If you’ve got a new blog and you want to get started with SEO right away and position yourself for a chance to rank on Google follow the steps below.

There are a number of steps that SEO covers, however, we’ll be covering the 6 essential steps that a new blogger should focus on to get noticed.

The steps below are how to start SEO for beginners.

Step 1

Basic SEO Setup

When you create your website to start your blog the first thing you should do is your basic SEO setup. This includes

Create a sitemap

Sitemaps are important because they tell search engines where to locate important content on your site so it can be crawled and indexed.

The easiest way to create a sitemap is by installing the Yoast SEO plugin, it automatically creates one for you.

Optionally, you can use a sitemap generator.

If you don’t use a sitemap you’ll have to manually submit the URL of each new post that you want to get indexed in the search console.

Create a robots file

A robots.txt file instructs search engines where they can and cannot go on your site.

So for the pages that you don’t want search engines to index you can simply disallow them in the robots file.

To check if you have a robots.txt file type in Google ‘yourdomain.com/robots.txt’, if you have one it will show up.

If you don’t you can use the Yoast plugin to create one from within your WordPress dashboard.

Optionally, you may use a robots.txt generator to create one.

install google site kit

Google site kit is a must-have plugin for every entrepreneur. The site kit includes

Google Analytics

This gives insightful data on how your visitors are interacting with your website.

This will give you an idea of user experience (UX) and engagement.

You’ll get data on the amount of time a visitor stays on your page, the bounce rate, where your visitors are located, and how they access your site.

Search Console

This can help you track your performance in search and see the keywords you’re ranking for.

ACTION: Install the Yoast SEO plugin and Google Site Kit and configure them. If you need help configuring them check out my start a blog post.

Step 2

Keyword Research

Keyword research for many new bloggers is scary and hard.

But it’s really not if you focus on the fundamentals.

You need to know and understand what your readers are searching for.

Below is a breakdown of the fundamentals of keyword research that should be taken into consideration for every page you’ll create.

Main Keyword

Every page or post that you create should target one primary keyword. No two pages on the same site should be competing for the same keyword.

As a beginner, you should focus on long-tail keywords. That is the fastest way to rank since you have no links.

You can use SEO tools to find good keywords to rank for. There are tons of free and paid keyword research tools that you can choose from.

Search Intent

After identifying your primary keyword you need to assess search intent, that is, the reason why the searcher is searching.

You can do this by analyzing the top ranking pages for your keyword and looking at the types of pages that are ranking and their format.

You’ll want to take note of what these pages have in common and how they present it.

That means, are the ranking pages checklists, tutorials, products, etc.

Looking at the image above you can see that the intent of the searcher is to get information.

The top ranking pages are how-to informational guides, so in order for you to stand a chance of ranking for that keyword, you’d have to create an informational guide as well.

Related search queries

Once you type your main keyword into the search box you’ll see related search queries pop up as you type.

You’ll find related search terms in the people also ask section as well as the related searches section at the bottom of the page.

Find relevant keywords and subtopics

Next, you need to find relevant subtopics to cover and include them in your post.

The best place to find relevant subtopics is by looking at the top pages in search and see what subtopics they’ve covered and include them in your post.

When you include these subtopics you need to make them better and more engaging than the top pages. This can be done by including videos, images, better content, etc.

Ranking Potential

To assess your chances of ranking you need to know the SEO metrics of the top ranking pages.

Without knowing their SEO metrics it will be hard for you to rank.

You can use SEO tools to find those metrics.

Step 3

Content Creation

Your content should have your keyword and related terms sprinkled throughout it.

When creating content you need to write an engaging introduction. It should let the readers know that you have the solution to their problem.

You need to write in short sentences and paragraphs to make your content easy to read.

Use images to make your content enhance the reader’s experience. If you don’t have any unique image for your post, just grab an image from google, place it on a canva background or border it and credit the image source.

Also, don’t use academic words that the average man can’t understand, instead, write in a way that even a teen can understand.

You can copy your text and paste it into the Hemingway app to see how easy your content is to read.

Make sure you give actionable tips that can solve the reader’s query.

Step 4

on-Page SEO

On-page SEO focuses primarily on topical relevance. It’s all about optimizing the content with keywords and related terms.

Effective on-page SEO gives attention to the following areas.

Use short and descriptive URLs. It’s best to use your keyword in your URL.

Put your keyword close to the beginning of your title. The closer it is to the front, the more Google will value it.

The meta description is like the preview text in an email, so you need to make it compelling enough for the visitors to click your result.

To find relevant internal posts to link to just go to Google and type ‘site:yourdomain.com/+keyword related to your topic’.

You should try to get links from external websites that have high domain ratings, preferably DR 50+.

Check out this detailed guide about on-page SEO to learn more.

Step 5

link building

To rank on Google fast you’ll need to build quality links.

Without link building, it will take you a very long time to rank on Google.

There are many link-building strategies that you can do to acquire links, however, the easiest way for new sites to acquire links are

To find relevant link prospects that you can reach out to you should check out the top ranking pages for your target keywords and look at who is linking to them.

You should use proper anchor text and make sure your anchor texts are easily identified. You can bold your anchor text or change its color to make it stand out.

To find these linking sites you’ll need to use SEO tools.

Step 6

Technical SEO

Technical SEO focuses on issues within your site.

You can use SEO tools to run a site audit to find issues that you need to fix.

The most important technical issues to focus on are

Slow loading pages present a bad user experience for the visitor. Use tools such as Pagespeed insights, GT Metrix, and Pingdom.

You need to fix your page speed because Google says page speed is a ranking factor.

Many people are surfing the web on their mobile phones these days so it is critical that your site be easily accessible on mobile.

Below is a screenshot of what Google suggests you do.

You don’t need to have internal or external broken links. They provide a bad experience for the user.

Use a broken link checker to check for any broken links on your pages and fix them.

The Wrap

Search engine optimization is important for every business. It’s good to implement SEO the moment you start your business.

Remember the 6 steps on how to start SEO for beginners are

Now that you know the exact steps of how to start SEO for beginners you can go ahead and implement them on your site.

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