Search Engine Optimization Tutorial (An Introduction to SEO)
Master SEO from scratch with this comprehensive tutorial. Learn on-page optimization, off-page SEO, Google RankBrain, schema markup, and proven ranking strategies.
Complete SEO Mastery: This 9,000+ word guide takes you through the core concepts of what it takes to be successful with SEO, from beginner to advanced.
Whether you prefer watching video or reading text, this tutorial covers everything you need to know to get your content ranked highly in Google and keep it there for years to come.
Before I get into why this SEO tutorial is the perfect starting point for your learning journey, let me first give you some context on why I decided to make this 5 video, 9000+ word guide.
When I first started learning SEO, I found the guides to be either too high level, too detailed, or too fragmented. As a beginner, I just wanted to understand the big picture first, and then start getting into the specifics.
That's what this beginner's guide is all about. Whether you prefer watching video or reading text, I'll take you through the core concepts of what it takes to be successful with SEO.
🎯 What You'll Learn
- • A clear understanding of exactly what SEO is
- • How Google ranks websites and determines search results
- • How to play the SEO game the right way for long-term success
- • Proven strategies to get your content on the first page of Google
What Is SEO?
Before we get started, it's important that we have a clear understanding of what search engine optimization actually is.
📖 Official Definition
"SEO stands for 'search engine optimization.' It is the process of getting traffic from the 'free,' 'organic,' 'editorial' or 'natural' search results on search engines."- Search Engine Land
In layman's terms, SEO is the art and science of optimizing your website and content so that it organically appears on the first page of Google (or any other search engine) for your respective high-intent keywords or phrases.
💡 Real-World Example
If you run a local marketing agency in Montreal, having your website optimized for Google would mean that when someone types in "Best marketing agency in Montreal" your website would be on the first page.
The Importance of SEO
One of the first questions that inevitably pops up for many business owners and online marketers is "Do I really need to practice SEO to achieve long term success?"
In a word? YES!
Unlike product marketing or other traditional marketing methods and paid traffic, SEO is the process of earning free visitors on autopilot for years to come.
💰 The Power of SEO
If you optimize your website properly according to SEO KPIs, you will experience a massive influx of organic visitors (read: potential customers) without spending a single dime on advertising or marketing.
💡 Imagine: How would your life change if each and every day you had thousands of highly qualified leads being attracted to your website... automatically?
SEO is, without a doubt, one of the single most important marketing strategies of today and, if you can get this right, you will never have to worry about your bottom line ever again.
What Google Wants
At the end of the day, it's important to remember that Google is a business like any other. However, unlike most businesses, their product isn't a piece of information or a physical object, it's access to relevant content.
🎯 Google's Simple Goal
They want to figure out what their customers are searching for and then provide them with the most relevant web pages possible.
Think of Google as the world's most effective librarian.
There are millions of "books" or search results in the online library (aka the internet) and it's Google's job to help you find the most relevant "books" for your specific questions and concerns.
Google Wants Content That Is:
✅ Quality Attributes
- • Trustworthy, credible, and authoritative
- • Unique and original
- • Popular among users
- • Useful and informative
- • Highly valuable to searchers
❌ What Google Avoids
- • Deceptive or misleading content
- • Malicious or harmful information
- • Duplicate or plagiarized content
- • Low-quality or thin content
- • Content designed to manipulate rankings
How Google Finds the Most Valuable Content
While human beings have five senses, Google has only three "senses" for finding and determining the value of content on the internet.
🤖 Google Bot
Crawls and indexes web content
📊 Traffic Data
Analyzes visitor patterns and behavior
🎯 User Metrics
Measures user engagement signals
Google Sense #1: Google Bot
The first of Google's three "Senses" is the Google Bot. Googlebot "crawls" the internet in search of new and updated web pages and links. Once it finds the information that it's looking for, it will then take that information back to Google's data center where it is stored and organized in a supermassive database known as the Search Index.
