When we have a blog or website, of course we want our website to appear on the main search page in search engines right? It is a dream that everyone who has a website wants. Therefore, you need to study SEO to optimize website search, content or articles in search engines. Don't underestimate SEO, later the article won't appear on Google, you know.
How can people find out about your blog, online store or website? If you use WordPress as your website's CMS, you must know SEO. Therefore you need to learn WordPress SEO for beginners.
For some people, SEO is considered difficult to learn because Google's algorithms are always changing and SEO also follows this. SEO is considered a 'scourge' of fear or something that is often underestimated by many people. Even though this SEO is so powerful, you know, to display your website pages on search pages, even in the top rankings.
But when we know the basic or Basic SEO for Beginners, you can definitely master it. So there's no need to worry, it's not too late to learn it from now so that your website can be easily found by many people on search engines like Google.
If you are just starting to use WordPress, it is very important to learn SEO. Before getting to know the basics of WordPress SEO, it's a good idea to know what SEO is.
What is SEO and How it works?
Some people who are new to blogs or are still unfamiliar with websites must be wondering, "what is SEO?".
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is an organic way to place a website to appear in the top rankings on search pages based on keywords or keywords typed in search engines. This process will generate more organic traffic for the website.
The search engine in question can be Google, Yahoo!, Bing and others. With SEO, website owners can increase their site's ranking in the organic (non-paid) section of search results. If you look at the search results, there are results using SEO and also paid per click (PPC) or SEM where SEM costs money or is paid.
There are two main goals of SEO. The first is to help you understand what users are looking for online so you can create quality content to meet their needs. The second is helping your website so that its content can be found, indexed, and understood by search engines.
This SEO applies to websites both for online stores that want to sell or offer products, for writing on blogs to any website. The role of SEO is so important for website optimization on search engines so that people can find and know the existence of your website online.
Also, following good SEO practices is a great way to improve the quality of a website by making it user-friendly, faster and easier to navigate.
Why is SEO Important?
After understanding what SEO is, now we have to know the reasons why SEO is so important to optimize on your website. Here are the reasons why SEO is important:
1. Ranking in Search Engines
The majority of search engine users tend to click on one of the top 5 suggestions on the search engine result page (SERPS or search engine result page search). Users tend to be lazy for the next page on search engines and choose what looks top ranking.
This visibility must be achieved by the website owner. In order to take advantage of this and get visitors to your website or online store, your website must appear in one of the top positions.
The higher a website ranks on a search engine results page, the more likely it is to click through to that website. The more effective SEO optimization, the higher the ranking and the better the website's visibility.
2. Achieving High Traffic
Increasing web traffic is one of the main goals of SEO. Did you know that the average click rate for the first position on Google is 28.5%. While for the second position around 15.7% and 11% for the third position.
If your website is traffic-oriented, SEO is very important to practice so that it can help your website rank top. And if converted, this can increase revenue or income.
3. Creating a Better Visitor Experience
Another reason why SEO is so important is because when you create good content and optimize your website with on-page SEO to improve website usability, it can create a positive customer experience.
The main goal of Google is to provide the best results for its users. As a result the algorithms are always changing and making updates to ensure that they are directing users to sites that not only provide relevant content but also a great user experience.
Factors that support a good user experience are like a mobile friendly website, usability and website page speed. If your website takes into account the impact that user experience has on conversions, it can have a significant impact on sales and revenue in the long run.
4. Help Target Audience Find Your Website
Google has learned how to interpret a favorable or unfavorable user experience, and a positive user experience has become an essential element for website success.
This is because with good SEO practices and creating content that is relevant to the keywords searched for on search engines, crawlers will detect your content and if it is relevant it will rise to the top rankings. Search engines will also offer users the information they are looking for with fewer clicks, quickly and easily.
And back at the top points that the majority visitors click on the first page in the top position. Automatically those who see will click on the top position because visitors have trusted search engines. If visitors are looking for what suits their needs and recommends your website or brand, you will earn their trust.
5. Building Trust and Credibility
The goal of SEO is to build a strong foundation for a website that apart from providing a good user experience is also easy to find on search pages. This can build trust and credibility in the website or brand that you are building.
Many elements make up authority regarding search engines like Google. In addition to the factors mentioned above, authority is gained over time as a result of elements such as:
- Quality backlink profile.
