SEO Tips for Beginners – 5 Easy Wins for 2022

SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimisation, is the process of improving your website to rank more highly on Google and the major search engines. Whilst there are complicated elements to SEO there are many basics that even SEO beginners can implement to improve rankings on Google and other search engines.

In this post, we look at 5 beginner SEO tips you can use to improve your rankings and feature more highly on Google. These are simple SEO tips, designed for beginners and non-technical users to help you rank more highly without specialist technical or SEO skills.

5 Beginners SEO Tips 

Here we have five basic SEO tips that anyone can put into action to improve your SEO.

  1. Research & use relevant keywords
  2. Optimise page titles & meta descriptions
  3. Optimise page content
  4. Optimise your business listings around the web
  5. Build relevant links

A key point to remember here is that with SEO, there can be huge gains from getting the basics done well and you can often get 90% of the benefits with 10% of the work. If you follow the guidance in these 5 tips (and our bonus tip) you will rank for more keywords, improve your rankings for those keywords and generate more exposure and traffic on Google – win win win.

Then, if you are hungry for more SEO tips, we have a comprehensive set of Small Business SEO tips that will help you take your SEO to the next level. Further to that, if you are excited by the benefits of strong SEO we have a buyers guide to SEO packages to help you effectively outsource your SEO.

Still with me? Let’s dive in.

1. Research & Use Relevant Keywords

Keywords are the foundation of successful SEO. When your potential customers use a search engine what do they search for? For most small businesses this will be a combination of what you do and where you do it: “SEO company in Birmingham” or “plumber in Sutton Coldfield”.

There are some tools and strategies we can use here to make sure we get a good selection of keywords together.

1.1. Brainstorm potential keywords – here we simply write down everything that is relevant. What we do, the services we offer, and the locations in which we offer those services. Once you have all of these elements you can combine what you do with where you do it and form a basic list of keywords.

1.2. Use keyword research tool – there are a number of keyword research tools out there that can help you identify new keywords. Google has a tool that forms part of its Ads PPC service. There are other tools like ubersuggest and keywordtool.io that are useful in their free and paid variations.

1.3. Search for your keywords – when you search for your keywords you will often see suggestions in the search bar as you type. There will also be a list of suggested keywords at the bottom of the page. Add any relevant variations to your list (and search them again to check the results).

What you are really looking to do here is end up with groups of keywords that have the same basic meaning and intent behind them. As an example, if we consider this article on SEO tips for beginners, we could group the following keywords:

  • SEO tips for beginners
  • Beginners SEO tips
  • SEO basics 2020
  • Best SEO tips
  • Beginners search engine optimisation tips
  • Search engine optimisation tips for beginners
  • How to do SEO
  • SEO basics
  • Basic SEO Tips

The intent behind those keywords is all largely the same so they can be grouped together. Any given piece of content can then be optimised for (i.e. feature) those terms. This then ranks the article for the widest range of possible terms and ensures you are using the language of your target audience.

I would typically put these keywords into a spreadsheet with approximate search volumes and a score relating to how relevant they are. Don’t overcomplicate this – we are just trying to give a loose priority to the language we are going to use here.

If you are researching multiple products or services then it makes sense to group these keywords into logical groups. Often, the best way to do this is to organise them by the page you will optimise for those search terms. If you find useful search keywords whilst doing this and you don’t have a page for those terms this can guide you in the creation of new pages that help increase the scope of what you can rank for.

Tip 1: Identify and prioritise the keywords that your prospective customers use when looking for the products and services you offer.

 

2. Optimise Page Titles & Meta Descriptions

Once you have your keyword list then you will want to optimise your page title. Note that this is the behind the scenes HTML <title> element and not what is shown on the page. This is usually editable in your website control panel (CMS) or in your SEO plugin.

What we are trying to do here is get our keywords into the title of the page in a natural way. We have to remember that page titles are what is shown in search results so we are aiming to clearly indicate what the page is about and entice a user to click on our listing.

What I typically like to do is include the what, where, and who if possible. The keywords are the what, the location is the where and we then include the who, your business name, for branding purposes. In an ideal world, you want the keyword at the beginning of the title to aid click-through and for potential ranking improvements.

