SEO DIY 2021: Steps to Start SEO on Your Website by Yourself

SEO is the first thing you need to take a closer look at when working towards online success. The following article is for all of you who think that SEO is some magical thing that only a select few can do. Read on, and we guarantee you’ll get all the essential knowledge necessary to start implementing SEO practices on your website.

What Is Important With SEO?

Generally speaking, SEO is the thing that tells the search algorithms what your website is about, and it helps search engines display it in the search engine results (SERP). The search algorithms analyze each website and determine how to rank it in the SERPs.

The search engine (read Google’s) ranking algorithms analyze each aspect of a website: crawl accessibility, compelling content, keywords optimized for search, user experience, quality of content, optimized titles, tags, and descriptions, and more. If you have a website with unoptimized content, you will get an unsatisfactory ranking and will draw little to no traffic to your content.

SEO is a process of optimizing each aspect of a web page that helps boost the page’s ranking. SEO can be considered a marketing tactic, but it has become an essential aspect of any website looking to gain visibility and rank higher in the organic SERPs.

Without further ado, here is some essential advice on improving your website’s ranking by improving SEO. SEO is divided into several parts, and we’ll cover each one specifically, providing critical advice on what steps you should take and see significant improvements. What’s great about this is that you can do everything yourself and get impressive results.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing the individual web pages so your website can rank higher in the SERPs and attract more visitors. On-Page SEO means optimizing keywords, titles, tags, content, internal links, headings, body texts, and more. Here we’ve prepared a checklist with all the essential things you need to pay attention to when optimizing your website:

1. Title – this is arguably the most important on-page SEO factor to be optimized, as it provides the best overview of what your page is about. It is best to adopt the front-loading technique to optimize the titles – use the most relevant keywords at the beginning of the title tag. To further optimize the titles, you can use title tag modifiers. These include words like “best,” “fast,” “review,” “guide,” “free,” “paid,” and more, as people very often use them in their searches.
2. Keywords – the surest way to rank high in the SERPs is to use relevant keywords. While the search algorithms are becoming more sophisticated by the day, keyword search is still essential and is here to stay. So, you need to use proper keywords throughout your page. As a best practice, aim to use the target keyword in the first 100 words, as Google’s algorithms put weight on the terms that show up early, as it considers these of greater importance.
3. Topics – showing Google what the topic of your website is is crucial to a higher ranking. That is why you need to fortify the target keyword and mention it several times across the page, so Google will be confident your page is on the exact topic of the search. Aim to mention the keyword several times, but be careful to avoid keyword stuffing, as too many mentions may have an adverse effect.
4. Images – optimizing your images is another way to drive traffic to your website. Large images are the No.1 culprit for slow-loading pages, so you always need to compress images. After you compress and add the correct size images, you should not forgo the image alt text. This text describes what the image is about to the Google algorithm, so Google will “know” when to display it in the SERPs. The search engines crawl the alt text and understand the images, adding extra context. The image alt text should contain the main keyword for improved visibility.
5. Tags: the tags are not clearly visible on the page but are essential to ranking. The tags are what gets analyzed by the search engine algorithms, so it makes sense to optimize these with care:
   • Title tags – the title tag is the blue clickable link that shows in the SERP and is the text you see at the top of the browser and is usually in an H1 tag. For best SEO results, aim to make the title tags in line with the search intent.
   • Meta description – the meta description is the text that shows up below the clickable link in the SERPs. Earlier, Google filled out this text using snippets of text from your page, but recently you can write the meta description and optimize it for best results. You can use relevant keywords and make your meta description stand out, so people will click on it.
   • Headings/subheadings – the subheadings in your copy should also contain keywords, and you should spend a little time optimizing these as well. These should be in an H2 tag.
6. Quality – the quality of your content is essential for ranking higher, as Google values and rewards quality. When we talk about on-page SEO, the quality of your content is crucial, so you should write compelling copy that brings value to your audience. Stay away from low-quality, spun, or auto-generated content. Your content should be written by actual people and needs to be written in a natural, easy-to-read way.
7. Length – when we talk about content, the copy length also plays a critical role in ranking. It depends on the topic/niche your website is about. While some topics can be easily covered with short 300-word texts, some may require 1-2K words or even more. However, based on the SEO requirements, you should always aim to put an excellent text-to-image ratio, so strive to publish a copy that is over 300 words.
8. Freshness – when it comes to content and on-page SEO, the fresher – the better. Many things change daily, so depending on your site’s topic, you should update your content regularly. Of course, if your website deals with unchanging facts, you can avoid this; in all other cases, a regular update of your content is necessary.

