The Ultimate SEO Guide

Are you starting your blog? Or creating a new app? Well, you will need to learn a lot about search engine optimization (SEO) to succeed and get your website or app on the first page of the search engines.

That’s why I’ve created this ultimate guide to SEO and am here to help you.

Okay, let’s get started.

Understanding SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that allows your website or other channels to rank higher in the search engines, such as Google.

SEO is quite a complex process and it involves lots of factors that might impact your rankings, so you need to understand it well even before you create your first website.

To understand SEO, you will need to familiarize yourself with the key elements, so let’s explain them in the next section.

What Are the Key Elements of SEO

Keywords

The first and main element of SEO is keywords and how they are incorporated into the content you build. Imagine you’re starting a food blog and aiming to rank first in search engines for the amazing veggie burger recipe you’ve just tried.

You will need to compete with some very successful websites, such as Love and Lemons, or BBC Good Foods – see below the first three results on Google when I searched for: “veggie burger recipe.” 

You are now wondering what it takes to take over the first place from Love and Lemons. Well, you will need to create great content. And I mean really awesome content! 

That content needs to include relevant keywords, such as: “veggie burger recipe,” “best veggie burger recipe,” or “easy veggie burger recipe.” But you should include these keywords naturally in your content. Do not just add them to your content only because they popped up in the keyword research tools. 

You need to distinguish yourself and create content rich with keywords that provide real benefits to your readers. If you create it just to fulfill the SEO best practices, then you are set up for failure. Sorry, guys, I wish it was easier myself as I am also more of a “technical” person, than creative.

That’s why you might want to consider hiring a professional writer if you are not creative yourself. However, this won’t be cheap. 

On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization is a strategy that involves all the things that you do on the website itself. Little things, such as URLs, titles, meta descriptions, headings, images, internal links, external links, content quality, mobile responsiveness, page load speed, and lots of others are what determine how good you are in on-page optimization. 

Let’s explain each of these in more detail.

URLs

URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, is the exact address of a post or a page. For instance, this blog post has the URL: markotanaskovic.com/SEO-guide 

The unwritten rule in SEO is that URLs should be short and sweet and ALWAYS include the main keyword. It would be strange if the URL did not include “SEO,” right? I strongly believe that Google Algorithms check the URL and if the content of that page does not match the content, they won’t rank you well. 

Another thing that is important with URLs is you do not include STOP words, such as the, an, a, of, and, etc. 

Now, you do not need to always exclude stop words from the URL, sometimes it will just make more sense to include stop words, than not, so go with your intuition.

For example:

Without Stop Words: markotanaskovic.com/importance-backlinks-seo

With Stop Words: markotanaskovic.com/the-importance-of-backlinks-in-seo

I’d never remove “the” from the URL as it just does not sound good or make sense without it. 

What you also need to know is that URLs are case sensitive, so if you write markotanaskovic.com/About and markotanaskovic.com/about it will show exactly as set it up. Therefore, always use lowercase and always separate words with hyphens (-), and never use underscores. This just looks bad in the search bar and this is something Google bots do not like.

Avoid using special characters in URLs, such as $, %, #, etc. They should consist only of words, numbers, and hyphens.

And last, but not least, avoid deep nesting. On all websites, you can add categories and subcategories to properly sort and classify the content you are writing. But, do not complicate it too much.

Let’s assume I have multiple categories on my blog, SEO, and then under SEO, I have guides, and then under guides, I have subcategories for ultimate guides. 

In that case, my URL would be: 

markotanaskovic.com/blog/SEO/guides/ultimate-guides/SEO-guide

You will agree this URL is confusing and the one I currently have is much simpler. So, be careful with the categories you create on your website and how you nest the content.

Titles

Titles are important in on-page optimization as that’s always the first thing a reader will see on your website. Therefore, your title needs to be enticing to the reader so that they click on it when they see it on Google. 

It needs to include keywords as they should tell the reader (and Google) what your article is about. However, be careful with overstuffing keywords as you might be penalized by Google. This is just not a good practice. Let’s imagine that the title of this post is:

“SEO Guide for SEO Experts.” It’s just not natural and it’s clearly keyword stuffing. Avoid that. 

Another unwritten rule for titles is that your primary keyword should be as close to the beginning as possible. Instead of writing: “The Ultimate Guide Written by and for SEO Experts,” I’d rather go with “The Ultimate SEO Guide,” which is what I have in this post.

I could have even gone with “SEO: The Ultimate Guide,”, but I’ve decided it’s more readable the other way. So, as with content and URLs, make sure your title reads well.

Whenever possible, include numbers in your title. Statistics show that headlines that include numbers have 73 percent more shares! Impressing, right?

However, that does not mean that my blog would be more shared if I’ve included just a number, let’s say: “The Ultimate SEO Guide: 5 Best Practices.” I believe that numbers are only as good as what they are showing. Let me explain. 

If I write an article titled: “This Is How 80 Percent of SEO Experts Earned 500k for a Year,”, that is the title that would be shared. Why? Because it has some really impressive numbers that would get a majority to click and read. However, if you do not prove these numbers and explain all the nitty gritty around them, don’t expect shares. 