🔍 Googlebot Searches For:
URLs
Page addresses and structure
Metadata
Title tags and descriptions
Anchor Text
Clickable link text
Content
Written and visual content
Your URL: From Google Bot's Perspective
A URL or, Unique Resource Locator, is the method that we use to find a single specific web page. For any given URL, there can only be one web page, and this is an integral part of how the internet works.
Three Types of URLs:
1. Home page URL:
https://www.linkio.com2. Inner page URL:
https://www.linkio.com/seo-tutorial/3. Subdomain URL:
https://app.linkio.com/⚠️ EMD Warning (Exact Match Domains)
A common SEO practice that worked better a few years ago was purchasing an Exact Match Domain (EMD) to get an SEO edge. However, since Google's 2012 EMD filter, websites that appear to be gaming Google by exactly matching their URL to their desired search query are being lowered in the SERPs.
Better approach: Choose domains that hint at your industry without being overly obvious (e.g., "tutorialsbyajay.com" instead of "seotutorial.com").
Your Metadata: From Google Bot's Perspective
Metadata, as the name implies, is information about other information. On web pages, there are three primary types of metadata that help Google understand what your site is about.
Page Meta Title
The clickable headline in search results
Page Meta Description
The snippet that appears under the title
Schema
Structured data markup for rich snippets
📋 Example: Optimized Metadata for a Newark Plumber
Anchor Text: From Google Bot's Perspective
Anchor text is clickable text in a hyperlink that's on a webpage. Typically, you can recognize anchor text by the blue color and underline, although savvy web designers can customize colors to their liking.
🏷️ Types of Anchor Text
Branded
Your brand name: "Linkio"
Keyword
Target keywords: "online marketing tricks"
Hybrid
Brand + keyword: "Linkio's SEO guide"
URL
Web address: "www.linkio.com"
Natural
Generic phrases: "click here", "this website"
Content: From Google Bot's Perspective
Content is anything and everything that can be viewed by your audience from the web. In your run of the mill article, there can be several types of content.
📝 Content Types
- • Written content: Articles, text, headlines
- • Images: Photos, infographics, charts
- • Videos: MP4s, MOVs, tutorials
- • Sound files: MP3s, podcasts, audio
🎯 Optimization Tips
- • Optimize file names with keywords
- • Add descriptive alt text to images
- • Include relevant title attributes
- • Create multimedia experiences
🎬 The Importance of a Multimedia Experience
The online world is changing. Google is placing an increased focus on webpages that offer a multimedia experience to their users.
Just like teaching a class with different learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), Google wants web owners to provide a variety of content types to increase usability and help Google understand your content better.
Google Sense #2: Traffic Data
Once a website has been crawled and indexed in Google's database, the next step in the ranking process begins. Since Google's search engine has yet to achieve sentience, it has no direct way of determining the value or validity of any given website.
📊 Google Analyzes Traffic From:
- • Clicks on search results
- • Chrome browser data
- • Traffic data purchased from high-traffic sites
- • Traffic on Google-owned sites (YouTube)
- • AdSense and Google Maps data
- • Google Analytics (when installed)
It's kind of like deciding which movie you are going to see based on how many other people are in line for a given film. However, with the abundance of paid traffic options available, this isn't always an accurate way to determine value—just like countless people can line up to see a terrible movie.
Google Sense #3: User Metrics
Once Google has found and indexed a website and then analyzed the amount of traffic being directed to that site, it analyzes how users interact with that website to determine its value to searchers.
📈 Positive User Signals
- • Long dwell time on pages
- • Videos played and watched
- • Clicks on internal links
- • Button clicks (opt-ins, purchases)
- • Social shares and comments
📉 Negative User Signals
- • High bounce rate (quick exits)
- • Short time on page
- • No engagement with content
- • Back button clicks to search results
- • Lack of return visits
Differentiating White Hat and Black Hat Tactics
⚠️ A Word of Warning
There are dozens of different tactics that you can use to improve your search engine rankings, however, many of them are designed to "Game" Google's algorithm and gain an unfair advantage by using shady tactics.
