SEO for beginners: how to optimize your website for search engines

Have you ever wondered why some websites are easy to find in search engines, while others are on the third or fifth page of results? Why are your competitors’ poor-quality resources at the top of search results, while your high-quality and useful content goes unnoticed? The answer is simple: you need a set of actions (SEO) aimed at internal and external optimization of your resource, which helps search engines understand your website and show it to people who are looking for your services, products, or information.

In this article, we will figure out where to start optimization, what to pay attention to first, and how to make your web project rank at least in the top 10 search results for the main user queries.

What is SEO and why is it needed?

First of all, it should be noted that when searching for information, 93% of users leave the first page of search engine results, and only a small number of them go deeper.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a process aimed at improving the visibility of a website in search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. The main goal of this process is to attract more organic traffic to the website, when visitors can find your resource on their own through a relevant query without using paid advertising. In other words, SEO is the optimization of a web resource aimed at maximizing its position in search results.

Many beginners ignore SEO, giving preference to technical aspects when developing a resource, but later realize that without these actions, all the work done may be in vain.

The main advantages of search engine optimization are:

• attracting a target audience that is looking for a product or service to the resource;
• long-term effect: unlike contextual advertising, the effect lasts for months;
• increasing the authority of the site;
• reducing the cost of contextual advertising.

In addition, high-quality optimization allows you to attract organic traffic, which is very well perceived by search engines and minimizes the risk of the site being filtered out.

Key factors in search engine ranking

Search engine algorithms are very intelligent and take into account thousands of factors when returning search results, but the most important of these is content quality – the resource should only use unique, useful, and relevant articles, as well as unique images. The keywords used in content generation must be carefully selected, for which it is advisable to use an SEO core, and the site structure must have logical navigation and understandable URLs. Another important aspect is backlinks that lead to your site; obviously, they must be from authoritative and high-quality resources.

Sites with responsive design, fast page loading speeds, and robust security are definitely ranked higher, so these technical aspects should also be taken into account.

The main stages of SEO optimization

SEO is usually divided into three categories:

• On-Page: work on content, headlines, loading speed;
• Off-Page: work on external links to your site from other sources;
• Technical SEO, which includes server configuration, URL structure, mobile version development, etc.

Therefore, as a first step in search engine optimization, it is advisable to install analytics tools (such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics), check the indexing of the site (the number of existing and indexed pages), and identify critical errors.

Content optimization: tips for text formatting and meta tags

Even high-quality and unique content needs to be presented correctly. Therefore, before adding it to the website, you need to make sure that the keywords are written naturally in both the headings and the text itself, and that the material is easy to read — use lists, tables, and highlighting. It is also recommended for content optimization to:

• use H1, H2…H6 headings to structure the text;
• make the title attractive and include the main keyword;
• fill in a short page description (Description), which affects clickability;
• describe images using alt tags so that search engines understand their meaning;
• avoid duplicates: each page must be unique.

When optimizing content, you also need to ensure that each page responds to the user’s query. For example, if someone is looking for “how to bake a biscuit,” provide detailed instructions, not an advertisement for kitchen appliances.

Technical SEO: why are site speed and responsiveness important?

Search engines love websites that load quickly and are mobile-friendly. When performing technical SEO, you should first check the following:

1. Loading speed: each page of the website should load in no more than 3 seconds. You can check this using tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. If the conditions are not met, you need to optimize large images, cache information, minimize code, and remove unnecessary plugins.
2. Responsive design: the website should display correctly on any device, including smartphones, PC monitors, and tablets. All modern content management systems already have this option, but if you are using a self-written CMS, you will need to adjust the code accordingly.
3. SSL certificate: having a certificate guarantees security for users and increases search engine trust, so it is essential to switch the resource to the HTTPS protocol, which ensures that critical information is encrypted during transmission.
4. Clear URL structure: it is important to use page addresses that are understandable to humans (for example, “kub.ua/blog/seo-dlya-novachkiv” instead of “kub.ua/page?id=123”).

External factors: how links to the site’s authority work

External measures are optimizations performed outside the site and aimed at increasing its authority. In this regard, external links (backlinks) from other sites that lead to your resource are most useful. When choosing such sources, it is advisable to give preference to authoritative resources and not to use backlinks from spam forums. The relevance of links is also important, i.e., they should be from thematic sources.

There are many specialized platforms for purchasing backlinks, but if you wish, you can also obtain external links for free: write guest posts for blogs, create infographics or research that your audience will want to share, register in thematic directories. Also, actively use social networks to attract natural links.

When optimizing for SEO, follow the main rule: make your website for people, not for robots. Then search engines will definitely notice your efforts.