7 tips for SEO newbies

SEO: A dynamic and marketing-focused industry, it is crucial to keep your keen insights all the time.

If you first enter this trip, you may feel overwhelmed without guidance.

There are many aspects and professional directions in the SEO field, which will only be exposed to later in your career—local SEO, technical SEO, content SEO, digital PR, user experience, e-commerce SEO, media SEO, etc., and there are countless.

However, for beginner professionals, it is not necessary to focus on these areas of expertise from the beginning.

Just like liberal arts education or apprenticeship, SEO beginners should first establish a broad understanding of the entire discipline and then choose their professional direction.

This article introduces several ways to build basic knowledge of SEO.

1. Start with business

Whether you are working inside the company or in an agency, you should avoid jumping directly into “solution mode” when starting a SEO project.

Don't immediately focus on meta tags, keywords, backlinks, or URL structures, but first understand the business itself.

When browsing a website, consider the following key issues:

• What products or services are sold?
• Who is the target audience? (If you are inside the company, who is your company trying to sell to?)
• Why do companies think customers should choose them over competitors? (Common differentiators include price, unique features, or advantages.)

If you have the time or opportunity, you can learn more deeply by asking your boss or client these business-focused questions:

• What are the company's goals and indicators?
• What is the company’s three to five-year plan? (Are there any plans to launch new products or expand new markets?)
• Who are the main competitors and what are they doing?

Even without such detailed information, the first three questions provide a useful framework for reference for determining the best SEO approach.

2. Stay curious and ask more questions

Today, SEO touches almost every aspect of digital marketing.

Because of this, SEO people often become very good at communicating and often work with other departments and professionals.

I've been in SEO for 15 years (which makes me feel old), but I'm still asking questions to my clients every day.

This field encourages curiosity, so instead of being frustrated with what you don’t fully understand, be brave enough to ask those “stupid questions”.

By the way, the "stupid question" doesn't exist at all.

Learn more about: How to Become an Outstanding SEO Expert

3. Start with SEO Basics

As mentioned earlier, SEO has many professional directions. Some, such as video SEO or local SEO, are called "search verticals".

If you're new to this field, start with the basics: websites and how Google presents search results.

Once you understand the business, try a simple exercise to analyze the optimization of your website.

Open a key product, category, or service page in a window. In another window, search for the terms you think the user will enter to find the page.

Compare what appears in the search results to your own page and the pages that rank for the term.

For example, when searching for "running shoes", some things stand out:

• There is some mismatch in the search intention. Nike's category page is aimed at users who have a purchase intention or have planned to purchase. However, the search results show articles that compare different running shoes.
• Scroll down and you may see the image carousel, the “Nearby Stores” section and “People Will Also Ask” results.

If I were a new SEO from Nike and assumed that the Running Shoes category page could rank for the Running Shoes query, I would rethink that after looking at the search results.

If rankings for that broad term are a priority, I would create a running shoe comparison article with high-quality pictures of running shoes that real users wear – even videos if the budget allows.

If your page matches the search results more, analyze the top-ranked pages and apply the elements of success to your own website.

• Most pages have in-page FAQs, but your page doesn't?
• Product video? Detailed specifications? User comments?

Critical and specific analysis of what you can improve. (Do not copy content directly.)

The core of SEO is to determine what Google believes is most important to a particular product or service, and then do it better than your competitors.

Many SEO people are addicted to tools and strategies and forget to check the search results themselves.

Get rid of this habit as soon as possible and view Google search results as a key part of your research process.

4. Get involved in the technology and build relationships with your developers

Technical SEO is one of the more complex professional directions in the field and can seem daunting.

If you are using a major CMS, your technical foundation may be solid, so many technical SEOs these days focus on improvements and enhancements.

While it’s important to have technical knowledge, a great way to get started is to build relationships with your development team and stay curious.

Asking questions makes learning more interactive and directly relevant to your work.

Exploring coding courses or creating your own website can also help you develop your technical skills step by step rather than one-time.

Some people think that you can be a good SEO even without technical expertise – I don’t object to that view.