- Positive user behavior.
- Machine learning signals.
- Optimized website elements and content.
Building a brand as an authority requires patience, effort, and commitment. Can't be made instantly, must be over time. But it also depends on offering a quality product or content that allows customers to trust the brand.
6. Can Make Your Website Ahead of the Competition
Of course a brand has competitors and surely you want to be ahead of the competition right? Therefore you need to practice SEO from now on.
If there are 2 websites selling the same product, the website that is more search engine optimized is likely to have more customers and generate more sales. Therefore, starting today, you need to do SEO to optimize your website.
7. Easy to Measure
One of the advantages of practicing SEO is being able to measure almost every aspect of the results you have practiced. Unlike conventional methods that often rely on finding correlations between advertising campaigns and sales, you can easily measure the profit or profit earned from SEO.
The trick is to use tools like Google Analytics to monitor traffic, referral sources, conversions, and other metrics that are important to the business. This way, you can accurately evaluate what is working so you can form a more effective marketing strategy and can allocate your marketing budget more efficiently.
What is On Page and Off Page SEO and Technical SEO?
Actually there are several types of SEO, but of all, these 3 types are the most important and need to be optimized to increase your website's ranking. Namely Technical SEO, On-Site SEO and Off-Site SEO.
1. Technical SEO
Technical SEO is technical SEO that deals with settings that are configured to make it easy for search engine crawlers to find websites. This SEO has nothing to do with content but relates to non-content elements of the website. It includes strategies to improve the website's foundation and backend structure.
Technical SEO is able to increase website readability which makes it easier for search engine crawlers to understand websites and helps search engines see quality websites. Some of the things covered in technical SEO include:
- Website speed
- Mobile-friendly
- Indexing
- Crawlability
- Website architecture
- structured data
- Security
2. On Page SEO
On-Site SEO (or also known as On Page SEO) is SEO related to the content on the website. This includes strategies for optimizing these content pages on the website. Not infrequently some people also say on-site SEO as well as SEO content.
On-Page SEO's main focus on on-page SEO is to provide enough signals to search engine crawlers so they can understand the meaning and context of your content.
On-Page SEO includes:
- Keyword research: finding the best keywords to target on the website's content pages
- Keyword optimization: using target keywords in all the right places and using good SEO meta tags.
- Content optimization: optimizing website content such as adding images and alt text, internal links
- Title tag optimization: optimize the title tag according to the target keyword, title tag, meta description,
- Page performance optimization
- Internal linking
Remember that search engines don't read pages the way humans do so they look for signals to find out what the page is about. Therefore, on-page SEO must be optimized with good and consistent practices.
3. Off-Page SEO
Off-site or also known as off-page SEO is SEO which refers to actions taken outside the website (outside on-site SEO) to affect website ranking in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). Typical off-site SEO actions include building backlinks, driving searches, and increasing engagement and social media shares.
In other words: This type of SEO involves everything outside of your website so that Google and other search engines see your website as a trustworthy and reliable site.
Off-site SEO involves improving search engine and user perceptions of a site's popularity, relevance, trust and authority. One of the factors that determine the position of a website in search results is the number of incoming links (backlinks).
There are three main types of links or backlinks which are determined based on how to get them, namely: Natural links: provided editorially or for free without any action on the part of the page or website owner. For example, a blogger publishes a review of an outfit purchased, gives an honest review and adds a link to the post pointing to the clothing brand. Then this can be called a natural link.
Manually built links are obtained through intentional link building activities. This link is usually used for content placement or asking influencers to share products or content about your brand or website.
Self generated links are created by practices such as adding backlinks in online directories, forums, blog comments or press releases with optimized links. Some self-generated link building tactics tend toward black hat SEO and are frowned upon by search engines.
Building backlinks is often considered a major off-site SEO tactic. But there are other actions that include off-site SEO tactics such as content marketing, social media, appearing on podcasts, lead reviews (usually on blogs or Google My Business), building local quotes, guest blogging, link and unlinked brand mentions, and influencer marketing. .
What's the Difference between Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO?
In learning SEO, have you ever heard of these two terms? You must be wondering what is white hat SEO and black hat SEO?
