THE COMPLETE LIST TO SEO BASICS

Here is everything thing you need to know about SEO Marketing so that search engines find your website on the internet and inch it towards to first page of your ideal keyword searches by your potential customers.  SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is a very powerful way to market your website these days and is something that can be done by yourself if you know what to do, have patience and take the time to do it right. We know that there are hundreds of sites out there trying to tell you and sell you on this service.. but even we can hardly make heads or tails out of them as to what you actually have to do in a clear and concise way. So here is our list of what you have to do in the most simple and organized way possible. 

Base Setup for Good SEO

1Step 1 Google Search Console & Sitemaps
Time: 15 minutes to 1 hour.

SEO Purpose: This is the very first thing you need to do (or have us do ;-) It's registering or "indexing" your website. This is where you add your website to Google for the very first time. You can keep coming back here to have google "index" new pages you add or edit.

2Step 2 - Google Analytics
Time: 15 minutes to 1 hour.

SEO Purpose: Setting up Google Analytics let's you start seeing the results of your SEO efforts. It takes time for results to start showing up in all the graphs, but there are so many different reports available to you once it does. Like with almost of these tools, the information may seem confusing and overwhelming at first.

3Step 3 - Google-My-Business (if you have a physical location)
Time: 1 Hour to Several Hours (depending on how many photos you want uploaded and how much information you have readily available to the person doing this task. You can do some simple stuff like just add your hours but there are tons of other features like adding all your services, pricing, etc.

SEO Purpose: Google-My-Business is that information block in search results that shows up ion the right hand site and should have a map to you location, photos from your place, reviews, contact buttons, and a lot more things that most people don't know about. But setting up a Google-My-Business page is a huge SEO boost.

4Step 4 - Yoast SEO
Time: 30 minutes for the basics to days using its readability score.

Yoast has made it super easy to setup the basics. The main basics that Yoast makes easier to do is getting your sites description to look right in search results and getting a sitemap xml page registered, that you can link to Google's Search Console.

But to use Yoast right, there are tools on all your WordPress pages where it reads your pages and lets you know how well your page may be read by Google's algorithm.

SEO Purpose: Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that greatly eases your ability to SEO content on your website. How your content is written is a big part of good SEO marketing. Normally you would have to know quite a lot about website code, but Yoast make all the steps you need "easier"... well the easiest of all the options out there.

Content SEO

1Keyword Planner
Googles Keyword Planner is located in the Google Ads dashboard.

Note: Within the past year, google kind of buried access to the keyword planner tool, hoping you pay for Ads first before you can get to the dashboard/admin. But there is a link to get to the dashboard if you look carefully for the small text that ask if you are an "expert".

In any case, most people use Keyword Planning wrong. No matter what, you just need to write good content about what it is you do. You can use Keyword Searches/Planning to maybe help you decide what words to use more of if google says they show up more, but chances are that if you are knowledgeable in your industry you will be using words that are already ideal keywords. In many cases, industry knowledgeable people come up with Keywords that aren't the most popular but since it is in the industry, may yield better results than google's suggestions for attracting those customers.

2Content Rewriting and Adding H-Tags
H-Tags are the "Headers" or "Titles" of your pages and paragraphs. Your H-Tag Titles need to be ordered from H1 to H6.

This is a "coding" thing but if you use WordPress it is a bit easier to do this. There can only be ONE H1 Tag on a page, then there can be multiple of the other tags but they should go in order from H2 stating more importance, down to H6 stating less importance but still it let's google know that this is priority content. Don't overdo your tags either as google does read all you content anyhow, the tags are there to just draw attention to priority content.

You don't have to use all the tags either. Most website pages use H1, H2, H3 tags. Then the paragraphs right below the H-Tag Titles need to correspond with keywords and phrases that relate to those Titles. And all of it needs to read "normal" like a human wrote it... Google's AI and Algorithms can tell the difference and may penalize your visibility and rankings if it thinks you are trying to cheat your way into results that you shouldn't be in.

3Keywords & Key Phrases for SEO
As related to SEO, when it's time to write your paragraphs, you just need to make sure the contents of your paragraphs is related to the Title above the paragraph or series of paragraphs (but not every paragraph needs a title). So in some cases use the exact same keywords or phrases that are in your title in the paragraphs and in many other cases use variations or related keywords and phrases throughout.
4Backlinks - Links to Other Pages Help SEO
Google likes website hyperlinks in your pages. It interprets your pages as more valid if you are linked to other sources. The links can simply be to other pages within your own site that are related to or support the content on the linked page. A better back-link is one that is linked to an outside source and especially if that source links back to you and has a higher SEO traffic ranking than you. The more popular sources you are linked to the better. This is not required of course, is harder to do, takes time, but is a big boost.
5Descriptive URLs throughout Your Website
It wasn't always the case, but these days google does like to have the address links, URL's, of your website pages and blog posts/articles to be related to, if not the same as, your primary keywords, subject matter, for that page. Not necessary, but it does help.

Paid SEO Strategies

1Google Ads
Have you ever heard the term, "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours"? lol.... Not that anyone will admit this, but chances are your SEO may improve if you also purchase Google Ads. Buying ads from the people that own the largest search engine can't hurt!? Sure... it just may be because the ads you purchased are working, driving more traffic you your website, and therefore you are now appearing in search pages closer to the first page of certain keywords... but who knows.

In any case, Google Ads are also pretty good and can be setup in a way to work with any size budget. You set your daily limits and monthly max limits. There are lots of tools along the way that help you really target keywords and demographics which in turn can help you write or rewrite better content on your website to better target your potential customers.

This all takes time to do so understand that that this is a chess game but in a few months you should be making moves that yield some nice results. With Google Ads you need to be spending at least $300 per month at the very minimum to see something happen.

2Google Ad Sense
Like with Google Ads, it can't hurt to make friends with the owners of the largest search engine out there ;-) But Ad Sense is not at all required for good SEO, but it can help. Ad Sense is also something that may not work with your business model either. Ad Sense is when Google's advertisers appear on your website. You get paid for those ads if clicked from your site.
3Amazon Affiliates
Like with Googles Ad Sense, Amazon is used to link to products you may be talking about and where you can get paid if your readers click on the link and buy that product after reading about it on your site. This external linking may also help contribute to your sites ranking especially if the products you are reviewing or just talking about do start selling a lot on Amazon.
4Facebook & Instagram Ads
Facebook and Instagram are affiliated with each other and share the same admin for placing ads. Instagram ads are all the rage right now. But like anything you need to determine who your demographics are and place ads in either platform.

Ads help SEO in that they get you a lot more exposure out there and when people who see your ads, their visits to your website increase your traffic, which is a factor in google improving your rankings. The only consideration here is the cost of the ads versus how much traffic is driven to your site and is converted into those people buying your products or services.