Guide: SEO for beginners – 10 steps to the top of search results

SEO for Beginners

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is essential if you want to run a business online

This quick SEO guide covers every small and large optimization you need to get your site appearing in Google’s top results.

The list is written from more than 10 years of SEO experience (see who I am).

It works for both small and large websites — for online stores and regular sites alike.

How do I use this quick SEO guide?

These are the steps that have delivered huge results for hundreds of websites I’ve worked on.

Toipumo earned a top-3 ranking for the highly competitive term "päihdekuntoutus" thanks to these guidelines.

Many people don’t know this, but addiction treatment centers can’t advertise on Google because the topic is too sensitive.

For that reason, all addiction rehab facilities have to rely solely on organic search results. You can’t buy visibility.

You don’t have to follow this guide word for word, though.

SEO is a multifaceted process, and often making a few strategic changes is enough to significantly improve your visibility.

SEO basics

Set up Google Search Console

Google Search Console is the best tool for tracking SEO. It’s data straight from Google.

With Google Search Console you can track exactly which keywords your site appears for in Google and which search terms people actually clicked.

See which words bring the most visitors to your site
Identify your site’s most important pages from an SEO perspective
See which sites link to yours
Submit your sitemap to Google
Check your site’s loading speed
Check your site for errors
Check your site’s security

I’d argue that Google Search Console is the single most important SEO tool.

Go to Search Console

Google Search Console hakukoneoptimointi

Install Bing Webmaster Tools

Did you know OpenAI’s ChatGPT uses Bing as its search engine? Being visible in Bing matters now more than ever.

With Bing Webmaster Tools you can help Bing find your site and include it in search results.

That way you’ll automatically gain visibility in ChatGPT as well.

Go to Bing Webmaster Tools

Install Google Analytics

The world’s most popular analytics tool—for free

With Google Analytics you can

Track how many visitors you get from Google
See what visitors do on your site
Find out whether visitors complete the actions you want (for example, contact you)
See which sources send traffic to your site

Pro tip: Connect Google Analytics and Search Console so they can share data

Go to Google Analytics

Install Yoast SEO (WordPress and Shopify)

Yoast SEO is the world’s most popular SEO tool. Available for WordPress and Shopify.

Yoast SEO helps you optimize your site for search engines using an easy traffic-light system.

Most of the time, when you get all the lights green, your visibility on Google is excellent.

There’s a paid version of Yoast, but I’ve personally always managed with the free version. Decide for yourself whether you want to pay for extra features.

Download Yoast

Decide what you want to achieve and set KPIs
(Key Points of Interest)

Are you aiming for more sales with SEO? More visits? Or something else?

Here are common goals:

Organic traffic. More visitors to your site is always a good thing.
Brand awareness. Better visibility across search results raises awareness of your brand. It also works the other way around: well-known brands often rank well in Google because their results get clicked more.
Growing external links (backlinks): External links, or backlinks, are still one of the biggest factors in search visibility. Links from trusted sites signal that your content is valuable enough for others to cite as a source.
A specific ranking in search results. Sometimes the goal of SEO is simply to improve visibility for a particular search term. Maybe you want to move a major keyword from #10 to #3.

By defining one or more goals, you can track SEO results more precisely.

I recommend building a dashboard in Google Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) so you can easily monitor these metrics as your SEO progresses.

(optional) Set up Wincher

Wincher is my favorite tool for tracking SEO (a SERP tool).

With Wincher you can

Immediately test what position you appear in for specific search terms
Compare how you rank against others appearing for the same search
Compare the quality of your site to competing sites
Easy email reporting
Simple dashboard

Wincher.com

Keyword research

Keyword research is the cornerstone of search engine optimization. Without keyword research, you’ll be doing SEO blindfolded.

Know your audience

Identifying your audience is crucial for SEO. You need to understand what people mean when they search for something (search intent)

Consider:

Who is your ideal customer? What does their customer profile look like? What language do they use and what kind of content do they consume?
What problem do they have? How can you help them solve it.
What are they looking for? Are they searching for a service or just general information about one? Are they ready to buy or only comparing options?

Try Google autocomplete

Give Google one word and see what other words it suggests

Each of these words are things people search a lot on Google.

They also work as suggestions for topics you should write about on your sites.

This data comes straight from Google, so I believe these words are very important. Google’s automatic search suggestions are the easiest way to do keyword research.

Jump to Google

avainsanatutkimus google hakukoneoptimointi pikaopas

Sign in to the Google Keyword Tool

In my opinion, Google’s own keyword tool is the best

With Google’s keyword tool you can

Find out how often specific search terms are queried in different countries and languages
Get ideas for other related keywords
See the search history for keywords
See how much advertisers are willing to pay to appear for those terms (competition)
Export keywords to Google Sheets

Jump to Google

Google Avainsanatutkimus Hakusanatutkimus Avainsana analyysi

Export your keyword list to Google Sheets

Export keywords from Google’s Keyword Planner to Google Sheets and color-code them

Turn your keyword list into a filter and add conditional formatting so you can color-code keywords like in the example.

This makes it easy to spot the best keywords to focus on for SEO.

On-site SEO

Now’s the time to optimize your site’s content and create new material.

Add the keyword to the page URL

Keep your site’s URLs clear and easy to read.

Be sure to include the keyword you want the page to rank for in the URL.

For example: this page’s URL is /hakukoneoptimointi-pikaopas because I want it to appear for the search "Hakukoneoptimointi pikaopas."

Use the shortest URLs possible

Keep your URLs concise.

Why?

