SEO Basics

If you're on this page, you probably want to learn the basics of modern SEO, right? Never fear! Here at Moz, we practically invented basic SEO, and we'll keep you up to date on the latest standards.

If you haven't already, you probably want to read the newly updated Beginner's Guide to SEO. It explains key concepts like how search engines work, keyword research, and the importance of links.

Here, we've listed some of our favorite posts on SEO basics, and you'll find the most recent blog posts below.

SEO 101: The Beginner's Guide to SEO : Start here to understand the basics of modern SEO.

SEO Learning Center : Moz's free SEO learning resources are continually updated, and a virtual encyclopedia of SEO tips and tactics.

The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet 3.0 : If you're looking for basic technical SEO considerations, this 4 page downloadable cheat sheet will get you started on the basics of meta tags and more.

How to Rank : The SEO Checklist: Ranking in Google really isn't as hard as some folks make it seem. In this video, our SEO guru Rand Fishkin gives you a simple checklist for greater visibility.

Keyword Research : The Beginner's Guide to SEO: SEO almost always starts with keywords, so we thought this would be a good place for you to start too.

Most Recent Articles on SEO Basics

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Keyword Research Master Guide

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Guide to SEO Competitor Analysis

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Inbound Marketing and SEO for Bands and Musicians
Brandon Seymour

Inbound Marketing and SEO for Bands and Musicians

What I find really interesting though is that some niches act as if they are immune to the constant pressures of the modern day marketer. In my experience, one of the biggest offenders is the music industry - specifically independent artists. I've been working in SEO and inbound marketing for about four years now and since I've always had a passion for music, I wanted to take some time to discuss some simple, highly actionable steps that musicians can take to start marketing their band like a boss.

A Simple Error that Tanked My Site and Stopped My Heart
Dave Robinson

A Simple Error that Tanked My Site and Stopped My Heart

Earlier this year a number of our sites tanked and when I say tanked I mean THEY TANKED. Not only did visits dry up, as a result of their rankings evaporating, but all toolbar PageRank disappeared reverting to n/a. I'm talking a site with a homepage toolbar PR 7 showing PR n/a! It was a very strange experience, made all the more strange by the fact that sites that ranked on pure age (been there since god was a boy with decent content) tanked alongside sites we'd worked on.

How to Learn SEO
Will Critchlow

How to Learn SEO

At Distilled, we define our purpose as "discovering, implementing and sharing the ways great companies succeed online". It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that (a) I think a lot about how to learn SEO effectively and (b) we try to build learning into pretty much everything we do. "How should I learn more about X?"...

Free SEO Advice & Marketing Tips for the Music Industry
J

Free SEO Advice & Marketing Tips for the Music Industry

Music is one of the most popular forms of entertainment and one of the most traded digital assets on the planet. Ever since Napster's debut in 1999 musicians, record labels and the RIAA have all singled out file sharing as the overwhelming source for loss of revenue in record sales. I have always wondered why they get to point all of these crazy fingers without highlighting how absolutely awful they are at marketing their products on the Internet – not to mention how little they seem to care about the revenue they lose to their own horribleness.

What Super Bowl Commercials Can Teach Us About SEO
Steve Webb, Ph.D.

What Super Bowl Commercials Can Teach Us About SEO

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Steve just wrote this post so he could watch old Super Bowl commercials." And you're not wrong ;-) I'll jump at any chance to watch (and share) YouTube videos. Fortunately, in the process of sifting through my favorite ads from years past, I was able to select a few videos that can actually teach us valuable SEO lessons. So sit back, and enjoy these all-time great Super Bowl commercials, while I drop a few SEO nuggets of knowledge along the way.