SEO strategies have gone through incredible amounts of evolution over the last year. From algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda to new search engine restrictions on overoptimization and spammy links, optimization methods for getting the best rankings in search engines all across the web have advanced. The recent power of social sharing has had a huge effect on search, and search engine company recommendations to get the best rankings in their search engines have changed as crawl tactics are getting smarter. SEOs of all levels have had to re-learn strategies and best practices to make sure their website’s SEO is set up for winning results.
Does the mountain of seemingly endless updates feel overwhelming yet? Have no fear, fellow Mozzers, because Roger and the SEOmoz crew have been hard at work creating a guide to serve as your one-stop-shop for the most current SEO trends. We’re proud to announce the release of our shiny new Beginner's Guide to SEO!
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Our legendary first version of the Beginner’s Guide to SEO was read over 1 million times, but like all vintage models, it was in need of a makeover. The updated Beginner’s Guide to SEO is designed to describe all areas of SEO in regards to the advances in search over the last two years - from keyword discovery, to making a site search engine friendly, to link building, to marketing the unique value of your site’s offerings. We’ve highlighted new limitations and contributing factors to last year’s evolution of search along with our own suggestions to optimize your website for search success.
The newly updated Beginner’s Guide to SEO is bursting with new changes, but here are the top ten additions to keep an eye out for:
1. What is Search Engine Optimization?
What is SEO? Where does it come from? Why is it important? These questions might sound all too familiar, but over the last year the answers have evolved. SEO is no long just about “engines,” but is focused on making your website better for people. This guide takes a more human-focused approach to deducing the wonderful world of SEO to help both humans and bots live in harmony. (Intro Chapter)
2. Why Should I SEO?
Ever wonder if you should take a swing at SEO? We’ve laid a solid foundation for the “why SEO is for everyone” argument to give you an in-depth view of how strong SEO is crucial to the success of every website. Take a look to see if it’s right for you (hint: the answer is yes!). (Intro Chapter)
3. Can I Do SEO for Myself?
Home-grown SEO is a trend that is catching on, but there’s a lot to learn to make sure your site’s SEO is up to par. Whether you’re considered using a consultant, firm, or learning SEO on your own, this new section is a must-read. We’ve highlighted a variety of important factors to consider before taking on the task of becoming your site’s very own SEO guru. (Intro Chapter)
4. Building for Users, Not Search Engines
This awesome new section highlights three ways people look for information through search queries fitting into the categories of Do, Know, and Go. What are users looking for? Does your site have what it takes to be a true competitor? It all starts with a user typing words into a small box. Start propelling your success by giving this chapter a once - or twice, or ten times, no judgement - over! (Chapter 2)
5. The Power of Social Sharing
The years of 2011 and 2012 have seen a massive surge in social sharing and its effects on search. Google has begun to incorporate a huge number of social signals into its search results, and similar algorithm changes show no signs of slowing across all search engines. It’s more important than ever before to optimize your content for social sharing success, and this section explains how to boost your rankings though your social networks. (Chapter 7)
6. Link Building Strategies
The first and most challenging step in any successful link building campaign is to create goals and strategies, but with so many options, where should you start? We’ve put together a list of five link building strategies that can help increase search traffic, boost your rankings, encourage frequent search engine crawling, and increase referring link traffic to your site. That sweet link juice tastes so good! (Chapter 7)
7. Search Engine Tools
SEOs tend to use a lot of tools. A LOT of tools. What could be worse than using tools that are outdated? We’ve created a master list of the most current search engine tools in Google Webmaster, Bing Webmaster, and SEOmoz Open Site Explorer that will help you to identify errors, read stats, identify powerful links, pull metrics, and maximize your mind-boggling SEO powers to their full potential. (Chapter 8)
8. New Strategies for Using Data After Tracking Search Queries
Now that you’re using updated search engine tools, you’ll need to update your data tracking strategies to match. Chapter eight will navigate you through a series of helpful tips and tricks for making the most of your new and improved data. Analytics lovers unite! (Chapter 8)
9. Myths and Misconceptions About Search Engines
Like our friends Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, the SEOmoz team loves to disprove myths and misconceptions about the wonderful world of search engines. Because search has gone through such an evolution over the last year, many myths about search have undergone substantial changes as well. From meta tags and keyword stuffing to paid search and search engine spam, we’ve dedicated an entire chapter of this guide to explaining the real stories behind the myths to help SEOs understand what’s required to perform effectively. (Chapter 9)
10. Suggestions On What to Do After Tracking Your Search Queries
They say that if you can measure it, you can improve it, and we couldn’t agree more. Chapter 10 is packed full of new recommendations on metrics to track, analytics software to implement, metrics provided by search engines to use, and tips to applying the data you track towards real life solutions. Make the most out of your hard-earned data by reading this section. These are tips you can’t afford to miss! (Chapter 10)
No matter your level of SEO wizardry, we encourage you to check out the updated guide for brand new strategies that will help drive your optimization to the next level. Leave your comments below and share the love with your friends, family, colleagues, and robot buddies!
