Backlinks
The search engines do web crawling to jump from link to link to build the index. So, if a famous site links to your website, then your website becomes reachable and will get added to the index (in theory). This is where sharing on different platforms help. Most platforms like Facebook and Twitter work on meta tags present in the header of your page. If you are viewing this on your laptop, right click on the page and select 'inspect'. You will see the HTML content under the 'Elements' tab, where you will find all the relevant meta tags that I have included.
Once you have your website up and running, test how it looks when shared on Facebook here. Facebook also has given extensive documentation and is a good starting place.
Twitter has a similar debug console that shows how your website's card appears when shared. You can try it out here. It looks something like this:
Submit to Google
Do not wait until Google discovers your site on its own! Once you have a well structured website with a proper sitemap, you can submit it to Google here
Research Keywords
Well, I am still learning about this. For now, what I understand is that your site needs to include famous keywords related to the topic. Then, Google will rank your page higher. The simplest way to go about this is to use Google prediction 😅. Just start typing in the Google search box and see the predictions. Use them in your content. It helps to use some question words as well; example: How to include seo keywords in blog?
Build Links
As we saw earlier, sites with better "Backlinks" are ranked higher. So, plan on sharing your website in other highly ranks websites. Comment on blogs with similar topics and share link to your space. Ask others to share your content (First ask yourself, what's in it for them? Is it relevant to them?) , promote it on social media. I am sure there are many other ways. I am learning them as well.