If you're trying to build a marketing career, or if you're venturing into the world of DIY marketing for your own business, one of the most important things you'll need to learn is how to practice search engine optimization (SEO). But if you dip your toes into the water of this subject, you'll quickly become overwhelmed by complicated information.

What are the most foundational elements of SEO to learn at the beginning?

And how do you develop yourself from there?

The High-Level Perspective on SEO

Let's start with a high-level overview of how SEO works. The goal of SEO is to increase the rankings of your website and its internal pages in search engine results pages, called SERPs. To do this, you must orchestrate onsite and offsite actions to cater to search engine algorithms, most notably the search algorithm used by Google.

Google and most other modern search engines use a combination of relevance analysis and authority analysis to give users results closely aligned with their intentions that are relatively trustworthy. Accordingly, SEO demands that you make relevant, trustworthy content.

·       Strategy and planning. Everything starts with strategy and planning. You need to understand who your customers are, what they're searching for, who your competitors are, and what your most valuable keyword targets are going to be.

·       Onsite technical optimization. You also need to optimize your website to conform to Google's standards and provide the best possible user experience. Google and other search engines reward websites that function smoothly.

·       Onsite content development. No SEO campaign is complete without an onsite content element. On site content is a great way to optimize for specific keywords and phrases, but it's also a way to make your website more authoritative and trustworthy.

·       Link building. Another vital element is link building. Link building is the process of establishing links pointed to your website. Each link serves as a marker of trustworthiness, with more trustworthy sights passing more authority. Build enough links on relevant, authoritative sources, and your website will naturally rank higher.

·       Analytics and review. And of course, SEO also demands periodic data analytics and review. You need to parse the data to figure out whether your strategies are working and where to develop your campaign from here.

Learning and Growing

Obviously, we've only covered the simplest basics of SEO. So where can you go to learn more and develop yourself as an optimizer?

·       Online guides and resources. You can start by reading online guides because there are so many detailed, helpful ones. Google itself has great resources you can consult to better understand its approach to ranking search results. You can also find great online guides and resources from businesses that specialize in promoting SEO tools and services. Cross-reference these guides to make sure the information is accurate.

·       News and community commentary. You can also pay attention to news and community commentary. The SEO community is quite active across social media, so try to integrate yourself and learn from active participants.

·       Experimentation. As you get more familiar with the basics of SEO, much of your knowledge will come from practical experiments. You'll try a wide variety of different strategies and approaches, and use the outcomes to help you decide what to do next.

How to Get Better SEO Results

These steps can help you get better SEO results overall:

·       Choose strategically viable targets. Your strategy probably won't be successful unless you're able to choose strategically viable targets. In other words, you need a selection of keywords relatively high in search volume, relevant to your target audience, and minimal in terms of competition. If any of these variables is off, your challenge will be much more severe.

·       Start small and narrow. If you're still learning the ropes, keep the scope of your campaign relatively small and narrow. This will prevent you from spending too much money and help you develop your skills with minimal risk.

·       Make quality your ultimate priority. Many newcomers to the SEO field make the mistake of pursuing quantity over quality. There's an understandable impulse for developing more content and building more links, as these things can be beneficial. But you absolutely cannot sacrifice quality in this field; if you do, you'll quickly fall behind the competition due to penalties and user disinterest.

·       Work with experts. Even if you plan on eventually learning SEO, inside and out, it's a good idea to work with true, experienced experts at the beginning of your journey. They can help you see better results and learn proper approaches simultaneously. Working with an SEO agency is much more expensive than doing the work yourself, but it also gives you access to far more resources and all but guarantees you'll see far more reliable progress.

·       Be patient. Finally, strive for patience. SEO is a strategy that takes many months of consistent effort for development; you may not see any meaningful results for several weeks, at least. Also, learning SEO can be time-consuming and challenging, so try to take your lessons one at a time.

SEO is a big, complex topic that can't be concisely described or contained in the body of one relatively short article. But hopefully, the information here has sufficiently introduced you to the subject and has given you direction on where to go next.