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I always give my clients this Beginner's Guide to SEO.
The more that they undestand what we do, the easier it makes our jobs. We've all had those clients who request absolutely ridiculous things!
So do yourselves a favor and share this will your current and future clients (or give them a Cliff Notes version). Glad it is updated to today's requirements.
This is FANTASTIC! We were on the phone with a prospect today and I mentioned SEOmoz and the Beginner's Guide and I thought to myself "Hey I wonder if any of that is out of date now?" and then BAM you guys were on it, and updated the thing. It's great!
We love sending people to SEOmoz because we're not affiliated with you in any way, it lets you be that unbiased third party who, through resources, can validate the stuff we say to people. Especially when creative agencies and website designers want to say that they know what they're talking about, it's HUGE to send someone to an SEOmoz Q&A or the Newbie Guide and be like... see... right there... how all these SEOs are supporting the EXACT OPPOSITE of what that website designer with "crazy social media cred" told you?
Thank you SEOmoz! Keep up the great work!
Thanks for spreading the SEOmoz love, Matthew! We're always happy to help however we can!
This is why we love SEOMoz too! It's nice to be able to tell a client they can check this out and verify that what we are doing is the right way to do it and will work. It helps with those clients who like to know/understand the details or what is going on with their account.
I'm a bit concerned about this post... Are we SEO monkeys will turn into robots? How this can be possible!! :)
I've been a mozzer for 2 years and can't tell the value The Beginner's Guide to SEO gave me! Keep up the great work guys! :)
This is most probably the best SEO guide on the net, are you planing to also create a SEO guide for all the advanced topics?
Thanks! We've got a few guides in the works that are focusing on specific SEO topics. More on those to come :)
I have to give another "Thumbs Up" to the SEOmoz team! You guys are constantly keeping up on new trends and really are the core of keeping this well-to-do community going. These updates to the guide are awesome, it is a great starting point for any aspiring SEO, or someone who just wants to know more about the industry.
Keep Up The Awesome Work!
The first reading material my boss gave me when I started was the BGTSEO from Moz. I am stoked to go back and read and see the evolution through how the landscape has changed. Thanks to everyone out there working so hard to make our jobs easier, you guys are the best
I have started to learn SEO. It is good to be in a right forum like this. Lot of valuable information. At the right time I have got your updated guide. Thank you very much. Moreover I am also reading "The Art of SEO" written by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Jessie Stricchiola and Rand Fishkin. Thank you again.
So glad the new edition is out - I love sharing this with my company to promote advocacy in an easy-to-understand way! Thanks!
Hey Ashley,
It's so generous of you to keep on updating the SEO beginner's guide. I am always delighted to read such well written and informative article to sharpen my knowledge. The reason, I love reading your guide, every time I get to learn some new things. Thanx and keep on updating!!!!!!
We have always follow SEO guidlines. Thanks Ashley , for shared a informative post about Begineer Guide to SEO. It will always help for Every SEO person .
GreatWork!!!