Plumber in Sutton Coldfield – Marcus’s Plumbing Service

If we look at service pages we can extend upon this:

Boiler Repair Service – Free Quote | Marcus’s Plumbing Service

Emergency Plumber – available 24/7 | Marcus’s Plumbing Service

In both of these page titles, I have included an element that is more for marketing than actual SEO: Free Quote & Available 24/7. These are elements we put there to increase the likelihood that someone will click your listing.

Remember that a search engine listing is still an advertisement, so we must get our marketing in there along with our SEO. And, as it so happens, engagement with your listing can have a positive impact on your rankings, so *shock horror* doing good marketing is also good for your SEO.

A word of caution here is not to over-optimise your page titles and just cram them full of keywords – eg:

Plumber | Plumbing | Plumber Company | Emergency Plumber Company

Your page titles should include your keywords but not at the expense of readability or clickability (if that is even a real word).

When we are happy with our titles, the other component to consider is our meta description. Again, this should be editable in your website’s CMS.

Page titles can have the biggest SEO impact, however, the meta description acts as the description for the content on your page. Your title should grab people’s attention but your meta description should help convince them to click.

The page title and meta description we have used for this article are as follows:

SEO Tips for Beginners – 5 Easy Wins | Bowler Hat

Five simple SEO tips for beginners. Easily optimise your site, improve rankings and drive more traffic from Google. By Marcus Miller of Bowler Hat

With the title, I am detailing what the article is and then the meta description builds on the premise, which hopefully entices more people to click. I also include my name and the name of our business (Bowler Hat) to drive brand awareness.

Note: It is true that meta descriptions do not actually influence rankings directly. However, getting listed is only half the battle – you need clicks. And where a result is clicked more than another this can help improve your ranking through engagement metrics that Google looks at. More worrying, a result that is not clicked at all will lose position and drop from the search results. The takeaway here is that whilst SEO is important, it should never be at the expense of creating good copy.

Tip 2: Write descriptive titles and meta descriptions that include your keywords and weave in your key marketing messages to improve your organic traffic and rankings.

 

3. Optimise Page Content

Once our page titles and meta descriptions are optimised, we also want to optimise our page content. Our keyword research (#1) should have provided us with a list of related terms that all have the same intent behind them. We would now look to weave these keywords into our copy in a natural way.

There are various components to a page with the main elements being:

  • Header Tags – H1, H2, H3 etc
  • Body Content – the text on the page
  • Images – the images you use to support your copy

Firstly, consider the heading and subheadings on the page. These can be optimised to include your keywords where it is natural to do so.

Secondly, create copy that accurately describes and promotes your business and aim to use all of your keywords where it is natural to do so. Don’t worry about keyword volumes or specific instances of the terms – just write naturally and try to use the terms that you identified in your keyword research.

Images can also be optimised with the name of the image, the image alt text, and the image description being the primary factors. If the image also sits close to relevant text that can also help further. Alt tags also aid blind users by giving a description of the image to know if it’s relevant to them! Context is important here, if you sell products then image SEO can be really important, for many local businesses in traditional business categories then image SEO is less of an opportunity – be guided by common sense.

When done well, your page will be visible for a wider array of terms and you will be speaking the language of a larger cross set of customers which should aid engagement (and generate more leads and sales from your website). Win-win.

Consistency really is key. You want it to be clear what this page is about by consistently using your keywords in a natural way. This builds upon the logical grouping of our keywords that we performed earlier (tip 1) and ensures we cover natural variations in search queries. Remember, our goal is not to create crappy copy that puts off users but to help Google understand the range of search terms this page is relevant for. Write for people but optimise for search engines.

Tip 3: Optimise your headers, content and images to improve visibility for a wider range of search terms.

 

4. Optimise Your Business Around the Web

Your website is central to your SEO efforts, however, this is not the only place where your business is listed. Social media and business directories like Yell.com will also have details for your business. Search engines use this information along with information on your business to help build trust and an understanding of what you do and where you do it.

You will want to update all possible business listings (often referred to as citations) that are relevant to your business with your correct address and a summary of what services you provide. You want to weave your most important keywords into these business listings along with a mention of any key locations.

You can also take a similar approach with your social media profiles. Whilst you may not be able to add a full address or comprehensive description here, you can still cover the essentials of what you do and where you do it.

