Best SEO Tutorials for Beginners

You’re probably doing a search for your website right now and wondering why your competitors are on the first page of Google and you’re not.

What do they have the that you don’t? You offer the same services, so shouldn’t you be more competitive?

The truth is, ranking well on search engine results pages is something that takes a bit of effort on your part and a lot of time. First page rankings don’t just happen overnight, and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit, quite frankly. Your competition has probably made a long-term investment in their website by creating quality, informative content that speaks to your customers. Google is going to show their website first if you’re not doing the same.

Now that you’re ready to take a more active role in your website’s future, where do you start? Don’t worry, I got you. Here are 5 of the best SEO tutorials for beginners to help you get started.

The Definitive Guide to Yoast SEO

This tutorial is specific to WordPress sites since Yoast is a WordPress plugin. 33% of all websites use WordPress, so chances are your website is one of them. This is a comprehensive guide to using Yoast. From configuration settings to site structure, this guide will help you set up your WordPress site for success.

I followed this guide for the first time when I set up a website for a physical therapy practice website in 2013, and I reference it to this day. Of all the SEO tutorials, this is my favorite, hands down. Yoast also has a good SEO blog and other tutorials on their site. Click here to read The Definitive Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress sites.

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO by Moz

I like this guide because it not only goes over steps to improve your website’s SEO, but it also provides education on what SEO is and why it’s important. This guide provides detail on how search engines work so that you don’t feel like you are performing all of these steps arbitrarily.

I personally love to learn the why behind a task, so that I can fully understand the purpose of what I am doing. I also like that Moz goes back and updates the guide as things change. Like Yoast, Moz offers an in-depth blog with a lot of useful information that is specific to local search. Click here to read The Beginner’s Guide to SEO by Moz.

SEO 101 by Search Engine Journal

This guide covers just about everything, from the history of search engines to a glossary of SEO terms. I like that Search Engine Journal presents their information as individual blog posts and in an ebook format.

They make it easy for you to navigate to different chapters if you want to go back and reference specific parts of their guides. My favorite chapter would be How Long Does SEO Take (which should be a must-read for anyone who has a website TBH). Click here to read SEO 101 by Search Engine Journal.

The Nine Ingredients That Make Great Content by Neil Patel

What would an article about SEO be without a mention of Neil Patel? The guy is synonymous with the term. Now that we’ve looked at our site structure, let’s take a look at what our site says. Patel’s article discusses why you need to develop quality, original content, and what to focus on when writing for your customers.

I know that a lot of business owners balk at the idea of writing informative articles. You want your customers to buy from you, not teach them how to do your job. However, articles that answer some of your customer’s questions will potion you as the authority. Click here to read Patel’s article on blog post content.

How to do Keyword Research: A Beginner’s Guide by HubSpot

HubSpot is an excellent digital marketing resource. Although their intended goal is for you to purchase their software product, they do offer a lot of good information (see above). In this article, HubSpot provides a full tutorial on how to do keyword research for your website.

You can apply their techniques to writing your services pages as well as generating blog post ideas so that way you can ensure that you are using the search terms your customers are. Click here to read How to do Keyword Research: A Beginner’s Guide.

According to Google, SEO takes a significant time investment (think up to a year) before you start seeing the fruits of your labor. These tutorials will help you fertilize your website, so to speak, so it will flourish.