If your content isn’t good, people won’t share it. Also, if your headline doesn’t match your content, it’s bad for SEO and can make readers lose trust in you. Doing this often might make people think your site is just spam.

Meta Descriptions

If we come back to the food blog example, when I searched for “best quinoa recipe”, this is what I got: 

You see the highlighted text (“the easy method…”), that is what is the meta description.

Meta descriptions are important for SEO as they should inform potential readers about the content of your article and whether it matches their search intent. You must be clear and precise with meta descriptions, as the general rule with meta descriptions in SEO is that they should be 140-155 characters long. 

Too lengthy metas won’t fit the window you have on Google and you will have three dots at the end. Take a look at the below example:

Meta descriptions should also be rich with primary or secondary keywords, but they should still look natural and be enticing for potential readers to open your article.

Same as with the title, the keyword should as close to the beginning as possible, as long as it makes sense and is grammatically correct. If you have no idea how to write meta descriptions, there are plenty of tools that can help you with that.

I am using RightBlogger for everything I do on the blog. RightBlogger uses AI to suggest you the best meta description for your article, based on the parameters (such as keywords) you add. But, what I’ve noticed with all these AI tools (including ChatGPT), they tend to be repetitive and suggest very similar meta descriptions for various articles.

For instance, they often suggest meta descriptions that start with “discover” or “explore”, but try to be more creative and adjust the descriptions the best you can.

However, if your meta description does not match your content you will experience a high bounce rate, which is really bad for your SEO. If you want to learn more about bounce rates, please refer to my article here. 

And do not use quotation marks, as Google cuts off your description immediately after the quotation marks.

Headings

Headings, such as H2, H3, and H4 are very important parts of on-page optimization. I haven’t mentioned H1 as H1 is your title, which we covered above. The same rules that apply for H1 mostly apply for H2, H3, and H4 as well. But there are some details you should know.

Make sure you use appropriate hierarchy and order when applying headings in your content. For instance, my H2 here is “What Are Key Elements for SEO”, H3 is “On-page Optimization,” and finally, H4 is “Headings.” Since I could not cover all key elements under H2, I decided to split it into H3s, and then I realized I also needed H4s for all the on-page optimization factors.

The general rule, at least according to the Yoast SEO tool, is to add the headings if you are writing more than 300 words in the section.

Make sure the hierarchy and order of headlines make sense for the reader and is easy to navigate. 

When I worked at digital marketing agencies, we had a rule to have 40 percent of headings include the main keyword. However, this is not always possible and can be considered as keyword stuffing.

Imagine I put “SEO” in all H4s, i.e., “URLs in SEO,” “Titles in SEO,” and “Meta Descriptions in SEO,” — that would just be too much. So, add keywords in lower-level headings only when it makes sense. 

And avoid using headings lower than H4, i.e., H5 and H6. If you have to split your content into so many headings, consider just creating another article that will cover these topics.

I avoid using H4s as well, except for my ultimate guides, which are too lengthy and detailed to be covered only with H2s and H3s.

Images

Using images in your content can be appealing to your readers and make your website look more professional, especially if you are paying for them. I know designer-made images can be expensive, so its fine to use royalty-free images at the beginning, as long as the images you are adding are relevant to the content. 

When you are adding images to your website, make sure they are named correctly before uploading them. Image name should contain the keyword, and same applies for Alt text. 

Alt text is the “alternative text” and is supposed to provide the context around the image for the users with screen readers, but also for Google bots. If you’re using Alt text that has nothing to do with the text, then you’re doing it wrong. 

Images should be in common formats, JPEG and PNG, and should not be large files. Using images larger than 1MB (1 megabyte) can slow down your website, which is another important factor for SEO. If you have a really great image, but it’s large, then use file compressors. I personally use TinyPNG – they are free and very effective, and most importantly, they do not reduce the image quality when they compress it.

Except for quality, you need to take responsiveness into consideration. Responsiveness means that the image you upload will adapt and look “nice” on whatever device you are looking at it. 

Have you heard about the phrase that “image is telling you 1,000 words?” If yes, then do not put any text in the images. Images should be just images – without text in it. Text images are less accessible for users and it can mess up the way Google crawls them. 

And lastly, make sure whatever images you add to the content, fit your overall website design. If your website has a black background, then it would not like nice if you add another dark-colored image – make sure its contrasted well.

Content Quality

“Content is King” is a phrase I’ve heard so many times when I started my first SEO project back in 2012. Even though it’s not said as often as it was a decade ago, it remains true.

People still crave content that meets their exact needs. It’s surprising me when I see hundreds of new blogs that are providing content that is either not relevant, or just too lean and does not provide a reader with an actual value. 

SEO experts and business owners must realize that content quality is incredibly important, perhaps the single most crucial factor in SEO.

This is now becoming a challenge with ChatGPT and other AI tools. I see many website owners start using ChatGPT-written content, but I think this is a huge mistake. Google is sophisticated, and I believe it will eventually recognize AI-written content, potentially penalizing websites that rely on it.

