Doing things from an SEO perspective: how to get started with SEO
You open a search engine, type in a keyword from your business, and you don’t see your site appear among the results; worse yet, before you are all the major competitors and even some “new entry” that you hadn’t seen before. How frustrating is this situation and how often does it happen? Have you ever wondered what magic your competitor uses to occupy that coveted position? The answer is less mysterious than you might think and is called SEO, or the art of strategically positioning yourself on search engines. If you have never heard this word-it is an acronym, to be precise-or if it has always made you imagine a world of codes and programming languages, know that this is exactly so, because it is not a subject exclusively the preserve of technicians and computer engineers, quite the contrary. SEO is within everyone’s reach, it is a territory where commitment and strategy pay more than just technical knowledge, and this guide tries to take you precisely to discover the basic “moves” to get started in SEO.
The basics of SEO: a guide to start the journey
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and describes the set of techniques and interventions used to optimize a website to improve its ranking in search engine results. This process is crucial because position in search results – so-called ranking – is directly proportional to online visibility.
Your shortcut for online success
In other words: do you want to know why to do SEO? Because appearing in the top Google results for a search relevant to your business can mean increased traffic to your site, and therefore increased opportunities for conversion, whether it’s sales, sign-ups or any other action you want users to take on the site.
You need to be aware of one crucial element: having an online site is not enough. Success is not just a matter of having a presence on the Internet, but of being found and, even more specifically, of being found by the right users, those who are looking for exactly what you offer.
SEO is the bridge that connects your offer to the demand of your target audience. Without a good strategy your site would be just one among many on the web, not getting profiled visits, not bringing you leads and customers, not producing results.
Sure, it may seem-and often is-a complex process that requires time, dedication, and a holistic approach. And there is certainly no magic formula that applies to all sites and all situations. However, it only takes following a few steps, learning some basic concepts, mastering simple techniques and keeping an open mind to learning so that even beginners can begin to see tangible results, without the need for advanced knowledge in coding and programming.
The key to success is to create high-quality, useful content for your target audience, to be able to interpret the needs of Google searchers and accordingly come up with content that succeeds in meeting and satisfying those needs effectively.
It all starts with an online search
One of the elements that complicates SEO-or, rather, that complicates the road to online success-is that your work must achieve two goals: to please users and, at the same time, to please Google and other search engines as well.
And so, the real starting point of your work is to try to understand the basic principles of how search engines work, because only then can you have any idea of what you need to optimize on your site.
Search engines, such as Google, use complex algorithms to determine the order of search results, taking into consideration hundreds of factors, from site authority to content relevance and quality to user experience – in this article we have gathered the more than 200 ranking factors on Google, including the official ones and those “assumed” by the international SEO community!
Search engines are constantly updating their algorithms to provide users with the most relevant and quality results, and therefore SEO is a dynamic and constantly evolving process, with strategies that must be continually reviewed and updated to remain effective.
Keeping abreast of the latest news and trends is therefore essential for anyone working in this field, also because-as we said before-we must not forget the users, the other “pole” of the work. Audiences also vary, have changing interests, and search for different things in different ways.
In short, SEO is not a one-time job and does not bear immediate fruit: in general, we recommend waiting at least 6 months to start seeing the results of SEO strategies.
How to get started with SEO: the guide for everyone
So, SEO is a set of strategies and techniques used to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to a website via organic search engine results.
A website’s ranking is influenced by a set of factors that can be divided into two broad categories: on-page factors are those that relate to the elements of your site that you can control directly, and off-page factors, which relate to how your site is perceived by other sites and users.
So with SEO you can take control over your communication and marketing strategy, not just relying on external channels and platforms, such as social, which follow different rules and ask you to work twice as hard.
At an ideal level, SEO should not be a repair operation, but an intrinsic process in website design, a fixed thought from the earliest stages of website creation, to ensure its optimal visibility from launch, even if in most cases you face problems when the website is already online.
In short: if you have never worked strategically on optimizing your site’s visibility, and if you want to roll up your sleeves to try to achieve better returns without necessarily relying on an external SEO specialist, you are on the right article. Here’s what you need to know and do to start managing your site “SEO-wise.”
