The Beginning

Understanding the fundamentals of SEO is crucial to taking on the great G. So with that said, first things first..

How a Search Engine Works

A search engine works by using spiders (the things that index webpages across the Internet) to index the Internet. That is the general goal of a search engine. The next goal for a search engine is organizing these indexed websites. They websites are ranked for keywords you would search in a search engine. For example you may search something like "top tablets of 2013." When you search this in Google you get results from websites it has indexed.

With this said, our goal is to rank on those search engines to drive traffic to our websites. How do we do this you might ask? That is the next subject!

Ranking in Search Engines

When you attempt to rank in search engines there are many different factors that are taken into affect such as your on-page SEO and your off-page SEO.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO consists on what your website has on it. Say you are trying to rank a page for "Cheapest insurance plans for homeowners." The page that will be targeting this keyword should have certain things on it to help it rank naturally for that keyword.

The following will help you:

• Proper use of headings
• Use of bullet points
• Mentioning your keyword in the title and text (Must be natural)
• Interlinking pages to your page with the keyword as the anchor
• Adding images and videos to the page

All of these factors will help you out to rank naturally for a keyword.

Off-Page SEO

When we talk about Off-page SEO we talk about things that are not part of your site. These can include:

• Social accounts
• Backlinks

Social accounts consists of things like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and many other social platforms you can use. These are a great way to build your site up and develop a base for your site.

Backlinks are important when we talk about ranking a website. I will say this now instead of later, I build only powerful links to my site. This includes Social signals, guest posts, and also sitewide links.

These are the basic factors of SEO. This is nothing special but gives you an idea of how everything works. Don't try to use this as a step-by-step guide because it isn't. It is just some things that can help you on the right track. Be creative! Try different things and see what works for you. We all have our own strategies.