SEO For Beginners 2020 – The 3 Pillars of SEO | Learn with the WPress Doctor 👨🏫
In this video I'm gonna give you the basic
SEO training I give to all my clients, with no SEO skills or knowledge whatsoever. This entire video is vital information BEFORE
you start making any changes to your website or BEFORE you start using my SEO plugin tutorials. You will learn which three pillars Google
and other search engine uses, to determine how high your website will rank in the search
engine results page (SERP). You will also learn that the 200 ranking factors
will be subdivided in these three main pillars. I will teach you the SEO mindset that made
me and my clients insanely successful with SEO. Make sure you watch this video till the end,
so you have the absolute beginners knowledge to start your SEO journey the right way, so
you will have to context to start with. At the end of the video -as always- I will
give you a life-changing quote. This time its from Zig Ziglar. Hi, I am the WordPress Doctor. I've been building websites since 2001 and
since 2004 in WordPress I have my own national hosting company, and I have a web development
agency.
My first paid job was as a SEO consultant
in 2008. Well a lot have changed since then -but I
assure you- these three pillars you're about to learn, will stay exactly the same. Because it's the foundation of every search
engine. So let's get to it, because it's gonna be
a fun journey, and you will learn some awesome things. Okay so let's start at the very beginning. The goal of Google is to give their users
the best search results in just a couple of milliseconds. Why? Because it's the business model of Google,
to show these ads between the right search results. But what happens if you search for something,
and you don't get the right results? Then you might end up using another search
engine, and that will turn out as a loss for the income of Google. So they want to give the best search results
possible for your question. As from the website owner point of view, you
want to rank in those top 3 positions in Google, because the first search result is clicked
on by 32% of the people searching.
The second result is clicked on by 17% percent
of all the people, and the third result -research shows- 11% of all the people are clicking
on the third result in Google. After that, the click-through rate is dropping
extremely. So you want to rank in those top 3, and let
me assure you, it is always possible -no matter what business you're in- it is always possible
to rank in the top 3 of Google. You just need to learn these three SEO pillars,
and you'll have a valuable headstart that makes you better than 90% of your competitors.
To determine which websites are ranking where,
Google uses a ever-changing algorithm, that uses more than 200 known ranking factors. Now all those ranking factors of the 200 -and
that we don't know- can be subdivided in three SEO pillars. Those three are: Technology Content and linkbuilding. The first pillar is the pillar we call technology. You can have the most awesome content, and
the best backlink profile, but if your technology is just garbage, then you can forget about
those top rankings. In the pillar of technology we have hosting,
we have the server which is very important, we have the OS used by the server, we have
a web accelerator, your DNS, your CMS, your theme, plugins, caching, sitemap and rich
snippets.
Now let me explain to you all these things
and what they are about. So the hosting is the actual ground where
you build your foundation on. Remember the guy that built his house on the
sand? You better be the guy that builds his house
on the solid rock. Because it's very important for your speed
and your website. So what server are they using? Is it a fast one? Is it a dedicated server, is it a shared server…
that might be some problems. Is it a virtual private server? It will ave you a lot of time, so make your
decision thoughtfully. What OS is that server using? Are they using a web accelerator like GNiNX,
which will generate great speed for your WordPress website.
Are they using a fast DNS? All these things is all part of your hosting
package. Now before you ask; yes, I do have my own
national hosting company, but no, I will not host your website. Why? because I only host websites that I have
built myself 100%. But I do know what to look for in a great
hosting company, so link is in the description. Now the CMS has to be a solid good firm foundation
to build your dream website on. If you using WordPress you're in the right
place you have made a good decision. If you're using Typo3, Joomla, Drupal or Wix…
well it's never too late to switch…
Now what makes the biggest difference within
WordPress? It's a choice of the theme, the plugins you
have, and if you have to wright caching system enabled. I can't stress this enough, if you're serious
with your website, with your dreams, with your SEO:
go invest and BUY a decent theme that does not need seven plugins, just to keep the boat
floating! On a weekly basis I see clients coming to
me, with their free themes which have six or seven or eight plugins, just to have the
things working the way it should. That is complete nonsense! And it's so silly! You just need the best theme that is full
of options, have everything inside -even the page builder- is well coded and is future
proof! Well I use one theme that I'm totally in love
with, because it is the best theme in the world! Of course, link is in the description.
Do yourself a huge favor with this theme and
you can trust me, it will make a big difference for your SEO, but also for your own personal
frustration. I use this theme for all my personal websites
and all my clients websites. I built everything in it, it is totally awesome,
and it will save you a lot of plugins. Plugins are very important for your WordPress
installation, because the more plugins you have, the slower your website will get, and
the more maintenance you have to do. So keep those plugins under the 10 plugins
at most. "That is impossible!" No it's not, if you have the right theme! I have the right theme with all the blower's
and whistles, so I don't need all those bloating plugins that do absolutely exactly the same
as my theme can offer me. So the next on the pillar of technology is
caching. Using the right caching plugin is so amazing
and so helpful in your speed.
