An 8-Step SEO Planning Guide for Beginners to Boost Ranking

Page One Ranking is the primary goal of every SEO professional and business. But SEO is getting more complex every time Google and other search engines roll out updates and change their ranking criteria. Now, with Google featured snippets, knowledge panels, videos, and Google Analytics, SEOs have a lot on their plate to take care of. When you are new to SEO, it might seem more difficult to figure out where to start and what to do. So, here, we are going to discuss a brief SEO plan for beginners to give them a head start.

1. Be Clear Of Why You Need SEO

Think of yourself as a prospect and then imagine what kind of experience you would want while searching for what you provide, what kinds of questions you would raise, and what range of queries you would use to find what you offer. If Google didn’t come up with what you were looking for, you certainly won’t invest your time in the served links. That’s why Google expects you to provide the information and data that your target audiences are looking for. When you provide it better than others, your content will be promoted to a better position.

To win a better position in the search results, apart from providing high-quality content, you also need to optimize your website, improve its structure, earn links from authoritative sites, assess your competitors, learn how Google determines its ranking, and do a lot more things. All of that is covered under the SEO.

2. Know Your Customers and Their Language

To provide relevant content, first, you need to understand what questions they ask, how they ask these questions, what they need, and where they hang out. You know that you are already serving them and solving their problems through your products and services. You just need to translate that into words and post on your blog and website in a clean format and simple language that your audience can easily understand. Apart from checking Google search bar, also use advanced tools for keyword planning.

3. Analyze Your Website and Focus On On-Page SEO

Make sure that your site URLs, page titles, meta descriptions, image tags, and sitemap are correct and optimized. Identify which pages you are targeting to make popular, review their meta descriptions, and compare them with the competitors’ pages. Ensure if the page title describes the content of your page correctly and if the meta description encourages clicks. Upgrade all these things using best practices. Use SEO tools that can scan your website and tell what on-page data needs your attention. Unlike off-page SEO that refers to links and other external links, on-page SEO refers to content as well as HTML source code of the page that you can optimize.

4. Create Meaningful and Useful Content

Here, by content, we don’t mean just blogs and articles; we also mean video, webinars, live chat, lists, how-to guides, and so on. Be clear of the purpose or objective of every piece of content you create, what you want to achieve, exactly what information you want to provide, and why your audience should bother to read your content. Post content on your site and across the web social channels where your prospects spend time. Don’t just market yourself through content. Help them. Address their issues and solve them. Serve their goals. Answer their queries. Inform and educate them. Engage them.

5. Earn Backlinks Using Best Practices

Backlinks are the links from other sites back to your site and they come under off-page SEO. Backlinks are like ace cards especially when they are from the sites that have authority and respect in the eyes of Google. If you try to gain links in unethical ways, Google will recognize them as a black hat tactic and that can drastically affect your search engine rankings. According to a research study conducted by Moz, the higher the quality of your backlinks, the higher your search engine rankings. So, invest your time and effort well in link building.

6. List Your Business at Directory Websites

Listing your company on local, national and niche directory websites is a great way to help Google and your customers know where to find you. Even if you are doing business locally, you can get found by your prospects by completing your profile on Google My Business. Add as many details as you can (accurately) to promote your business. Upload quality images of your business premises and location. Create a local landing page for each physical location of your business and optimize the page with your city, state, and zip/postal code.

7. Secure Your Website and Make it Faster

Google gives preference to those sites that are secured (using https). If your website is not secured, browsers will flag your website as unsecure. Fortunately, you can easily fix this problem by getting an SSL Certificate to secure your website. Next, analyze how long your website takes to load. Users tend to abandon the site if your website is slow. Your goal should be to make your website load within 3 seconds.

8. Track Your Progress Weekly

Remember that not every factor or number matters to you. So, create goals, align KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to these goals and then analyze these KPIs to track your progress. Some of the important KPIs are keyword rankings, organic search traffic, page visits from organic traffic, the average time users are spending on your page, backlinks quality, pages per session, returning users, page load speed, mobile bounce rate, conversions, social likes, and shares, etc.

Follow all these steps, continue to make improvements, and don’t wait for results overnight. It takes time to gain better visibility and build authority in the eyes of Google. Spend time in promoting your content on various social network channels, be creative while spreading words, and engage with your audience. Most importantly, stay updated through authentic sources such as Google Webmasters.

However, if you feel overwhelmed by so many tools and things to take care of, contact a reputed SEO company, buy a suitable SEO package based on your goals and budget, and enjoy peace of mind as there are professionals and experts to handle the SEO of your website.