SEO in 2022 – Whitehat SEO Guide for Beginners

by | Dec 6, 2021

SEO in 2022: The Basics

Search engine optimization is used to increase the quality of content and quantity of traffic on your website through organic traffic.

SEO is Important because

  • majority of online traffic is through search engines
  • not using SEO will prevent you to achieve the required traffic for your website
  • organic search results are seen credible and receive more clicks than paid ads.

Debunking SEO Myths

  • content is not the only thing you need
  • page speed is very important in terms of user experience, slower loading pages annoy users hence less dwell time on your page
  • links are very important
  • algorithm is more sophisticated now; higher keywords may backfire your content now
  • buying google ads does not help you gain organic web traffic
  • more pages of websites do not necessarily help in web traffic- quality over quantity

Two Elements that make up an SEO campaign

  • ON Page SEO- any change you make on your website- such as updating the title tag on your page; changing the H1 tag; editing meta description of a page
  • Consists of 3 Kings-  Google extension to check the availability of 3 Kings in a blog/ website is SEO Meta in 1 Click
    • URL- most effective tool for ON Page SEO
    • SEO title tag
    • Page title

URL Optimization

  • Start keyword research
  • Use the keyword with the greatest number of searches. E.g. yoga clothes
  • Good URL: website.com/yoga-clothes
  • Bad URL: website.com/yoga-clothes-men-women-children
  • Always go for a shorter URL
  • Avoid word repetition in the URL. E.g if the website name is yoga.com then a good URL would be yoga.com/clothes
  • Never change the URL of your high ranking page- may lower site traffic hence lower ranking

 SEO Title Tag

  • Mostly filled out by Yoast SEO of WordPress- click on ‘edit snippet’
  • Put the keyword in the title
  • Try including single words
  • Do not repeat words
  • Maximum of 60 characters
  • HTML: <title> Clothing| Yoga Activewear for women </title>

Page title- optimize it by using keywords

  • OFF Page SEO- any change you make off your website, such as building a link to your website; getting business listed on an external directory; optimizing social profiles
  • Backlink- it is the mention of your site on an external website- your site kind of receives a vote of confidence this way- helps in google ranking
  • Anchor text- a clickable text that links one page to the other
    • Should be relevant to the page you are linking it with
    • Google looks at anchor texts while ranking pages
  • There are five types of anchor texts
    • Exact match- you write the page name of the page you are linking to as  anchor text
    • Partial match- a variation of keyword is used
    • Brand- brand name is used
    • URL- URL is used as anchor text
    • Miscellaneous- generic terms such as click here

What are Do-Follow and No-Follow Links?

  • Do follow link: the more the links to a page the more points you receive to enter in Google’s high ranking- Google’s Page Rank ranks websites; the more a website is authoritative i.e. BBC, TIMES, the more link juice is transferred to your website i.e. boost to your site- <a href= https://twitter.com>
  • No follow links: links that do not count as something in the page’s favor- does not boost page rank- <a href= https://twitter.com rel= “no follow”>

What is the most important Google Extension to check On-page SEP

SEOQuack is the most important SEO extension.

What is Keyword Research and how to do it?

  • Keyword is a search phrase e.g. chocolate cake
  • Should be the main thing your website offers
  • Keyword intent- user’s purpose behind using a particular keyword
  • Short tail keyword- general search by user- 1 to 2 words e.g. yoga mat
  • Long tail keyword- 3 to 5 or more words- they are more direct; to the point; have less competition for e.g. non- slip yoga mat
  • How to find keywords?
    • Google auto suggest
    • Search options at the end of the page
    • Keyword Tool

Creating Content for the website

  • Google aims to provide relevant and useful content to user- algorithm presents websites that best answer user queries
  • High quality content makes up to the higher rank in Google’s search engine
  • How to come up with content ideas?
    • Review your competitor’s content- page 1 websites
    • Subscribe to industry related blogs, e.g. Top 10 baking blogs- they will give you many ideas
  • What to avoid while creating content?
    • Text wall- an overload of text on your website- avoid this- instead use headings, subheadings, pictures- consumers prefer websites that are more engaging, hence increasing dwell time on site
  • How long should your content be? Avoid guess work and go with what is currently there i.e. what competitors are doing
    • Take the average of the total words of the top 3 blogs/ websites
    • Add in 10% more words

Google Algorithms

  • An algorithm is a complex system that retrieves data and instantly delivers the best possible result to user query
  • So far, Google have pushed 3 major Algorithms updates
    • Panda- rewards high quality websites and decreases the presence of low quality ones in Google’s organic search- pages that suffered the most had the following type of content:
      • Thin content
      • Plagiarized content
      • Lack of authority/trustworthy content
      • Content mismatching search query
      • More ads than content
      • So many sites were penalized and a sudden drop was observed in site traffic and google rank.
    • Penguin- rewarded high quality content and decreased sites that had manipulative links (backlinks that had no connection with content; an attempt to become artificially popular) and large number of keywords.
    • Hummingbird- responds to user’s search intent behind keywords

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