This is known as black hat SEO.
🎩 Black Hat Tactics (AVOID)
- • Creating duplicate content
- • Keyword stuffing
- • Invisible text
- • Redirecting users to another website
- • Buying backlinks from non-relevant websites
👍 White Hat Approach (RECOMMENDED)
- • Creating high-quality, original content
- • Natural keyword usage
- • Earning backlinks through value
- • Following Google's guidelines
- • Building long-term authority
📊 The Reality Check
Black hat tactics work... for a while. However, after more than a decade in the SEO game, I can confidently say that I've never seen a website sustain success with black hat SEO tactics.
Although white hat SEO takes time, hard work, and patience, it pays off in the long run and can help you achieve financial and business success beyond what you previously thought possible.
Optimizing Your On-Page SEO
Now that you understand what Google wants and how you can make it easy for Googlebot to understand your website, it's time to discuss specific tactics for optimizing your website and content for performance.
Website Speed
By far one of the most underrated aspects of a successful SEO strategy is your website speed.
🚨 Speed Statistics That Matter
24%
Traffic lost with 6+ second load times
47%
Expect 2 seconds or less load time
40%
Abandon sites taking 3+ seconds
🏠 Choose the Right Web Host
Hosting Options (Slow → Fast):
- • Shared hosting (slowest, shared resources)
- • VPS hosting (dedicated portion of server)
- • Dedicated server (your own server)
- • Cloud hosting (scalable, pay-per-use)
Recommended Providers:
- • Cloudways (managed cloud)
- • Kinsta (premium WordPress)
- • AWS/Digital Ocean (advanced)
- • ManageWP (managed services)
🖼️ Minimize Image Sizes
Stock photos often download at pixel sizes of 4500 x 4500 and up. Even if you resize in WordPress, your website still loads the full image first, slowing performance.
Pro Tip: Use tools like Imagify to bulk compress images. I reduced 4GB of media down to 400MB with significant speed improvements.
⚡ Enable Caching
Browser caching allows repeat visitors to load elements from their cache (temporary storage) rather than sending new HTTP requests to the server.
Tools: WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, or built-in server caching options
🗜️ Enable Compression
Compression reduces file sizes before sending them to browsers, significantly improving load times.
Action: Run a compression audit at GID Network and enable compression in your caching plugin.
🔌 Limit Plugins and Third-Party Software
Most plugins will hinder, not help, your website's performance. I went from 90 plugins to 33 during my optimization process.
Rule: If you don't need 'em, delete 'em. Consider tools like Asset Cleanup Pro for selective plugin loading.
🧪 Speed Testing Tools
GTmetrix
Detailed performance analysis with optimization recommendations
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google's official speed testing tool with Core Web Vitals
Website Design
Website design is a critical aspect of on-page optimization. Although you won't directly gain any points from Google for having an aesthetic design, the importance of web design for user experience cannot be overstated.
📱 Mobile-First is Critical
Google's Mobile-First Index means they crawl and rank your mobile site first. Any website that is not fully responsive and optimized for mobile users will be penalized.
If you want to succeed at SEO in 2024 and beyond, you need to optimize your site for mobile users. Period.
✅ Good Design Elements
- • Responsive, mobile-friendly layout
- • Fast loading times
- • Clear navigation structure
- • Readable fonts and proper contrast
- • Intuitive user interface
❌ Design Mistakes
- • Non-responsive design
- • Cluttered layouts
- • Poor color choices
- • Broken navigation
- • Slow-loading elements
Content
👑 "Content is King"
Without high quality content, none of the tactics or techniques I've shared will make a difference. You can optimize your website all you want, have a killer backlinking strategy, do everything right...
But without exceptional content that clearly shows Google you are the authority on your target keywords... None of it will matter.