- Decide on the type of site
First of all, if you don’t have a site yet, you need to be clear on what type you want to focus on: a personal blog, an e-commerce, a showcase site for your business? The choice will influence the SEO strategies you adopt.
If your goal is to sell products, you will need an e-commerce, designed to make it easy for users to navigate and transact, and perhaps with a blog section dedicated to some targeted insights. If you want to share knowledge or passions, you can start a blog where content is the beating heart, focusing on relevance and freshness of information. A corporate website, on the other hand, is your digital business card, which should communicate professionalism and convey trust from the first click.
Whichever you choose, each type of site has its own specific SEO needs: an e-commerce will require a focus on technical SEO for products, a blog will need a well-defined content marketing strategy, while a corporate site will need to optimize local SEO to be easily found by nearby customers.
- Choosing a strategic domain name
Let’s be clear right off the bat: although it does not directly affect ranking, having a good domain name is a good starting point for project success.
In theory, the domain name should be intuitive, easy to remember, and possibly contain a keyword relevant to your industry to help users and search engines understand what your site is about. For example, if you sell electric bikes, having “ebike” in the domain name can help users immediately understand what you offer and potentially improve visibility for relevant searches.
In fact, the domain name is much more than just a web address, because it is the first element of your online identity. If well thought out and chosen, it can positively influence the perception of your site and its memorability, which is why it should be short, direct and easy to remember. Conversely, it is crucial to avoid falling into the trap of overly long or complex domain names, which could confuse users and make them more difficult to remember; similarly, it would be preferable not to use names that are “beautiful” but poorly related to the intent of the site.
- Use WordPress
If you want a convenient solution, the easiest way to create a site is to use a CMS or content management system, and in particular WordPress – a flexible, immediate and intuitive-to-use platform with numerous available plugins that makes managing a site accessible even to non-technical people.
It is no accident that it powers a significant portion of global websites, allowing anyone to choose themes and plugins to customize the look and functionality of a site without having to write a line of code. For SEO, in particular, there are plugins like Yoast SEO that guide you through the optimization of each page and post, suggesting improvements in real time (although “traffic lights” leave time to be found). This tool offers valuable insights, especially in the early stages, to make sure your content is not only engaging, but also optimized for search engines.
- Choose a good hosting service
Reliable and fast hosting is crucial for ensuring optimal load times and reducing downtime, both of which are important for SEO, but also for the usability of the site itself.
A reliable provider will offer high uptimes, competent technical support and adequate resources to handle your site’s traffic, even during peaks; in addition, some hosts offer additional services such as automatic backups and protection from DDoS attacks, which help keep your site secure and operational.
- Study your organic competitors and market niche
Knowing the playing field is critical in any strategy, and SEO is no exception: analyzing what competitors that rank well on search engines are doing can provide valuable insights into what works and what strategies to adopt.
Studying your niche market and organic competitors-that is, those sites that occupy the top positions in search results for the keywords you’re interested in and refer to your segment-provides you with a detailed map of winning practices and areas of opportunity, and allows you to understand what content resonates with your audience, what tone appeals and convinces the most, and what keywords are most effective. This type of analysis helps you shape your SEO strategy in an informed way, allowing you to compete on a solid foundation and with a clear view of the competitive landscape in which you move.
To find out who your competitors are, you have several avenues, from the more immediate to the more “technical.” Start by opening your browser and doing a search for the keywords you think are the most important for your business or the content you offer – phrases like “best coffee in Milan” if you run a coffee shop, or “workout tips” if you have a fitness blog. Look at the first results that appear: these are your organic competitors, the sites that Google considers most relevant for those keywords.
But don’t stop there: delve deeper by using specific competitor analysis tools, using SEO tools such as SEOZoom that allow you to enter your domain or keywords and receive a list of competitor sites, along with valuable data such as the volume of traffic they receive, the keywords they rank for, and the backlinks they have acquired. These tools can also help you discover new keywords you may want to compete for and identify the strategies your competitors are using to rank. For example, you might discover that one competitor has a popular blog that attracts traffic, or that another is effectively using social media to engage its audience.
