Table Of ContentContents
Welcome, Why You Should Read This Book...
What You Need to Know About SEO and Google
STEP 1: Choose the Right Keyword for Your Niche
Choosing the Right Keywords
Targeting Long Tail Keywords for Increased Traffic
STEP 2: Create Great, SEO-friendly Content
How to Write Content Google Loves
Page Titles & Keywords
Optimizing Images for SEO
Create Viral Infographics, Even if You're Not a Designer
Creating List Posts & How-To Articles That Get Links
STEP 3: Optimize Your Site
Keyword Placement & Density (2 Simple Rules)
Internal & External Linking Strategies
SEO-friendly URLs: Fixing Common Problems
Setting Up an XML Sitemap
Meta Tags: The Ones You Need & the Ones You Don't
Making Your Site Mobile-Friendly
Using Rich Snippets to Stand Out on Google
Local SEO: Getting More Customers From Localized Searches
STEP 4: Social Media Marketing
How to Use Social Sharing Buttons Effectively
Time-Saving Social Media Marketing for SEO
Specific Network Advice: Facebook, Google+, Twitter & Pinterest
Accesssing Hidden, Niche Social Networks
Using Triberr to Double Your Traffic
STEP 5: Getting Links to Your Site
PageRank & Link Building
Time-Saving Tools for Link Building
The Best Web Directories for Getting Links
Curated Content: Getting Featured on Link Roundups
STEP 6: Speed Up Your Site
Is Your Site Too Slow for Google?
Go On a Widget & Plugin Diet
Setting Up a Cache Plugin to Make Your Site Faster
Making Images, HTML, CSS & Other Files Load Faster
Use Reliable & Fast Web Hosting
Pro Secret: Use a Content Distribution Network (CDN)
Security Matters: How SSL Certifcates Boost Rankings
BONUS CHAPTERS: More SEO Resources, Free Tools & Next Steps
Using Google Analytics to Measure Your Success
Search Console: See Exactly What Google Thinks of Your Site
How to Recover Quickly From a Google Penalty
SEO Glossary: Key Terms Explained
SEO Tools, Links, and Plugins
SEO Step-by-Step
The Complete Beginner's Guide to Getting
Traffic from Google
2016 EDITION
Caimin Jones
Updated January 2016
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Copyright © 2016 Caimin Jones.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner
whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in
a book review.
Praise for this book
"The world of SEO was foreign to me, this book bridged the gap and answered
so many questions. Simply written and very straightforward. Highly
recommended."
Christine F. Anderson
"I love this book because finally I have a clear, concise, yet comprehensive
guide to search engine optimization. The guide is completely up-to-date, which
is critical because search algorithms change often. I highly recommend this book
for beginners."
A. Stowe
"This book has really changed the way we are doing business! And the results
are evident."
Amazon Customer
Welcome
Thank you for buying this book. My name is Caimin and I've been building
websites for myself and clients (and getting them ranked highly in Google) since
1998.
SEO is by far the most effective way to get visitors to your site. Once you "get"
the secrets, you'll be able to create a steady stream of visitors to your website,
blog or online business.
This book is written for the complete SEO beginner in plain English. You
won't find any confusing jargon, or long-winded histories of SEO; just focused,
step-by-step strategies you start using today to get more visitors from Google.
If you can write a blog post or a web page, I can show you how to turn it into an
SEO success.
Because this is a beginner's guide, it's been proofread many times to make sure
it's the easiest guide possible. That said, if there's anything you're still not clear
about, please feel free to email me and I'll try to help. My email address is on the
last page of the book.
Let's get started.
What You Need to Know About SEO and Google
If you've poured your heart and soul into creating a website or blog only to find
it doesn't get the traffic it deserves, you're not alone.
Getting visitors to your site isn't easy. You probably know you need to learn
SEO but the trouble is there are so many SEO "gurus" slithering around you'd be
forgiven for thinking it was a mysterious black art that takes years to learn, or
can only be mastered by an elite group with insider knowledge.
But the truth is, the basics of SEO are straightforward. You can learn them and
start seeing increased visits to your website within a week.
The first step is to understand that the goal of search engines is to keep users
coming back by consistently delivering useful search results. They do that by
investing millions every year in developing algorithms to predict as accurately as
possible which content users will find most useful in search results.
Everything they do revolves around that objective.
Once you understand that, you know the golden rule of getting traffic - whether
from search engines, social media or content marketing:
Create content real people love - on subjects they're searching for - and search
engine traffic will follow.
Follow that rule and you'll attract visitors who will:
• Stay on your site longer
• Look at more pages
• Come back to your site again and again
• Tweet, Like, and share your content
These actions are signals that Google and other search engines look for as
quality indicators when deciding how high sites and pages should rank. The
more users you have on your site taking one or more of these actions, the higher
you will appear in search results.
How search engines work
There are three main steps search engines take to decide which content should be
promoted to the top of search results.
1. They visit your site to create an index of the content to understand what
individual pages are about, as well as the overall subject of your site.
2. They count links from other sites and blogs as "votes" on the quality of the
content.
3. They count social shares - likes, tweets, etc. - as more "votes" for your
content.
Although search engine algorithms are a complex mix of hundreds of ranking
factors, most aspects of search engine optimization fit in to one of these areas.
That's why this book concentrates on those three vital areas. By the end of the
book, you'll be an expert in on-page SEO, link-building and getting the
maximum amount of social shares for each piece of content you publish.
Best of all, by using free tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console
(previously called Google Webmaster Tools), you'll be able to see the success
you're having in bringing in extra visitors and ranking for more keywords.
Note: Don't worry if you're not familiar with either of those tools, we'll look at
setting up and using both of them in a later chapter.
"White-hat" SEO vs. "Black-hat" SEO
There are two types of SEO. This book is about White-hat SEO. It uses the
honest tips and techniques I've used to increase the rankings of my sites and
those of my clients over the last eighteen years.
Black-hat SEO, on the other hand, uses tricks and loopholes to try to game the
system and trick search engines into ranking a site as high as possible, regardless
of the quality of the content.
I'm sure you've seen ads promising a shortcut to page one of Google. Just buy
Product X, adjust a few settings and wait a few days for a torrent of traffic. At
worst, products like those are scams. At best, they're software that exploits a
loophole.
The problem with loopholes is that sooner or later, Google closes the loophole.
Not so long ago, an easy way to improve rankings was to write a single article
and then use software called an "article spinner" to create and submit slight
variations of it to hundreds of different article directories. Within the content of
the articles would be links back to the authors site - generating hundred of
backlinks in a short time, leading to better rankings.
Just one problem.
Overnight Google changed its algorithm. Not only did it downgrade almost all
article directories to junk status, it kicked sites using the article spinning trick out
of its search results.
This meant improved search results for users, but a lot of black-hat SEO
"engineers" having to undo years of work in an attempt to repair their rankings.
That's why I recommend sticking to white-hat SEO techniques. They work and
they're a safe, reliable long-term strategy.
STEP 1: Choose the Right Keyword
for Your Niche
