SEO Made Simple In 2022: A Step-by-Step Guide

Did you know in 2020 over 2 million blogs are published everyday? Thanks to the power of SEO, of these 2 million blogs, only a select few will show up on the front page of people's Google search. This means millions of incredible content that took the blood, sweat and tears from countless authors goes undiscovered through search.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. The definition is somewhere along the lines of "An art of ranking high on a search engine in the unpaid section, also known as the organic listing."

When it comes to SEO - You need to know 2 things: Someone out there is looking to read EXACTLY what you've published (The search) and your job is to make your byte actually appear in front of them (The SEO) when they perform the search.

SEO is a series of actions and best practices which can give your byte a competitive edge against other publications out on the web.

Remember the end goal of SEO is to have your content rank high on Google searches. There isn't a definitive answer to 'What is good SEO' but what we do know is, Google will try to place pages with the best user experience at the top based on some of the following:

1. Content relevancy to the searched keywords.

2. The uniqueness of your content compared to other publications on the same topic.

3. The technical SEO structure of your webpage. (This is something you and your website manager should work on together)

4. How user engagement friendly your byte will be. (Will the user click and take action)

5. Internal and external links from your byte to other bytes and publications.

6. Backlinks from other sources on the web to your byte.

At the end of the day, a few key metrics will tell Google whether to promote your byte on the search results or not. Here are some of them:

1. Click through rates (The number of people who clicked your byte on the search engine divided by the total number of people who saw the link to the byte)

2. Bounce rates (The number of people who left the byte after reading it without taking any action divided by the total number of visitors to your byte)

3. Time on page

4. Backlinks (External links from other sources on the web that points to your byte)

At the end of the day, the more eyes you can get on your byte and the longer you can keep them on the page, the more Google will want to promote it.

Here are 3 simple things you can do improve the SEO on your byte:

1. Make content easy to read for both the reader and Google's machine.

-Use simple English. "This byte will teach you how to cook the best fried egg" instead of trying to be fancy with lines like "Learn to craft fried eggs that will galvanize your palette."

-Split your large blocks of text with images or line breaks to create a better reader experience.

-Use lots of sub-headers to create a page structure. Not only will this help readers navigate through your byte but it will also help Google crawlers better understand your content.

2. Use Long-Tail Keywords throughout your article. As the online world of publications become more and more saturated, it will be much easier to rank on long-tail keywords compared to vague keywords such as "resume tips." Here are some examples that would be considered good use of long-tail keywords that can be used throughout your byte:

-Resume tips for new accounting graduates with no work experience.

-Resume tips for social media specialist positions at startups in Canada.

3. Share it with relevant networks so you can be proactive in getting views to your byte without having to wait on Google to pick it up. For every topic you cover, there is a Reddit group and Facebook group that would love to read your byte. The quicker you can get your byte in front of as many eyes as possible, the faster and higher Google will rank your content!

Now you have a basic understanding of SEO, let's solidify that knowledge by getting you to put it in practice.

For the next byte you write, I want you to add a long-tail keyword to five separate areas within the byte. You can start small such as turning a sentence such as "Best morning routine practices" and turning it into "Best morning routine practices for University students". I will leave the creativity and outside of the box thinking to you.

Rome was not built overnight and neither will SEO. You MUST start today and be obsessively consistent with improving the SEO of your page. The results will come I promise!