Backlinko analyzed 11.8 million Google searches and found that shorter URLs tend to perform best. See the study here.

Put the search term at the start of the main page heading

The search term you want your site to show up for should appear at the start of the page’s main heading

Add a variable to the main headline

Research shows adding variables to headlines increases click-through rates

Examples of variables include:

Best
Checklist
Guide
[current year]
Review
Call to action

Use the keyword in the page’s first paragraph

Remember to include your chosen keyword in the text of the first paragraph as well

This helps Google more reliably rank the page for the exact search term you want it to appear for

Use the search term in the page’s H1, H2, H3 headings

Make sure the search term appears in the page headings

Optimize images

Remember to add ALT texts to images on the page

Add ALT text to your images. It helps Google match images to the right searches in Google Images.

It also helps visually impaired users who rely on screen readers on your site.

Use synonyms

For example, if you want to appear for the search "How to start a blog"

You should also use these phrases in the page copy

How to set up a blog
Starting a blog
How to start a WordPress blog
Here’s how to start a blog

LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing) are terms closely related to your main keyword. In other words, words you’d expect to see when talking about your target topic.

For example:

Writing
Website
Content creation

These words probably won’t boost your ranking on their own, but they help Google better understand what your content is about.

Use external links

That is, link to sites outside your own

Linking to other high-quality sites boosts the credibility of your own content.

Link to sources
Link to explanations when you use technical terms

Use internal links

Give readers a path to keep reading

As a rule of thumb, all content on your website should be no more than 2–3 clicks away. From every page, visitors should be able to continue to other related content.

Pro tip: On a WordPress site you can use the Internal Link Juicer plugin to automatically link specific words to specific pages.

SEO for written content

You can’t show up in Google without brilliant content.

Make your text readable

No one likes walls of text

That’s why it’s a good idea to break up walls of text into paragraphs no longer than about three lines.

This keeps your page’s bounce rate lower and helps people find the exact piece of information they’re after amid everything else.

See what others do — then do it better

Google the search term you want to rank for, visit the top 3 results, and think about how you can write content that’s even better than theirs

Think about what added value your content provides

A shallow, surface-level take on a topic no longer guarantees a lasting spot in Google. You can’t just stitch together the subheadings (H2s) from current top results and call it finished content.

You need to deliver added value — more than what the existing search results already offer.

Why would Google surface your content? And why would readers choose yours over the rest?

Use multimedia

Images, videos, lists, tables, infographics

There are two reasons for this:

First: visualizing content makes it higher quality.

Second: multimedia pages tend to rank better in search results, according to studies.

I recommend adding high-quality multimedia to every page on your site

Images
Charts
Infographics
Visual content
Videos
Surveys
Tables

Technical SEO

Technical SEO ensures your site can be read

Find your site’s error messages and loading speed

See whether Google found errors on your site

If your site has technical issues with security, mobile optimization, loading speed, or other content, it won’t appear in Google.

You can easily view error messages in Google Search Console

Make sure Google can see your pages

Sometimes people can see your site, but Google can’t

If Google can’t read your pages, you won’t appear in Google.

Try the Search Console "Inspect URL" tool

Make sure that

Google has indexed the page
The Crawled As field shows "Googlebot"
There are no errors on the page

If the tool says the page is NOT indexed, you can request that Google index it.

Ensure mobile friendliness

70% of your visitors use a mobile device

If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you won’t show up in Google.

Use responsive design. Make sure every element on your site adapts to the user’s screen size.
Keep paragraphs short. Make sure paragraphs are
Avoid pop-ups

Fix broken links

Broken links hurt search visibility and user experience

The easiest way to check the links on your site is DrLinkCheck.com.

A free tool for scanning links.

Drlinkcheck.com

Protect your site with HTTPS

HTTPS has long been a confirmed Google ranking signal.

So if you haven’t already, it’s time to move your site to HTTPS.

(Or if you just launched a new site, set it up with HTTPS on day 1.)

That’s it for this check. It’s that simple.

SEO link building

Link building is the key to reaching the top 10 in search engines

How does Google decide which sites make the top 10 for search terms where millions of pages compete?

The answer is links.

Links tell Google a site is trustworthy. But not just any links will do. They need to come from reputable sites in the same industry and in the same language.

Below are instructions on how to build high-quality links.

Write guest posts

Look for blogs in your field where you could contribute a guest post.

Add an author signature at the end of the post and include a link back to your site.

Make your content easy to link to

Make your site a source

Create content people will cite as a source. Do research, run tests, and publish genuinely interesting material.

Steal your competitors’ links

See which sites link to the top 3 competitors’ pages.

Consider whether you can get those same links.

Appear on podcasts

Be a guest on podcasts in your field and ask them to add a link to your site on the episode page.

Give references

Provide testimonials, reviews, and references for others. Ask that your site be linked alongside the review.

Pro SEO Tips from the Pros

Republish Old Blog Posts

Do you have blog posts from years ago?

Are they buried at the back of your blog archive?

Republish your old posts. It’s an easy way to help older content perform better in Google.

Remove "Zombie Pages"

Check whether your site has a lot of pages that nobody visits.

These can include things like blog category pages or keyword tag pages.

Removing these “zombie” pages can improve your visibility in Google search results.

Final words from the SEO quick guide

Congratulations. You’ve just finished the SEO quick guide.

If you want to dive deeper into SEO, read the search engine optimization guide for professionals that I wrote

SEO Guide for Professionals (2025)

Guide: SEO for Beginners — 10 Steps to the Top of Search Engines