SEO Basics: How to Grow Traffic When You Know Nothing About SEO People who are just getting started with a new internet business often get that common feeling that search engine optimization is too technical while the competition in SERPs is enormous. So generally SEO isnt worth the effort. While its true that there are some niches where its hard to succeed, thats not the case for many other industries. Quite often, when you look at a particular vertical, youll find that its not as saturated as you think, and competitors have a very limited understanding of SEO. So you only have to get the basics right to have immediate success. Part of the reason is that many business owners dont have enough time to spend on creating and implementing a good SEO strategy. So they decide to hire someone to do it for them. The inherent risk with this course of action is that when you dont understand the basics of the work that needs to be done, you can easily get ripped off. So, no matter whether youre just getting started with DIY SEO or planning on hiring someone to do it for you, this guide will give you everything you need to know to succeed with generating organic traffic for your website. Well go through the following vital SEO basics: How to figure out what your customers are searching forHow to optimize your pages so they rank for your keywordsHow to make sure your website is accessible and convenient to both search engines and human visitorsAnd finally, how to get other websites to link to your site Keep reading to learn the best practices for each of these aspects of SEO and how to apply them to your website. Step 1: Figure out what your target customers are searching for While many people think of SEO as an inherently technical discipline no matter whether youre researching keywords, optimizing your site, or analyzing competitors to understand what theyre doing the reality is that SEO is predominantly about understanding who your customers are and what they care about. That doesnt necessarily need to be done using any SEO tactics, in fact, the best way to get started with it is by talking to your clients and listening to their feedback. Here are some of the obvious places where you can start: Comments on your websiteEmails from customersYour phone/chatlineEvents where you meet with customers Keep an eye not just on what theyre saying, but also what language theyre using. Start building a list of topics your audience is interested in and the terms they use. To get a better idea of how that would look in practice, well use an example.