White hat SEO is likened to a 'good guy' in SEO practice. While black hat SEO is considered a 'villain' or 'bad guy' in SEO practice. Understanding what SEO best practices involve is critical to maintaining a website's integrity, online ranking, and visibility. That's why you should follow white hat SEO tactics.
There are 8 white hat SEO techniques that you can practice, namely:
- Quality content: create content for the benefit of readers, not for search engine crawlers. This is the best way for crawlers to detect them so that crawlers will rank your website.
- Keywords: enter keywords that are relevant to the content based on the keyword research that has been done. Use one primary keyword and 2 or 3 secondary/support keywords.
- Title with keywords and metadata: optimize the title and metadata so that the website can run optimally and the content can be found correctly by users
- Lean code and semantically structured markup language: optimize keyword-rich title elements on websites so crawlers can find what they're looking for when crawling your website or content
- Quality official links (authoritative inbound links).
- Simple website navigation
- Page loading speed or fast page loading
- Optimized on-site SEO
Meanwhile, black hat SEO also has its own tactics. Black hat SEO tactics must be avoided so that Google does not take further action on your website. This action can range from being fined to being blocked by search engine authorities like Google.
There are several tactics of black hat SEO, namely:
- Stuffing keywords (keyword stuffing) that is not fair but the content is hidden so that only the keywords are visible.
- Improperly stuffing meta keywords (meta keyword stuffing) in web page meta tags, page titles or backlinks.
- Link farming (link farming): the process of gathering all unrelated backlinks that are normally hidden from actual website visitors.
- Cloaking of different content or URLs to human users and search engines. This activity is called cloaking. Cloaking is considered a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines because it provides users with different results.
- Create poor content, irrelevant to keywords and provide no value to visitors. This applies to copied or plagiarized content because now Google has an algorithm which can recognize plagiarized content so that it can lower the search ranking for that content.
- Comment spam
- Links that are irrelevant or irrelevant links
Therefore, you should follow white hat SEO practices and adhere to Google Webmaster guidelines and avoid black hat SEO tactics that can have a negative impact on your website.
How do I start SEO on WordPress?
After reading the description above regarding SEO, you need to learn a few things to practice. Google Webmaster has outlined some of the basic principles to follow when optimizing a website that you need to pay attention to as follows:
- Create pages or websites primarily for users, not for search engines
- Do not deceive users or visitors to your website
- Avoid tricks that are not good (black hat SEO) to increase search engine rankings. You can ask yourself whether the content created is useful for helping users or not.
- Think about what makes your website unique, valuable or interesting. Make your website stand out from the rest in the field.
Apart from these 4 things, you need to pay attention to a few things below, especially for beginners who are first involved in the world of SEO. Here are some things to pay attention to:
1. Know the Target Audience
The first thing you have to do before Learning SEO for Beginners is to know in advance who the target audience is who will visit your website or your brand. Ask first what they are looking for or need. Then who needs the product, why do they need the product and how do they get the product.
You need to know the target audience you want to reach in order to achieve your goals. With this, you can take the next step in practicing SEO and optimizing your website.
2. Do Keyword Research
After knowing the audience you want to target, the second step is to do keyword research. Keywords are important for SEO because the essence of this practice is keywords. Think about what keywords many people are looking for or need. It's important to start by finding the most popular ways people are browsing your website.
In this way, you can fulfill and optimize content for those keywords. There are two options for doing this research, namely guessing by looking at the market or current trends or using tools.
You can guess by looking at this market when you are surfing social media, forums or news that is currently happening. This can be a reference that currently many people need or are looking for this product. In addition, a more effective way is to use tools.
One of the tools that you can use is Google Trends. Google Trends can be an alternative tool because it's free and you can see what's popular around you or is being searched for which can be insightful for you.
3. Creating Quality Content
After knowing the most searched keywords that match your target audience, prepare the content you need. Create quality content starting from entering the right keywords or keywords that are relevant to the content. To create SEO friendly content, you can read the article here.
This content is not only good in visualization but can answer what the audience needs from the keywords they are looking for. Quality content can refer if you also practice on site SEO.
4. Optimizing On Site SEO
The next step after creating content is optimizing on site SEO. On site SEO includes: title tag, meta description and URL. These three things must include the keywords you want to target so that crawlers can detect and be found by visitors.
Some things you can try to do in optimizing on site SEO are by including the keywords you want to target, providing ALT text attributes to images or media entered with related keywords, creating URLs that include keywords and not too long.