What Makes Content "Good"?
🎯 Simply Put... Context
In the olden days of SEO, Google ranked web pages based on keyword-stuffed content. Since then, Google's algorithm has evolved and become much smarter.
Google wants to see content that covers all aspects of its topic, not just its respective keyword.
📖 Example: "How to Gain Muscle" Content
Google would want to see you including dozens of long-tail keywords throughout your article such as:
- • The best supplements for gaining muscle
- • How to recover from a workout
- • Gain muscle for beginners
- • High intensity interval training
- • Nutrition for muscle growth
- • Progressive overload techniques
📝 Content Creation Guidelines
📏 Length & Depth
- • All content should be 2,000+ words
- • Cover topics as thoroughly as possible
- • Create content that's difficult to replicate
- • Provide comprehensive value
🎬 Visual Elements
- • Embed lots of images and videos
- • Use infographics and charts
- • Create visual content that enhances text
- • Make content more engaging
Use Clever and Benefit-Driven Subheadings
Few people have the time or attention span to read through an entire article these days. Most content on the internet is consumed by skimming through important headlines and reading the parts that seem important.
📖 Make Content Skimmable
- • Break up content with lots of subheadings
- • Use bullet points and numbered lists
- • Keep paragraphs short and focused
- • Use visual elements to break up text
Understanding RankBrain and User Signals
According to Google, RankBrain is the third most important ranking factor that Google uses to determine how to rank a web page. At the most basic level, RankBrain is a machine learning system that helps Google understand their search results.
🤖 How RankBrain Works
RankBrain simply measures how users interact with the current search results and then changes the ranking accordingly.
📊 What RankBrain Measures:
- • Click-through rate (CTR)
- • Dwell time (time on page)
- • User engagement signals
- • Return to search behavior
🎯 Optimization Focus:
- • Create compelling meta descriptions
- • Write magnetic headlines
- • Provide comprehensive value
- • Keep users engaged longer
💡 Real-World RankBrain Example
Let's say you search "How to invest in real estate". You click on result #3, spend 40 minutes reading the comprehensive guide, and bookmark it for later.
RankBrain notices this positive engagement. If enough people have a similar experience, that result will likely move up to the #2 spot.
Conversely, if users click result #1, realize it's garbage, and immediately exit, RankBrain will demote that result.
How to do Off-Page SEO
With more than 2,000,000 new blog posts being published every day and more than 644 million websites currently being indexed by Google, it's hard to grab the attention of humans and search engines alike.
Understanding the Popularity Contest
In order to maximize your website's popularity, you must first understand how popularity is determined. When it comes to SEO, being 'popular' isn't enough—you need to be popular with the right crowd.
🎯 How to Increase Website Popularity the Right Way
Simple... By earning highly authoritative and relevant backlinks.
Domain Authority
The first, and arguably most important, aspect of backlink quality is the domain authority of the linking website. Think of this in terms of referrals in the real world.
👎 Low-Value Referral
A referral from your mother probably won't hold much weight when it comes to getting that sweet new tech job.
Low DA websites (under 30) = Minimal SEO impact
👍 High-Value Referral
A referral from a C-level executive at a Fortune 500 company will have clients knocking down your door.
High DA websites = Instant ranking boost + long-term SEO juice
Backlink Relevance
Google doesn't just want to see authoritative backlinks. They also want to see a high degree of relevance in your backlink profile.
📖 Marketing Job Referral Example
Option 1: High Authority, Low Relevance
High-ranking executive, but referral is for a 5-year-old sales position
Option 2: Lower Authority, High Relevance
Unknown entrepreneur you helped double their marketing ROI in 6 months
Winner: Option 2 - The second referral is far more relevant and valuable for a marketing position.
🔗 SEO Link Building Strategy
Google wants to see sites that not only have high DA backlinks but backlinks that are highly relevant to their particular niche.