Remember – these listings can rank well and potential customers can look at your business details here. Don’t just dial this in. Make sure you clearly describe what you do, where you do it and why they should consider your business. If you can weave in calls to action or any other marketing factors then do so.

Tip 4: Update business listings and social media profiles with what you do and where you do it.

 

Link building is a crucial element to driving visibility for competitive keywords. However, link building has a bad reputation – and often rightly so. Links can help and hurt your search engine visibility.

Yet, developing strong visibility requires that you have the right kind of links pointing to your site. These links help Google and other search engines determine your relative importance and order search results using these metrics.

If there is any confusion at all we can follow Google’s own advice here, which is to “make sure other sites link to yours”.

Google expands upon this point with the following:

“Links help our crawlers find your site and can give your site greater visibility in our search results. When returning results for a search, Google uses sophisticated text-matching techniques to display pages that are both important and relevant to each search. Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B. Votes cast by pages that are themselves ‘important’ weigh more heavily and help to make other pages ‘important.'”

So a good, relevant link is still a vote. And votes help show that you are important and relevant and help drive greater visibility in Google search results. It’s just that they must be the right kind of votes.

It goes without saying that link building is the hardest part of SEO and is where beginners often get stuck. There are, however, a few simple strategies you can use to obtain some safe backlinks that will help improve your visibility in search results.

1. Highly Credible Directory Sites

Here we are talking about the likes of Yell.com, Thompson, and the big business directories and portals in your industry. Google around for your keywords and location, and any listings that rank on the first page of Google are worthy of investigation. A good measuring stick here is whether your potential customers will find and click on these listings – if the answer is yes then it is worth seeking out a listing.

2. Competitor Link Analysis

Reviewing your competitor’s links will often identify link opportunities. By looking at your top 10 competitors in a tool like MajesticSEO, aHrefs, or OpenSiteExplorer, you often find a variety of link opportunities. You are not looking to copy every single link here but rather to identify the cream of the crop from several competitors. Think quality rather than quantity, and again, ask yourself whether your prospects are likely to see and click on this link.

Some tools allow you to enter multiple competitors and see which sites link to 2 or more competitor sites – this can help you better identify links that are more closely correlated with high ranking competitors. Correlation is not causation but it does help you better sift through the options.

3. Testimonials & Existing Relationships

Offer to write testimonials for companies you work with. Your website designer. Your social media or SEO company. These are all sites that do work for you, are likely local, and can generate a relevant link.

Likewise, if you have existing relationships with suppliers or customers, investigate these sites to see if there is any way a link could be added to these sites.

Link wisely

The gold standard here is whether that link will add value to the web and to the linking site’s visitors. If that is the case then it is likely a good link.

Tip 5: Build relevant and quality links to your website and content.

 

Bonus Tip – Register with Google Search Console

As a final bonus tip, be sure to register your site with Google Search Console. This tool analyses your site and provides diagnostic feedback you can use to improve how your site appears in search results. This is information directly from the search engine so you would be foolish not to take advantage of this advice.

In Search Console, you can see what keywords your site ranks for already and then look at how to optimise the ranking pages for those keywords. Search Console really is a treasure trove of information that you can use to improve your SEO so get signed up and get stuck in.

Summary

So, to just quickly recap, here we have 5 basic SEO tips that even beginners can implement to improve your SEO:

  1. Research & use relevant keywords
  2. Optimise page titles & meta descriptions
  3. Optimise page content
  4. Optimise your business around the web
  5. Build relevant links

For beginners, the Paetto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, applies strongly here and you really will see up to 80% of the benefits from only 20% of the work.

Free SEO Audit & Marketing Plan – if you would rather get professional help please get in touch and we can create a free SEO plan for your business.

Further Reading

When it comes to building a site that search engines love, it pays to read the guidelines published by the search engines themselves. The following links are all well worth your time and will help ensure you make the very best decisions when looking to promote your site on Google and the major search engines.

Google Quality Guidelines

30 Tips to Radically Improve Small Business SEO

Buyer’s Guide to SEO Packages

Advice on How to Build a Search Engine Friendly Site

 

 

And of course, if you have any questions about SEO get in touch.

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