A 2024 Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Fundamentals

Build and create a website, yourself
How to Build a Website, yourself : Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners 2024?
February 22, 2021
Build and create a website, yourself
How to Build a Website, yourself : Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners 2024?
February 22, 2021

A 2024 Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Fundamentals

If you are a:

  • website owner
  • business owner
  • you want to get a website

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a well-known term in the digital world.

As of the start of 2023, there were approximately 5.16 billion active internet users worldwide, which is 64.4% of the world's population according to Datareportal.

In fact, 53% of B2B and B2C website traffic comes from organic search, meaning search engines like Google and Bing. That's more than half of your website traffic! However, despite the importance of SEO, only 3% of Uganda's business owners have an SEO strategy in place, according to The evident.

Many entrepreneurs find SEO too time-consuming and see little success. But in reality, SEO is not as complicated as it may seem.

Once you become familiar with the fundamentals, you will realize that it's about implementing best practices that improve your chances of being found by search engines and visitors. This SEO overview guide is designed to help you get up to speed with SEO for your website.

What is SEO?

SEO Definition
Search engine optimization is the practice of optimizing your web page views to increase your website’s visibility organically in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

SEO is completely different from search engine (paid) advertising. With paid advertising, you’re paying search engines like Google to show your website on the search result page.

Instead, with SEO, you’re optimizing your website so it organically shows up on the first page of the search result.

The number of visitors who come to your website through these search results is defined as organic traffic (because they found your website themselves).

Increased Website Traffic through SEO

How your website be visible in front of extremely relevant high-quality customers near you?

Losing money is more painful, more than gaining money is great! Don’t be left out.

Allow us to help you to carry out a direct local Search Engine Optimization analysis for your website reply/respond to [email protected], with your Website link, we will generate a professional SEO report for you!

As a matter of fact, Trophy Developers; we are the best digital marketing agency to help you build stronger search engine optimization strategies for your website to appears in front of an extremely relevant high-quality audience. If you can do it yourself read and understand below.

Here are the best proactive Search Engine optimization (SEO)practices for your website to be visible to relevant people.

You have heard about Search Engine optimization, right?

What is Search Engine Optimization?

We define it as the process of making sure all the online elements of your business are optimized so that your website appears in front of an extremely relevant high-quality audience at a time when searchers /or people displaying an interest in your products /or services on different search engines (e.g. Google, Bing, etc…) SEO grows over time, it takes over a maximum of 4- 6 months to start earning from your organic Search Engine optimization efforts.

There is a saying in business that goes, if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. A website that is optimized to target its right audience is there to answer that door for bigger business goals.

About local web search results

If you're looking to increase the visibility of your local search results, understand what your competition is doing, or get a bigger picture as to how local search engine optimization (SEO) works, and this the right and most honest article to achieve your Web marketing strategy goals.

Let's get started, before you read more, I want to point out that this article assumes that you have a basic understanding of  Local search engine optimization and the terminologies that go along with it.

If you're not already familiar with these concepts, I recommend you first take a look at this article here understanding Local search engine optimization will bring you up to speed.

In the case of local search engine optimization (SEO), that relevant audience is someone that is currently or will be, in the same vicinity as your business.

Now when you visit a search engine, e.g. Google, and you enter a term in the search box, the goal of Google is to provide you with the best possible result to stay relevant to the people using it and that’s how they earn from their search service. It is why you continue to search on Google. If they keep delivering what you were hoping for in the first few results, you'll continue to conduct your searches on their web /or Search Engine system.

Keywords in Search engine optimization

Google is motivated to deliver the best possible result; it's how they make their money.
Equally important, when you enter that search term, in an instant, Google has to decide. Is this something the user would want near them or is this something global?

Looking for website builder tools is very different than looking for website Designers,

If I am in Kampala Uganda, Africa, a Website Designer in California, the United States is likely not what I'm looking for.

However, a Website Builder Tool can be on any blog written by anyone, regardless of location. But how does (Search Engine) Google differentiate?

In an extremely simplistic explanation, a Website Designer is clearly a category of a business that would be local, a Website Builder Tool is not.

How search engine systems differentiate those words are in a different article but that's how it matters for you for now.

What matters is that Search Engine says Google knowing you are a Website Designer, not a Website Builder Tool and that local Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

How website traffic is generated between people and Google

Additionally, look at how to provide Search Engine says Google or Bing with the right information, so that you not only show up when someone is looking for you but that you're provided with the tools to show up on top.