5. Make sure the website is accessible and optimal
When practicing SEO, keep in mind that you are targeting two things: your target audience and Search Engine bots or crawlers to index your website. Therefore, make sure that your website is accessible.
The trick is to make sure your website page loads quickly. You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to check the speed of your website. A fast website is one that can be accessed in 1-2 seconds. More than 2 or 3 seconds, usually website visitors will exit. Therefore, it is very important to maintain the page loading speed of your website.
In addition to fast website speed, your website must also be mobile friendly because many people access websites using smartphones. Not only that, you also need to install an SSL certificate because HTTPS is one of the ranking signals used by Google.
You can find out if the website uses SSL if there is a padlock in the URL search bar on the left. Then also make a sitemap that lists all the pages on the website. This is so search engines can find content and understand how pages are linked. Learn about sitemaps in this article.
6. Measuring or Evaluating SEO Practiced
Don't forget to measure whether the SEO you are practicing is correct or needs to be improved. One way you can do this is by using SEO tools. An example is installing the Google Analytics script on the website.
With tools, you can get reports on traffic coming to your website so you can learn information about audience patterns. You will gain insight into organic traffic where they use search engines to find your website.
Ideally if you practice good SEO the traffic numbers will increase over time. You can do it regularly every week or monthly so you can find out which ones you need to optimize or improve for better content.
7. Participate in workshops or webinars
Studying SEO is a new challenge and must be learned consistently over time. Therefore, it's a good idea to take part in several workshops, courses and webinars about this knowledge to actualize SEO practices.
There have been many workshops and webinars discussing SEO practices from leading experts. No need to worry about the cost, there are free ones so you can enrich yourself with SEO knowledge for beginners.
How do I start SEO for Beginners?
Because this uses the WordPress content management system, you automatically have your own WordPress. Make sure you have installed WordPress first.
In addition, you should also have your own domain. Because influential domains are especially important for online businesses. A unique domain can represent the identity of your website. Apart from that, you need to install an SEO plugin on WordPress. There are several recommendations for WordPress SEO Tools that can be used. One way is to use Rank Math.
You can read the guide to installing the Rank Math plugin in this article. After doing all of the above, now is the time for you to learn WordPress SEO for beginners
1. Login to WordPress
Log in first to WordPress and then click on add new to publish the latest post or articles.
2. Prepare Content
After that, a page like the one below will appear. If using Rank Math, the red indicator with the numbers 0/100 is an SEO indicator in Rank Math in WordPress. Create interesting and quality content based on the keyword research that has been done. Don't forget to enter keywords and add supporting media such as images to videos.
3. SEO On-Page Optimization
While you are creating content, you need to optimize on page SEO. You need to optimize it starting from:
a. Title, Permalink and Description
b. Focus Keyword
Enter the focus keyword that you want to target. For example, for example, "Learn SEO" as the focus keyword. Then don't forget to enter SEO Learning as it is in the title, permalink and description.
c. Other SEO Optimization
After doing the above, you need to pay attention to a number of things that are used as SEO indicators, such as adding ALT Text attributes to images, adding focus keywords, inserting internal backlinks and so on.
Everything is listed on the right of the dashboard so you need to practice it yourself so that the color of the indicator changes.
Good SEO when the color of the indicator changes from red to yellow or green. You don't have to do everything in the guide. If you can, that's better, but if you can't, you shouldn't force it. The important thing is when the main indicator is green, then your content already has good SEO. Note yes, the value for the green indicator is 81-100.
4. Fill in Tags and Categories
After setting everything up, don't forget to fill in the tags and content categories before publishing. You can also fill in the tags according to the keywords or content that you create.
5. Publish and Share
Double-check all content and SEO indicators before publishing. When it feels right, click publish. So the article was successfully published. The last step is don't forget to share or share to social media. This can provide traffic that is obtained from shared social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Closing
Thus information about learning WordPress SEO for beginners. SEO is a tactic or strategy to bring a website to the top ranking on the first page of a search engine. There are several things that need to be done and optimized in practicing SEO.
SEO may look complicated, especially for those who just want to learn. But if you practice SEO regularly and properly follow the guidelines, you can definitely master it one day. So don't be discouraged. Keep enriching yourself with the latest SEO insights by learning from anywhere.