I have tried all those free caching plugins,
got drowned in all the options and broke my website a million times, before I get to know
the right plugin for the system I use. And I can really advise you to use this plugin. I created a tutorial about it how to speed
up your WordPress website and it -I promise you- it will make a big difference in your
SEO rankings, because google loves when your WordPress website is cached very good. Now the last two on the pillar of Technology
are sitemaps and Rich Snippets. Sitemaps are just a list of your pages and
blog posts so that Google knows exactly what they are, and when you have updated for the
last time. These are generated automatically by the best
SEO plugin there is, and no it is not just SEO. The last one, our Rich Snippets, which are
also very important for your SEO rankings. Because they will provide a markup, a scheme-markup
-that's what it's called- it's the technical code on your website that Google understands,
which step to take. So if you're baking a cake for example, the
first step is to get the ingredients, put everything in a bowl, and when you just show
this way to Google, generate the code to Google, they will show that Rich Snippet in the search
engines.
All right that was pillar number one! Well done, you deserve a drink. Now you see that SEO is way more tjan just
good content and backlinks? You need also the technical part of your SEO
needs to be top-notch. Never ever forget that. All right, let's move on to pillar number
two. Now on the content pillar we have quality
pages. What do I mean with quality? Quality is very easy, don't copy paste stuff.
Write your own text you are your brand, you
are your website, so you can create unique, new text. You can inspire yourself with other peoples
text, but don't copy paste, just make your own, create it. All right. Quality content. It has to be unique, uniqueness. No copy pasting, and give your point of view
about the subject. Your amount of words, very important for your
content, because Google needs context, it has to be around 400 words to be good content. So amount of words very important. Your meta, description and title text need
to fit in your keywords, and need to be no guesswork for Google. So make it 100% good. Your images, please use your own images. You can buy them of course from stock photos,
but when you do that, just make sure you load them into Photoshop, change something about
it, and upload it again so those images are becoming unique.
Because remember, uniqueness is one of the
biggest reasons why Google will let you rank. So your images, use our alt text with your
images. I will explain everything about this how you
do that, on the SEO plugin tutorial. So your hierarchy of your titles are very
important. You use h1 in your page that is the title
tag, and then you get another subject it's called h2. And below that, your titles will be the paragraph-
headings of your paragraph, would be h3, h4 maybe, but mostly its H1 H2 H3 H3 H2 H3 H3
H2.
That's the way you build on a page. So it has to be logical for the search engines
to understand your content. And last but not least it has to be readable. The
readability is also an important factor when producing content. Now readability is something that's hard to
catch, because you have to make it readable for your audience. I have clients who are working in the artificial
intelligence. Now their content is written way different
than my clients who work in a dentist's shop, or their content is way different than a guy
who works with wood. So you have to make your readability stand
out to make it readable for your specific target audience. Don't make it more interesting, don't use
more words than necessary, but make it catchinga for your readers.
So to summarize the second pillar, its all
about your content. Make it long enough, make it unique, and if
you do not like writing or creating videos or -I don't know whatever- just hire someone
to do it. There are a lot of copywriters who can create
text from just your little information. But remember you have to look for the good
ones, because there are a lot of copywriters who don't understand SEO, and who don't understand
Google and who definitely don't understand marketing. Because you are selling something. "No I'm not selling something doctor! I'm just informing people." Yes but you are selling your information to
the people. Everybody is selling something, so keep that
in mind when hiring copywriters, make sure they can sell.
All right you have gotten this far, you are
on two third of all the pillars and your SEO knowledge. Well done! If you have learned something new, hit that
like button then I know we're on the right track. Okay let's get to pillar number three. Pillar number three is all about linkbuilding. Now I once read a book about search engine
optimization, and the cover said "How to rank higher in Google". Hm, well I'm interested! So the first page, it said "Get more links". Ok that's cool. The second page: "Get more links". The third page, the fourth page, all the way
to the hundred pages, "Get more links", that was the message.
Well okay, although this is a joke, there
is some truth to it. Because if you have the first pillar, the
second pillar; all figured out and all done correctly, then the third pillar – if you
don't have any links- your competitor with just one or two links will skyrocket above
your website. It's simple, because you don't have any votes,
people are not telling each other about your website. So link building, we have internal linkbuilding. external linkbuilding, we have your hierarchy
of links, your breadcrumbs, footer links, and the text links that I want to talk to
you about. So your internal text linking is very important. Because you will let Google know what are
the most important pages of your website. You have a copy of your content, and somewhere
between the text there is a link placed, that will
link to an other page.