The ultimate solution for the SEO babies born in 2012. I have built my fundamentals with old beginners guide. Its not just a book but the bible of SEO. Thanks to the Moz team for updating it. Keep on updating...
Cheers for the
The Beginner's Guide to SEO V.02
Very Informative post! After Google penguin update everyone was in need of a detail and elaborate guide that could walk you through search engine optimisation methods and this time you have come up with awesome piece of guide to help people like me that are keen to update themselves with the latest search engine optimisation trends and technologies.
Still I have a doubt about how should we determine if your website ranking is a victim of Penguin update or Panda update? I have come across many situations that proved that Google used to run a sandwitch of Panda and Penguin to make it hard for people to figure out the exact reason of their website dowbfall. It would be great if someone could explain me how to be sure about the real culprit Panda or penguin!
Check out this great blog post for tips on how to assess your site after Panda and Penguin: Penguins, Pandas, and Panic at the Zoo.
HI Ashley
Thanking for giving nice information and SEOMOZ team is great always thanks to all.
When I approach the new client then give the full information about the SEO actually what is the SEO? And for that i used the SEO guide form the SEOMOZ.
Now so many changes are done by the search engine for give the best result on SERP. So updates are included into the beginner guide. That’s great for SEO Beginner.
#4 Building for Users, Not Search Engines
I focus on that because the visitor or user is the main part of any kind of business. The search engine is only way to connect with them nothing more. So we have to always focus on user demand but don’t forget about the way to connect.
Thanks.
A big thumbs up and thank you for this. I particularly liked the parts on "can I do SEO for myself" and social sharing - overall, a very useful summary
I've recently had a few friends ask what I do. I just point them here!
Fantastic guide, by far the best I've come across on the net.
Great work Ashley! This is an excellent guide for all the beginners out there!
Second round on the beginners guide, thanks for the updates Ashley.
Hi Ashley Tate,
Thanks for share SEO Guide, its old but very effective guideline for optimizing your site seo friendly,
Awesome, great to see the updates include social and link building strategies. Great content + great tools makes SEOmoz a great buy.
Keep it up.
I have been facilitating the SEO campaign for our company and whenever there are new people that on the team I never forget to tell them to keep theirselves updated with whats new on the search engine industry and SEO practices and ask them to subscribe to your blog. Thanks SEOMOZ ! Thanks Ashley for this comprehensive update ! Keep it up =)
Holly... when those 2 years passed :) I guess it's time time to read Moz' BG Guide again and refresh my basic skills a little :) Happy reading folks!
It's always good to have a little refresher course now and again. Happy reading!
Hi Ashley,
Nice post for Beginners. I have never found this type of basic and easyly understable article.
Thanks,
Thanks for reading, Nevil! Feel free to post questions if you have any along the way.
Great post Ashley! Bonus points if you can somehow tie the updated Beginner's Guide in with Star Wars...
All the best SEO material is tied in with Star Wars. Ha ha.
It's just on time. Really very helpful for me. Thanks guys! You are great!
I love the fact that there is now a date marker on the bottom. This shows when the content was last updated, very helpful.
The only thing about this post is... You're making it too easy for everyone to do SEO.
Hi Ashley,
Thanks to you & your team for updating the guide, it is an awesome one and thanks to you, i have been able to incorporte the main points into my coding of web applications.
Regards,
Pramod
www.syneity.com
I am satisfy with your views that SEO has changed over the last year and many things that seems to be easy now face tough competition. In this time SEO is going to be complex and recent updates from Google like Penguin and panda updates make this more complicated.
This is great but can anyone let me know when this content will be upgraded for all the changes that have been made? Updated as of 2014?
Google updating time to time that's true but professional have to learn more how they can handle the job to make their clients happy and keep maintaining own ranking. it's challenging for everyone but it's the way every professional need to go through it .
thank you - I use this guide to train new recruits - thanks for doing the hard work for us and putting the documents together :)
Thanks for this, even though i'm not a beginner I still like to read this to help explain it to clients.