But understanding how a website works internally, how Google works, and even how large language models (LLMs) work can help you prioritize your SEO work.

Code is Google's native language, and understanding how to interpret code is valuable when migrating websites, launching new websites, or diagnosing traffic drops.

Learn more about: SEO Priority: How to Focus on Factors Drive Business

5. Learn about the different types of information Google displays in search results

Search results are presented today in a very different way than they were 10 or 15 years ago.

People who have worked in this industry for a while have gradually adapted as Google grows.

On the other hand, novices are thrown into deep waters while facing a variety of search features – some are personalized, some are not, and some appear inconsistently.

This is hard to master even for experienced SEO people.

Google invests heavily in understanding user intent and presenting search results in the best way to satisfy that intent.

Therefore, search results may include:

• video.
• picture.
• People will also ask.
• Related searches.
• AI Overview.
• Search by AI organizations.
• Map results.
• Nearby shopping options.
• Product list.
• Where else will people buy it.
• news

Improving visibility for each of these features often requires unique approaches and specific considerations.

These search results types are now industry terms, so a glossary can help you learn SEO terms.

6. Understand different types of query intent classification

Google’s mission is to “organize global information to make it universally accessible and accessible.”

As part of this, Google is committed to understanding why people search for something and providing the most relevant results to match that intent.

To do this, they classify the query by intent.

The Search Quality Assessment Guide (a manual provided by Google to assess the quality of websites and search results) also involves understanding user intent:

“It may be helpful to treat a query as having one or more of the following intents.

• Understand queries, some of which are simple understanding of queries.
• Executes a query when the user tries to complete a goal or participates in an activity.
• Website query, when the user is looking for a specific website or web page.
• Visit the query in person , some are looking for specific businesses or organizations, and some are looking for specific categories of businesses. ”

When doing keyword research, it is very helpful to analyze your website and the queries you are targeting from this perspective.

Many SEO professionals also use these broader traditional intent categories, although they are not always exactly consistent with Google’s classification:

• Information : Who, what, when, where, how, why.
• Commercial : Comparison, review, best, specific products.
• Transactionality : Buy, cheap, sell, register.
• Navigation : Search for specific brands.

Don't just focus on keywords, but take a step back and consider the intention behind the search. Understanding intentions is crucial to SEO success.

Learn more about why traditional keyword research is failing and how to solve this problem by searching intent

7. Before finding ways to use LLM, do your own research

Your company may have developed a guide to tasks such as keyword research, content creation, or competitor analysis using LLMs such as ChatGPT or Claude.

However, if you are new to SEO, I highly recommend that you complete at least one complete project using tools like Google Search Console, Semrush, or Ahrefs without LLM support.

Although artificial intelligence can speed up the process, relying on artificial intelligence too early also has its disadvantages:

• Learning curve slows down : If LLM takes on heavy work, you will miss experiences of strategic trade-offs, such as choosing keywords with low traffic, medium competition over keywords with high traffic, high competition.
• Lack of accuracy intuition : Without first-hand research experience, it is difficult to identify when LLM generates inaccurate information or obtains information from unreliable sources.
• Reduced impact : Google is becoming more and more complex in detecting “duplicate content.” Excessive reliance on LLM for massive content creation can hurt performance, while a more focused, more strategic approach may produce better results.

While it can be tempting to jump directly into strategies rather than performing them in person, senior SEO people develop their strategic thinking through years of practical work across different clients and industries.

Skipping this basic experience may make it harder for you to identify large-scale patterns and trends.

Learn more about: Why you need humans, not just artificial intelligence, to run excellent SEO activities

Lay the foundation for SEO success

Once you have mastered the basics, SEO offers unlimited opportunities. If you are just starting out, please focus on the following core areas:

• business.
• Search results.
• User Intent.

Keep it simple. Stay focused. Business-oriented.

Build your SEO expertise on a solid foundation and your career will grow.

Staff writers were invited to create content for Search Engine Land, and they were selected for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the supervision of editors and check the quality of their contributions and their relevance to our readers. The views they express only represent themselves.

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