So Google knows "hey this context, this page,
is about this context, and it is important because he is linking to it." Remember, internal link building is important
for all your website pages and your landing pages. But remember one thing, don't spam stuff all
your content copy with all kind of links, because it will distract people from doing
that one thing on your website that you want them to do, and that is- exactly.
Buy something, download something, contact
you, or whatever. Keep that in mind. External link building is very very very important
for your SEO. The more links you have, the higher you rank
in the search engines, because Google will treat other links as votes for your content. Remember for external linking you want no
PPP. That means you don't want any links from porn
websites, poker websites, or pill websites. It's a rule of thumb, don't use links from
the shady side of the internet, no way. No buying links. Please, never, EVER go to some company who
says: "Hey I can get you 500 links on pagerank #9 websites you will need, and you're SEO
will skyrocketing. Just pay me $500 and I will fix it for you!" Never ever do it. I have seen clients with such backlink profiles
-as we call them- with all spam website and links. You think Google is an idiot? No, they're not. And they know exactly which websites are real
from which you receive the link or which website are created -link farms, link wheels- that
are created to generate links.
Don't do that, never ever, it will disappoint
you, cost you a lot of money, and it will place your SEO work in the reverse. And you will go downhill, instead of uphill. Don't do that. All right, your hierarchy of links is very
important. So where are the most links linking to? Are there your front page? Or are those deeplinks, that are links to
other pages of your website. The more deeplinks you have, the more shady
it will become. Google updates their algorithm a lot of times. One of those updates was the penguin update,
and they were exactly talking about this. Because if you have more links to other pages
than your homepage, then there's something fishy going on. Google won't trust you anymore, and yes you
will not rank that high anymore. So keep that in mind, your hierarchy of links
is very important. How many links are going to which pages on
your website. Your breadcrumbs. For linkbuilding breadcrumbs are really good. Because now Google knows the context where
to put the pages inside your links, inside your sitemaps, inside your hierarchy of your
website itself. Breadcrumbs are very useful in your website.
Footer links are also very useful because
it generates value to those special pages -the cornerstone pages- that you have in your
website. The cornerstone pages are the pages that are
most valuable to you, and you want to rank them the most high in the search engines. In your footer you can place -I would say
maximum of five, six links- to those cornersstone pages. The positive side of this, is that all your
footer links will be placed on all the pages of your entire website, so that will boost
your hierarchy, and the internal links extremely to those cornerstone content. Use them. Then you have of course the text links. What do I mean with textlinks? I mean that you have two kinds of links. You can just go to a website and ask for "Hey
can you put my link up?" and they're like: "Well sure, yeah you have to pay some bucks".
Uh-huh no buying. Or yeah we cantrade links or whatever. Now they will place a link on the website. But what kind of link is it? Is it just a link between other links? Just a row of links? That is less valuable than a textlink. And what am I mean with a textlink, is a link
in a paragraph of text, about the subject of that page link to. It is way more valuable, because it has context
around it. So you should get -with external link building-
all these textlinks. That would be to great benefit for your SEO.
Now how do I get those if I can buy them,
and trading links… well I should not, I won't recommend trading
links with someone else. But okay, how do I get the best external links? Write a press release. If you're an expert in your field, and you
have the -or you have the best products of the world, or you have something very valuable
for others, write a press release. Remember the website I used to show you when
optimizing the speed of WordPress, AmusementParksUSA.com? It has been featured in national newspapers,
because it solves problems. Did it go by itself? No! I had to write some copy, send it to the newspaper,
call them, ask them if they would publish it. And they said no! And I said why not? I had to rewrite it, make it more interesting
for people to read. So then I rewrote it, send it again and then
they placed my copy of text in the newspaper. So it got me a lot of links and it got me
a lot of visitors.
But those things don't happen by itself. YOU have to work for it, YOU have to put in
an extra work to get those links to your website. Trust me, linkbuilding is the third and also
a very important pillar of your SEO strategy. Songratulations now you know the context of
SEO, and then SEO is more than just going after those green lights in your SEO plugin. Trust me, SEO is way bigger than that. But now you have a head start off 90% of your
competitors, so that's awesome. But what to do next? You have to do a keyword research. It's way too much subject to cover in this
video, so I will create another video about shorttail, longtail, keyword intentions, search
intentions and all these things. How to do it, when to do it, what to do it,
and how to implement it in your website. So if I helped you out, please hit that like
button, and subscribe if you want to see other videos about SEO, WordPress, or other themes,
plugins, and anything that has to do with WordPress.
Alright have a awesome day, and stay tuned
for a life changing quote of Zig Ziglar. Because life is more than optimizing websites
for SEO, here is a quote from Zig Ziglar: "You don't have to be great to start, but
you have to start to be great." Stop postponing your website. You better start with your new business or
your new website where it's not completely done, then you never start, because it is
never completed. Good luck! Have a awesome day..