When someone runs a Google search, they're actually searching an index that Google has compiled.

Google gets this index by crawling the web, link by link. When Google arrives on a website, it crawls all the links on that site and then follows those links to other sites, where it continues to repeat this process.

The position of your site in Google's search results is determined based on hundreds of variables, all derived from the content in Google's index.

Keywords for High Website Traffic for good Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Some of these factors are specific to a keyword, say how many times it appears on your site if it appears in the title if your site includes synonyms of that keyword.

Keywords the terms searched in a search engine Keywords, for lack of a better term, is the way people think in a short format. People are inspired by ideas, they have questions. They just want to know something. And our behavior has changed dramatically in this age of search engines because we have answers immediately at our fingertips.

Keywords are the summation of people's thoughts into actions on the keyboard. 94% of all adults go to a search engine nearly every day to find information.

When we look at what people do online. The number one thing that people do is search; they use search engines as a gateway to find the information that they want and need daily.

In fact, even when we look at the other activities that people perform online, they still use a search engine to find this information.

Information, such as looking for information about their hobby, looking for maps, checking the weather, looking for product reviews or state and local news or information.

People use search engines to access the vast amounts of information that is widely available on the internet.

And so, what are keywords? Ultimately, keywords are the summation of

people's needs as they type them into the search engine's search box, they are also the ideas that people have.

They may not be willing to act on those ideas but want to know what's out there, what is a good place to start searching for coronavirus information? Or the richest Music Rapper in the world also, just basic questions that come up throughout the day in a household or in an office that needs an answer.

Beyond the keyword, Google is going to look at the quality of your site, how many people link to it, how you're using your titles, and any similar pages. Another important factor is how easily Google can crawl the site.

Is it clear what is most important? Can Google find all the content by following every link on your page? They may even take into consideration the browsing habits of the users searching.

In general, you can improve your site's rank by making it something that users will want to use and share.

But I know that's not specific enough, hundreds of variables would be

a lot to take into consideration when you're just getting started.

Check out the five most influential components to a  good rank in local Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If all you could do was work on these five areas, you did likely be in better shape.

High-Quality Google My Business Profile

The first is having a high-quality Google My Business profile. When you verify your listing on Google My Business, you'll gain authenticity, and authority, on the category you've selected. You've given Google a very strong signal as to who you are and what you're about.

Relevant on-page optimization content.

The second is having relevant on-page content. Your Google category is fairly broad. Carrying on the example of website designers, if you've categorized yourself as a website designer, you need to confirm on your website that you are indeed a website designer, but also introduce the fact, you're a web designer/Webmaster.
This is where on-page cue and optimization are crucial.

Listing your business name on Authoritative local sites

Third, is listing your business name, address, and phone number around the web. Authoritative local sites such as the Yellow Pages are all beneficial in reaffirming to Google that you are who you say you are.

Collecting Great Links

Fourth, is collecting great links. Google wants to know that people are interested in your site. If you've got quality sites linking back to yours, Google is going to take note. The more inbound links that you have, the more popular you probably are.

Good authentic Recommendation/Review on other sites

And the fifth component reviews. Now I'd argue that Google Reviews are of significant value, but reviews on other sites are going to be helpful as well. The reviews should be authentic but we'll talk more about that later. These five ranking factors are tied together with the theme of consistency. They're better together than they are in silos. Make sure that you've got consistent information across all of your efforts, to maximize the impact.

How long does take to see my SEO (Search engine optimization) Efforts?

Search engine optimization involves a significant investment in time and effort. It's not something you simply set up in an afternoon. Over the coming months, you'll spend a lot of time researching and building on your strategy, refining it by reviewing the data and adjusting your course of action based on what your competitors are doing.

Eventually, your website traffic/ SEO will start to pay a return on that investment, but it is a long-term strategy, one that can often take upwards of four to six months before the real results become visible. It's easy to get overexcited when you start seeing big wins early on in your efforts.

As you rapidly build the early parts of your strategy, you're bound to generate some interest from Google and other search engines.

They'll crawl your site, better understand your signals, and investigate what you're doing, which might provide you with an early gain in rank. And then, nothing. It might feel like you've fallen off a cliff within the first couple of months. My advice here is to remain encouraged and continue pressing forward with your strategy, as long as it's a good one.