Hi Ashley
The beginners guide to seo 2012 is a good guide for seo. I have checked out https://www.seomoz.org/blog/penguins-pandas-and-panic-at-the-zoo this link. thanks from you for such article for us.
Yes this is absolutely right recent up gradations from Google side put a huge pressure on companies to maintain its ranking on Google.
Regards
AuroIN
A great orientation and sign-posting piece - thanks for putting it together.
Not only a great article but I love the images you used =]
ya, images are also great.
excellent job . .!
Thanks for updating the guide for us. You guys always do a great job.
Cheers
Thanks for this updated guide!
Well, thanks for the update Ashley..
This is the right post for the right time, as you said social sharing is the most important factor for 2012 SEO, thanks for the wonderful post I have tweeted this....
I have read many post related to SEO guide but I just found it on of the best among my lists that I collect. I kindly request you to post a article over white hat SEO campaign so that I can rank my site in the SERP.
Thanks Ashley. I really appreciate your work.
hey Ashley ,
I like your blog. This is a unique blog and i m waiting for your next blog.
Thanks .....This is a great informtion for any bignner's of SEO....
Awesome piece of content here and something that I will certainly be passing onto any new people who join the team that are new to the industry.
That is a superb guide for beginners.
Well done and thanks for sharing this!
Great post, this will really helpful for all who are newbies and beginner in SEO fields. so thanks for sharing this informative post with us.
Ashley Tate thanks for sharing the excellent post. After the panda and penguin algorithm change the SEO is a little bit more difficult. To make the site according to panda and penguin update the beginners must keep an eye on, what is SEO? Why should I SEO? etc. to make the blog SEO friendly the content is unique, and understand the power of sharing, apply the link building strategies.
All the best SEO stuff. thanks a lot...
Thanks !!!!!
Goood Article for SEO begner. Can you posting one more article related to Google Analytics Certification Question and Answer.
Happy!
Still remember when I discovered the version 1.0 of the Beginners Guide to SEO in... whoa! time passes... 2007 I think.
It was a eye opener for this old classic marketer, who was starting his online marketing adventure.
Wow!!! This is always most helful for us.
Thank you for such a wonderful guide, you guys at SEOMOZ have been doing a great job and taking the people in industry by surprise all the time, hope we get many more guides on individual topics being elaborated in the future.
It’s good to see updated SEOmoz guide, but the need of the time says you have to update Ranking factors so we get some intro about Search Engines and tries to figure it out what is happening inside search.
I know you update ranking factors once in a two years but as you can see Google create massive changes into last couple of months and almost every SEO wonder what is happening in Search.
By the way I will surely read complete SEO guide again to update my knowledge and gain some important point according to your Guide….
Thumbs up for your Good work,
Thanks for your comment, Asif! We just wrapped up this year's SEOmoz Industry Survey which plays an important role in our ranking factors update. Keep an eye out for the updated ranking factors in the upcoming weeks!
Wow! This is a great guide. Wish I came across it when I was starting out in SEO. It is true that alot has changed in the internet search arena thus the reason i think hiring someone to do for you SEO will not be necessary.
Though getting paid links is now a thing of the passed, it is still supricing to see some SEO service sites still use this strategy to build backlinks.
The other thing about this guide is the fact that it is showing people to go back to the basics when content was King. This is sure a great guide.
Great news! I remember reading this from beginning to end when I first started SEO and it was a hugely useful resource, great to see it being updated!
If you do release advanced guides on specific topics I'd love to help in some way with an infographics section, if there's anything I can add to the value of the resource I'd be very happy to do so.
The amount of effort your team puts into things like this is astonishing and one of the main reasons why SEOMoz deserves to enjoy such a high profile in the industry.
Thank you so much for the kind words, John! We love to hear about our content making a positive impact :)
Keep the feedback coming, and we'll keep you posted on the upcoming guides!
Awesome work guys! Great resource for anyone who wants to learn about SEO.
The best tool to grasp basics of SEO. Period. Very simple too.
This is a great guide that will defiantly be used as a reference for those wanting to DIY.