Don’t get me wrong — I love tech, and I am using it, including ChatGPT. But I write everything first, and then ask ChatGPT for an opinion and suggestions for the improvements. And to make sure there aren’t any typos or significant grammar errors. I find it extremely helpful with these types of things, but I’d never use just AI tool to write everything instead of me. Not even a single paragraph.

Well-written, quality content will help you build a reputation and credibility, which ultimately leads to better trustworthiness ratings by search engines. Writing quality content will also help you in building quality backlinks naturally (we’ll cover backlinks in more detail below). 

What I am always trying to do with my content is to be original. It’s not enough to just say same things with different words. Try to draw on your personal experience, conduct surveys and share the results, create infographics, etc. It does take significant time and effort, but trust me, its worth it. This is especially true with building backlinks.

Mobile Responsiveness

Mobile friendliness or mobile responsiveness isn’t new and its a ranking factor since 2015!

It also means that your content on the website will be appealing to the readers on mobile phones, not only on desktops.

According to Statista, in the Q1 of 2023, mobile devices generated more than 58 percent of global website traffic, and you do not want your readers to bounce your well-written, quality content, just because they are not seeing it well on their mobile phone.

We live in the age of tech, and there are plenty of tools you can use to check how your content looks on all devices, including mobile ones. So, don’t be lazy and check your website before it’s published, and regularly check the mobile responsiveness factor once a month. That’s what I do, as you never know what can be messed up in the backend of the website.

And lots of themes in WordPress and other CMS-es are mobile responsive already, so you would normally not need to worry about that part. But once it is messed up, you will need to hire a software developer to fix it, and this is a costly option.

Did you know that mobile responsiveness also impacts social shares? That’s true. It’s simple—the vast majority of people are sharing on social media (Instagram, X, TikTok, Facebook, etc.) via mobile, so if your content is not mobile-friendly, you will miss lots of social shares = new readers.

Page Load Speed

Page load speed is a crucial Google ranking factor. Statistics show that the probability of a visitor leaving (or ‘bouncing’) increases by 32 percent when a website’s load time goes from 1 to 3 seconds. Yet, over 70% of landing pages take more than 5 seconds to load.

The math is clear—the slower your website, the fewer visitors you’re likely to retain. Given that the majority of landing pages have load times exceeding 5 seconds, optimizing your website’s speed can significantly distinguish you from competitors.

One study found that engagement increases by 5 percent if the page load speed is increased for only 1 second. That’s a huge improvement.

Improving your website’s speed, however, often involves technical expertise. Hiring a developer is a common approach, and while this can be a significant investment, the payoff in terms of visitor retention and website performance can be substantial.

It’s important to note that web technology and programming languages are constantly evolving. A website optimized for speed today may not perform as well in the future due to updates in web standards or the addition of new content. Regular maintenance and updates may be necessary to keep your site loading quickly. 

In summary, investing in website speed is not just about a one-time enhancement but about an ongoing commitment to your website’s performance and user experience.

Off-Page Optimization

Off-page optimization is all SEO activities that you take outside of your website and that impact your website rankings on search engines. 

Let’s move directly to key elements of off-page optimization:

Backlinks

Backlinks are external links that direct to your website, indicating that another site is referencing yours. In SEO, backlinks are crucial as search engine algorithms consider them a key factor in assessing your content’s reputation. 

The more high-quality backlinks you have, the better. ‘High-quality’ indicates that the websites linking to you are reputable and not sources of spam.

Relevance is also a crucial factor for backlinks. For instance, consider the relevance of receiving numerous backlinks from a food blog when your site is not food-related. Such irrelevant backlinks are recognized by search engines like Google, and they may not improve your rankings–in fact, they could potentially harm them.

Backlinks are probably one of the most influential factors for the ranking, so you need to invest significant time in making sure you have some. How do you do that? Creating great content is the first choice as backlinks will then naturally come to you. Remember how we talked about creating original content? Create an infographic or conduct a study and share results and everyone will refer to you. 

You can also engage in guest blogging, meaning you will create a post for someone’s else website and include links to your website in it. This is a very common practice in blogging. 

When it comes to backlinking, there are several practices you should avoid to maintain your website’s SEO integrity. These include refraining from purchasing links, engaging in link exchanges, or participating in link farms. Such activities can adversely affect your search engine rankings.

What Are the Benefits of SEO

Are you wondering why you should bother with the above steps I described? Is SEO THAT important? Let’s go through some stats.

According to Statista, more than 50 percent of marketing professionals indicated that SEO has a “large positive impact on marketing performance and goals.”

A 2011 study by McKinsey found that 80 percent market their products online. It also found that they allocate the majority of their budget to the SEO. I assume this is much higher nowadays.

In a case study shared on LinkedIn, a German app was able to reach from 0 to 20,000 EUR/monthly by using SEO strategies. 

Grow Your Traffic with Proper SEO Practices

It took me three days to write this, and I really hope you like it. It’s a lot to take in, so feel free to save this page and come back to it whenever you need. That’s what I did when I first started learning about SEO. Having good resources to refer to is super helpful!

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