How to Make SEO Uncomplicated with Understanding

SEO is not that complicated, right? (Actually, it is if you don’t know what you are doing), here’s how to make SEO uncomplicated.

How to Make SEO Uncomplicated

Photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash

Let’s address one of the biggest elephants in the why-am-I-not-getting-views room, which is SEO.

I am pretty sure you have heard this word many, many, MANY times when scouting the web. Most of you even have a basic understanding of what it means and what it entails.

However, SEO is one of those topics that can become complicated and overwhelming pretty fast. By just searching the word SEO on Google, you will be bombarded with a lot of articles and business sites that claim to know everything about SEO (and some of them actually do), which will result in you not grasping the full meaning of SEO. 

If you are a pro SEO specialist who has a portfolio the size of my hopes and dreams, you can probably skip this article (but don’t, please). My intention is to provide the most beginner-friendly guide into SEO that I possibly can. The best way to go about that is by showing you how to make SEO uncomplicated. It’s easy to get into the weeds, so, let me show you how to keep it simple.

The first step in making SEO uncomplicated is by understanding…

What is SEO and why is it important?

It stands for search engine optimization which is pretty self-explanatory. SEO refers to all the methods one can use to rank higher on search engine result pages, including black or white hat tactics (more on these later), on-page or off-page SEO and many more methods.

Before I go on about why SEO is important and why you should spend all your money on it (it was a joke, don’t) and how it is the second coming of Christ, let’s talk about why it is even necessary. 

As you know, when we are looking for something, be it an article about photography or a local business that provides good services, we usually google them (or use Bing, but who uses bing? Be honest to yourself). The process of googling a word or phrase sounds pretty simple, right? You search for something and Google gives you the most appropriate results.

Well yes, but actually no.

You see, back when there weren’t a gazillion websites on the web, things were a lot simpler. Twenty years ago, there existed only around 30 million websites. So, search engines had a much easier job of indexing all those pages (indexing means collecting all the information about websites so when a user searches for something, It will be easier to come up with accurate results). But now in 2021, there are about 1.88 billion websites online. If you think that is a ridiculous number, you are absolutely right. 

For every great website with good content, there are so many scammy, sketchy and borderline criminal-looking websites that don’t deserve to generate organic traffic. This is when SEO comes to play. Think of it as a test from the Google algorithm. Any site that wants to have organic traffic, must pass this SEO test.

 

CONTENT Makes SEO Uncomplicated!

Ok, let’s talk about content first.

Why? Because by focusing on content designed specifically for your audience — you’re going to be miles ahead in terms of good SEO.

Content means basically anything that your site provides to a user, be it textual, visual or aural. The most common form of content is blogging, which is where most people put their focus on for getting better SEO. But there is one very important issue that must be dealt with, which is the issue of posting content just for the sake of SEO.

For example, writing a poor article about technology that doesn’t include any useful information and is only filled with keywords (important words that users might search for about a topic). Look, Google has stated that a website must be made for users, not search engines. Years ago, when Google search algorithm wasn’t as advanced as it is today, people used a lot of unethical and dishonest ways to get a high ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs for short). However, nowadays Google can figure out if a website is using sketchy methods to rank higher.

So, remember that content is the most important factor of having a good website in general. Post informative articles, publish useful guides and make good videos. Don’t resort to black hat tactics. Speaking of which…

 

What are black hat SEO tactics?

To put it simply, black hat SEO tactics are ways of manipulating Google search algorithm and the users into giving your site traffic. This term comes from the bad guys in western movies, which is pretty cool. The thing that’s not cool here is searching for something on Google but finding completely unrelated results. Who likes their time being wasted? Nowadays, there are a lot of people all around the world that monetize these unhealthy practices. The problem with these methods is that despite procuring good results very fast, they will ultimately ruin your site, brand and even name. SEO is a long term game. You can’t expect your website to rank high two weeks after making it!

Common black hat SEO tactics are:

  • Using too many keywords
  • Incorrect redirects (you press their Facebook icon, but you end up on another page)
  • Abusing link building (posting an article JUST for the sake of putting a link there)

 

What are white hat SEO tactics?

The complete opposite of black hat tactics (duh).

To master the art of white hat tactics is to know that SEO is only a tool to get your site more exposure. It isn’t the primary focus of building a site and it shouldn’t be.

We need to understand that SEO is SEARCH ENGINE optimization, not website optimization. The quality of your website goes far beyond stuffing keywords and getting low-quality backlinks. By implementing relevant keywords on your page (for example, this article is about SEO. Therefore, the word “SEO” needs to be regularly seen on the page), optimizing your site’s design and internal quality and many other ways to make your website better for both users and search engines, your website will eventually win the SEO game. 

Common white hat SEO tactics include:

What is Local SEO?

This one is essentially SEO, but for local businesses. If you search for something like “restaurant” or “restaurants near me”, first you will get three results based on your location on the map, which can’t be modified that much through the mentioned tactics above. The other results on the other hand, can and will be defined by how well you know about local SEO. If you just opened up a local business and are looking for new customers in your area, you need to implement local SEO into your business site. This topic needs to be further looked into in the future but for now, take a look at these methods to optimize your local SEO (or you could just take a look at this if you are in a hurry) :

  • Implementing local keywords
  • NAP citations
  • Google My Business account 

 

Wrapping up!

These basics provide a roadmap on how to make SEO uncomplicated.

As much as I like to go further in-depth about the topic of SEO, I can’t (because an article with 5000 words will probably be too much to understand). Therefore, let this article be a starting point for you to do your research later on when looking for a company that provides SEO services.