Remember, the goal is not to trivially copy what your competitors are doing, but rather to learn from them and adapt winning strategies to your unique context, improving and customizing your online presence to best position yourself in your target market.
- Organize your site structure
The structure of a website is its skeleton, the architecture that supports and organizes content so that users can navigate it easily and search engines can index it effectively. A logical, navigable structure is essential to ensure that people find what they are looking for effortlessly and that the most important pages are easily accessible.
Think of the site structure as a well-organized bookstore: each book (web page) is placed in the right section (category), and each section is clearly labeled and easily accessible. The homepage acts as a table of contents or receptionist directing visitors to the various sections with clarity and precision. From there, navigation menus, like shelves in a bookstore, should be intuitive and uncluttered, guiding users through categories and subcategories so they can find what they are looking for with just a few clicks.
An effective structure follows a clear hierarchy, with a clear distinction between main pages (such as the homepage, main products or services, blog, and contact page) and secondary pages. This not only improves the user experience but also helps search engines understand the relevance and relationship between pages, a factor that affects ranking.
Setting up a solid, consistent, well-organized structure from the beginning is definitely a lever for success. Even more so if you choose categories and sections analytically and strategically, using SEOZoom’s Site Builder, for example, to find out which topics have the highest search volume on Google, and therefore potentially interest the most people and can be most engaging.
- Technical aspects of the site
A site should not only be aesthetically pleasing, but also functional. When designing your site, therefore, you need to think about how users will interact with all of its pages, sections, and content.
In addition to structuring, you also have to find the right meeting point between aesthetic refinement and usability: a beautiful, graphically curated site with ultra-high-resolution images and exciting videos may look like excellence “on paper,” but in practice it risks being a cathedral in the desert because it can become difficult to load on mobile devices or even unreadable and annoying for users.
Now more than ever, Google is paying attention to user experience (UX) and striving to provide users with the most relevant and useful search results, and is placing increasing importance on a website’s performance, considering technical factors such as loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability as key elements for a good experience.
In particular, the speed at which a page loads is critical not only for SEO, but also for keeping users on the site: a slow site can frustrate users and increase the abandonment rate, while a page that loads quickly improves the user experience and can contribute to a better ranking in search results.
Equally basic is working on design responsiveness, that is, the ability of the site to adapt to all devices and screen sizes in a natural and fluid manner, because traffic from mobile has long surpassed that of users browsing from desktop computers, so you cannot neglect their needs.
In a nutshell, what you need to keep in mind is that a well-performing website offers better UX, which can increase the time users stay on the website, the number of page views, and the conversion rate.
- Set up a strategic editorial plan, based on effective keyword research
To have lasting success, it is not enough to write hastily, publish in a haphazard and chaotic manner following the whim of the moment or relying on randomly “perceived” trends of the moment: any serious project is based on an effective, researched and reasoned editorial plan that starts with well-executed keyword research.
Identifying relevant keywords is the first step in connecting with your target audience: keywords must reflect what users are searching for and must be relevant to your site’s content.
The right choice of keywords is critical to driving qualified traffic to your site, because not all keywords are the same. It is important to understand the search intention behind each term to select those that can really bring value to your site. Keywords can have informational, transactional, or navigational intent, and your selection should reflect the goal you want to achieve with your content.
SEOZoom is an example of a tool that can help you find the most relevant keywords for your industry and the content you intend to publish. So you can find out what terms users use when they search for products, services, or content such as you offer with your site, and with this information, you can create targeted content that answers users’ questions and is optimized to attract qualified traffic to your site.
- Writing with search intent in mind
The heart of a site is its content, which must be original, informative and valuable to the user-Google rewards sites that offer useful, well-written content.
Therefore, it is essential to write text that responds to user questions and needs, starting with an analysis of search intent to meet the expectations of information seekers. Strategic writing from an SEO perspective goes beyond the old concept of “writing for Google” and pushes precisely to consider end users first.