#3 is a tricky one. Many can do it themselves but it takes lots of time to learn the right techniques. Often times they get in trouble when:
1) They get missinformation (usually from SEO Forums)
2) they try and take short cuts
3) Not gain enough SEO knowledge
@Stuart - I agree, the DIY route can be rather damaging for folks when they are misinformed! I find education to be a huge component of working with new clients. Once you get the open dialog going and people can understand the big picture then it gets much easier!
QUESTION: When you hyperlink multiple times to the same URL on a page, Google only reads the first one. Does that mean you should put nofollow on the other hyperlinks? Does that split the page juice by leaving them follow?
Hi David,
I wouldn't worry about nofollowing multiple instances of the same URL on a page. Google will lend the most juice to the first instance and leave the other ones more or less alone. In general, try to keep the number of links on a page to a minimum; that's a better way to conserve link juice than by nofollowing. If the links are useful to users, I would just leave them in there and not worry about nofollowing - if they seem redundant consider taking them out altogether rather than nofollowing.
I asked the same question a couple of days ago, there were a couple of useful responses
Feel free to take a look https://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-internal-links-on-page-any-benefit-to-nofollow
Ps: Sorry for this not being a clickable link, adding this on an iOS device and it doesn't have the option to embed link
Hahaha, love these guides. Thanks so much! Saves so much explaining on my part!
Frightening how time goes by. I can remember the first release of the guide, too. Did Scott Willoughby work on it or was it Danny Dover?
It's Good to knwo that SEOmoz Updated the SEO Guide, but some SEO's Need Advance SEO Guide for Their Website and Knowledge. i hope that you all are planning to create new Advance SEO Guide for SEO's.
Although the Beginner's Guide can be used as a tool for beginner SEOs, I encourage SEOs of all levels to give it a look. The updated tips and strategies are applicable to SEOs at any level of experience!
We're currently working on a variety of topic-specific SEO guides similar to the Beginner's Guide that will cater more towards the intermediate to advanced SEO crowd, so stay tuned!
Thanx for the article I really nedded that after so many changes done by the google. Thinking about what strategy to apply for SEO. First i have to check if google hasn't any algorithm or not. It helped me... :)
Thanks so much for updating this - we are already using it as a starting block for training in SEO for staff and will continue to. Appreciated!
Its a good guide but I'd echo the request for an advanced SEO guide too!
I just not long finished reading the beginners guide!Support it wont do me no harm reading it agaim.
I like the Robot i use in my web hehehe regards to all SEO i am link builder thanks to share info about to get more in this job
Stiv - [url=https://tusminijuegosgratis.com/]minijuegos[/url]
I use this guide to many people in Q&A. I end up recommending it about 5 times per week. When people start asking about tip n tricks, I know they are new to SEO. That's why I recommend this guide.
Thanks for the hard work. It's fantastic to have an update.
As others have said, clients and anyone new to SEO can really benefit from this guide. It's the perfect introduction. I've showed this to clients but also friends of mine who are starting their own business (and doing the SEO themselves) and the visuals really help explain the concepts.
Advance SEO Guide is very much efficient and helpful. But as per the change in SEO trends will this guide work efficiently?
Any unique content prepared by a particular niche writer is been highlighted as Spam.
How will Google take measures if a group of people in the same niche market are preparing content on one topic/subject (even after taking unique measures) and it still says the content is a copy of others (only few words/sentences have been changed)?..Its becoming frustrating.
If you provide SEO Guide's frequently, I'd really appreciate it.
Still...this Guide is awesome and real pumping for SEO's.
Hello
This is a very good addition to the guide. Good job
Very good upgrade. A must read.
This is the best and easy to understand beginners SEO guides I have ever read on the net. Thanks a lot for posting this. Hope to see more guides on seomoz for other topics as well.
Aha. Superb. SEOMOZ.
But some content are really same lie previous. Is there only differences from Old SEO and New SEO ? I mean - difference between old and new 2012 SEO?
SEO Is changing its path, so we needs to make it more strong.
Thank you
Regards Certified SEO Professional Consultant Denish verma Skype: Denishverma