Learning SEO From Scratch: What I Learned in My First Week (Beginner SEO Guide)

Introduction

The first thing I did was sign up for the SEO course on HubSpot Academy. The course runs for about 3 hours and 30 minutes, and instead of rushing through it, I decided to spread it out across two weeks. For the first week, my focus was on the SEO basics section.

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In simple terms, it’s the process of improving a website so that it gets more traffic from search engines through organic (non-paid) results. The goal is to help your website rank higher when people search for relevant topics.

One of the key things I learned early on is that SEO is not a short-term strategy. It’s more of a long-term game. Results don’t usually happen overnight, and there are no magic tricks or quick fixes. SEO is cumulative — the work you do today can continue benefiting your website months or even years later.

How Search Engines Rank Content

Search engines rank content based on three major factors: discovery, relevance, and authority.

First, search engines need to discover your content. They do this by crawling your website pages. Once discovered, the pages are indexed based on the keywords they contain.

Authority is another important factor. A website’s authority is largely determined by the number and quality of backlinks it receives — in other words, links from other websites pointing back to your site. Generally speaking, the more credible sites that link to you, the stronger your authority becomes, and the better your chances of ranking higher on search engines like Google.

How to Create an SEO Strategy

Another important concept I learned was how to create an SEO strategy.

This starts with setting clear goals for your website and identifying the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) you’ll use to measure progress. For example, you might want to:

- Increase organic traffic

- Generate more leads

- Improve engagement on your site

How to Measure Your Website's Authority

Your strategy also needs to consider how authoritative your site already is within your niche. Some common KPIs to track include:- -

- Number of backlinks built

- Bounce rate

- Organic traffic

- Conversion rate

Why I Started This Blog

Of course, learning SEO shouldn’t just be theoretical. I wanted to actually apply what I was learning in practice. That, combined with my desire to document my learning journey, is what motivated me to start this blog. In a way, this blog also serves as a case study and portfolio for my SEO progress.

What I Worked on During Week 1

Here’s a quick look at what I worked on during the first week:

• Day 1:

Opened Blogger and published a short About Me page.

• Day 2:

Verified my site on Google Search Console, submitted the homepage URL for indexing, and set up Google Analytics to start tracking traffic.

• Day 3:

Created a free Google Ads account so I could access the Keyword Planner. I also updated my About Me page and resubmitted it for indexing.

• Day 4:

Added a navigation menu (Home, About, and Contact pages) and confirmed that my site was properly verified on Search Console.

• Day 5:

Did some keyword research using the Keyword Planner. I also added an internal link and an image with alt text to my About Me page..

Final Thoughts

And that’s a quick recap of Week 1 of my SEO journey

There’s still a lot more to learn, but getting the basics down and actually setting up the blog feels like a solid start. I’ll continue sharing what I learn as I go along.

Thanks for reading.