Search intent is nothing more than the underlying reason for a specific query on Google: what does the user really want to find out when they type in those keywords? Your goal is to be the answer to that question. This means creating content that not only includes the right keywords, but is also rich in information, answers, and solutions. If a user searches for “how to care for succulents,” they are not just expecting a list of steps; they are looking for practical advice, personal experiences, perhaps even stories of success and failure. By responding fully and authentically to the search intent, you not only satisfy the user’s curiosity, but also build trust and authority, elements that Google values positively in ranking results.
On the practical side, then, texts should be written with clear sentences and well-structured paragraphs: readability is crucial to keep the user’s attention and reduce the bounce rate, which can negatively affect SEO ranking. Proper use of headings (H1 for main title, followed by H2, H3, H$ for subsections) really helps you organize your content, making it more readable and understandable for both users and search engines.
Also pay attention to titles and meta descriptions, which are among the first elements a user sees in search results. A catchy title and informative meta description can make the difference between a click and a scroll over. Optimize these elements not only with your chosen keywords, but also to make them attention-grabbing and interesting.
- Monitor results and target your work
Constant monitoring of results is vital to understand what is working and what needs improvement in your strategy. Without data analysis, you would be like a captain navigating by sight.
Instead, it is essential to establish clear metrics – what in marketing are called KPIs, Key Performance Indicators – and monitor them regularly to assess the effectiveness of your strategies, to identify what is producing good results and what needs optimization. Whether it is conversion rates, keyword placements or bounce rates, each piece of data collected is a piece of the puzzle that, when assembled, gives you a complete view of your site’s performance.
The starting point is in installing Google Analytics and Google Search Console, two free tools from Google that are essential for monitoring site traffic, understanding user behavior, and identifying any technical problems.
Google Analytics gives you an in-depth view of user behavior: where they come from, what pages they visit, how long they spend on our site, and what actions they take. This information is vital for optimizing your content and marketing strategy. Google Search Console, on the other hand, focuses on your site’s visibility in Google search results and provides you with valuable data on the health of your site, highlighting technical problems such as crawl errors, security issues or pages not indexed, allowing you precisely to monitor performance in search results.
In addition to Google Analytics and Google Search Console, there are numerous other SEO tools that can help improve a site’s SEO strategy. It is often a matter of making an investment-economically, as well as in time and labor-in exchange for a comprehensive view of site performance and insights to identify opportunities for further optimization, which could lead to new and increased revenue.
SEO is not a “set and forget” activity
You should now have a clearer idea of what SEO is, what it means to work from an SEO perspective, and-hopefully! – also about what you need to do concretely to make your site more visible on Google.
However, we have a few more tips for you.
With SEOZoom, the first Google page is closer than ever!
First of all, SEO is not a “set and forget” strategy – so it is not something that, after you set it up or start it up, can work on its own without any further intervention. Search engines are constantly updating their algorithms, user behaviors are changing, and competitors are not standing still, so you need to stay current and adapt your strategies accordingly.
Constant analysis and monitoring gives you the data you need to continually adapt and optimize your strategies, and this process of continuous optimization is critical to maintaining and improving your site’s ranking over time.
And then, if you want to continue your “climb up Google’s SERPs,” you might consider taking an extra step and investing time in learning and staying up-to-date on the latest SEO trends and best practices, to discover, for example, new techniques emerging and old practices becoming obsolete.
In short, to remain competitive and effective, continuing your training is imperative. This means staying up-to-date on the latest Google algorithm news and updates, but also deepening your understanding of concepts such as usability, user experience, content marketing, offpage optimization, and so on.
How can you do this? Attend webinars, enroll in professional courses, read industry studies, follow influencers on social, and experiment with new tools and techniques so that you can hone your skills and ensure that your SEO strategies are always on the cutting edge.
Venturing into the world of SEO may seem like a complex journey, but as we have seen, even those who are novices can embark on this path with confidence. And remember: there are no tricks or secrets, no spells reserved for code wizards, because SEO is a discipline within everyone’s reach, as long as you have a dash of good will and commitment.