Off-Page SEO

Now that you know about on-page SEO, let’s talk about off-page SEO. Off-page SEO, or off-site SEO, is the action taken outside your website to help your ranking. To optimize for off-site ranking, you need to improve your website’s relevance, popularity, authority, and trustworthiness. Here we’ve prepared a checklist that can help you optimize your off-page SEO and improve ranking in the SERPs.

1. Add/use links – it is the primary action in off-page SEO, as it involves building backlinks. The key here is to aim for quality and not quantity. You will need to use links from authority sites so Google will recognize the relevance of your content.
2. Use link-building techniques – when doing a ling-building strategy as a part of off-page SEO, you need to use high-value links that rank better. There are three main types of links that you can use on your website:
   • Natural links – these links are editorially given without any action on your side; for example a musician can add a link to their favorite music store. These are the best kind of links for off-page SEO, as they add to the relevance of your website.
   • Manually built links – these links result from deliberate link-building efforts; for example, you ask customers/influencers to share your website.
   • Self-created links – the self-created links result from adding a backlink to your website on a third-party site through optimized anchor text. They are the least desirable ones, as too many of these can result in lowering your ranking.
3. Promote your site on social media –you should use all available options to reach more people, including promoting your website on social media. This type of promotion, along with an email outreach campaign, is a part of off-site SEO. Google’s algorithms use social media platforms as vital metrics for ranking web pages, and you should always use them to your benefit.

Local SEO

Over 75% of internet users have stated that they go online to search for something local. So, local SEO is essential for businesses that have a physical location. It is the practice of optimizing your website to be more reachable for local searches. Here is the checklist that you need to focus on when doing local SEO on your webpage:

1. Local keywords – the local keywords are the keywords optimized for local searches. For example, if you are operating a vegan restaurant in Manhattan, then your local keywords should focus on the location and the business.
2. Google My Business – make sure you create and operate a Google My Business profile for your business. Adding a link pointing to your webpage and your address in Google Maps is a huge step in improving your local SEO.
3. NAP citations – NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone number and is a crucial part of local SEO. Google uses the NAP citations to confirm the relevance of your business info. When people see these on the SERPs, they’ll be more confident in trusting and visiting your physical location.

Optimize for Mobile SEO

Close to 90% of all internet users use a mobile device to go online, so a huge part of SEO is the optimization for mobile use. Mobile SEO means that your website is optimized for mobile use. Generally speaking, the website should look great and have all the functionalities across all devices.

Google has adapted its algorithms, and now websites optimized for mobile users get better rankings, even on desktop searches. Mobile SEO entails a responsive site design, impressive user experience, splendid site structure, and quick loading speed, all optimized for mobile use. If you build your website via a platform like WordPress, you can easily find guidelines for optimizing your website for mobile use.

To Wrap Up: SEO Is a Key Factor in Attracting Visitors

We sincerely hope you found our checklist/guide to doing SEO on your site by yourself helpful and that you’ll be at least tempted to try it out. You should note that there are no shortcuts and no jumping steps: each and every factor that we’ve outlined needs optimizing. Only then will your website have a fighting chance of ranking high in the SERPs, as all your competitors will also do everything in their power to rank higher.

Pay close attention to on-page SEO, keywords and title optimization, meta descriptions, and alt tags. Off-page SEO is also crucial, as is the local SEO and, of course, mobile SEO. Follow our guidelines, and you don’t skip steps, and don’t forget to update your website regularly and create awesome content that your audiences will like.