Example: "Link Building Software"
Good:
Link from general online marketing site
Better:
Link from site with "Link Building" in title/URL
Schema Helps Google Understand Your Site
Schema Markup is a tricky concept to understand and even trickier to implement. However, if you're willing to suffer through the learning curve, it can provide a much-needed boost to your long-term search engine success.
🏷️ What is Schema?
Schema is a type of metadata that you can add to a web page to provide more information about the content to Google so it can display more relevant and informative results to users.
Think of schema like Google's version of a filing cabinet - it helps organize your information into neat "files" so Google knows exactly where to store it.
🎬 Cinema Schema Example
A cinema might have schema markup such as:
- • Movie times
- • Movie titles
- • Address
- • Phone number
❌ Without Schema
Searching "New Book" leaves Google wondering:
- • A book that is new?
- • A business named "New Book"?
- • A book named "New"?
- • A new edition of a book?
✅ With Schema
Clear structure tells Google exactly what you mean:
- • Page Title: New SEO Guide
- • Page Description: New SEO Guide is Here
- • Anchor Text: Company
- • Phone Number: 7044444444
Getting Started with Schema
1️⃣ Go to Google's Structured Data Markup Helper
Select your data type (articles, local business, etc.) and paste your URL.
Click "Start Tagging" to begin the process
2️⃣ Select Elements to Markup
Highlight and tag different elements: title, author, date published, images, etc.
Don't worry if you can't tag everything - just get the biggest elements
3️⃣ Create HTML Code and Implement
Click "Create HTML" to get code you can download and import into your CMS.
Copy and paste highlighted snippets into appropriate HTML locations
🚀 Competitive Advantage
Although schema is relatively easy to implement, most businesses have yet to take advantage of this powerful tactic. By getting started now, you'll have a competitive advantage that can mean the difference between first-page ranking and getting lost forever.
SEO Quick Tips
Now that you understand your core SEO strategy, here are some quick tips for additional search engine optimization in 2024 and beyond.
🎤 Place an Importance on Voice Search
More than 40% of adults perform at least one voice search per day. The best way to rank for voice search is by creating question and answer based content.
Example: "So what is SEO? SEO or search engine optimization is the act of creating and optimizing content that will appear organically in search results..."
💬 Encourage Comments and Social Shares
Although commenting is declining as people move to Facebook groups and Slack channels, if you have an engaged audience that likes interacting with your blog, Google will love all that engagement.
📱 Get Active on Social Media
Although social media doesn't directly impact search rankings, it drives traffic and engagement. Pick 2-3 platforms (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) and go all in.
Strategy: Share content regularly, build a user base of fans, encourage shares and comments
🌟 Become an Influencer Maniac
Develop relationships with high-level influencers who can help you generate quality backlinks through reciprocal linking and guest posting.
Action Items: Engage with influencer content, share their posts, link to their content, build rapport
❓ Leverage Quora for Indirect Rankings
Quora is becoming one of the largest social sites on the planet. Create high-quality answers to rank on Google and get syndicated by major publications.
Bonus: Editors from Forbes, Inc., HuffPost, and Entrepreneur regularly syndicate Quora answers
👥 Produce Helpful Content
Google has its crosshairs on AI content and generic SEO content. Writing for the user first and then optimizing for SEO afterward will keep you safe with Google while making customers love you.
Win-Win Strategy: Human-first content + SEO optimization = Google approval + customer satisfaction
Conclusion
I hope that this guide was able to simplify SEO and help you understand the core strategies and tactics required to get your content to the top of Google's SERPs.
Now it's your turn. Use what I've shared with you to accelerate your search engine success, drive thousands of new visitors to your website, and experience explosive growth in your company's bottom line.
🎯 Master the Basics
Understand what Google wants and how it finds valuable content
⚡ Optimize Everything
Focus on speed, design, content quality, and user experience
🔗 Build Authority
Earn relevant, high-quality backlinks through value creation
I'll see you at the top! 🚀