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Anything you do that naturally increases your website’s ranking on search engines falls under SEO. While this is an oversimplified way to describe the intricate world of SEO, it’s mostly true.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has existed since the invention of search engines, and compared to the simple days of the past, it has drastically changed over the years. Now, SEO is not just about stuffing keywords in content. With the advancements in algorithms and people’s tastes, search engine optimization has become much more intricate.
This blog will discuss everything you need to know about SEO, from what it is to how it works. In the end, you’ll have a decent understanding of the basics, making this a good starting point for your SEO journey.
Before getting into search engine optimization (SEO), we need to have a decent understanding of search engines.
A search engine is sort of like a directory. When you search any term on a search engine, the program shows results that best match your query. Just from this simple explanation, we can get a decent understanding of what a search engine does –
Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo are some examples of search engines. With over 3 billion unique visitors to Google, nearly all internet users are somewhat familiar with search engines and what they do.
Now that we have a basic understanding of search engines, let’s get into SEO.
When you search for something on Google with a word or a phrase (called a keyword), the search engine shows the results that best match your query first. As a result, you will see some results coming on top, and they usually are what you are looking for. Google uses advanced algorithms to rank web pages on its search engine result page (SERP) based on certain ranking factors.
Some search engine ranking factors include:
Search engines want to show web pages that can provide the best value to users for their searched queries. With that in mind, SEO is the practice of optimizing or improving the web pages of a website to rank higher on search engines with the goal of increasing web traffic. Basically, anything you do to improve your website’s organic traffic can fall under SEO.
What makes SEO one of the most important aspects of digital marketing? Well, there are many reasons. Compared to many other types of marketing efforts, there are significant differences in SEO. Those differences make SEO special, and sometimes better, than other marketing methods.
Over 90% of global traffic derives from Google and Google Images. Millions of people use search engines on a daily basis. There is a huge amount of traffic, and therefore, there is a strong possibility of building online visibility. With SEO, businesses, organisations and individuals increase the visibility of their websites, thereby securing more traffic.
Compared to other digital marketing channels, such as PPC marketing or social media ads, SEO brings organic traffic, and you do not have to spend money on Google or any other search engines to attract visitors. Such organic traffic is valuable for the growth of a website and, ultimately, any brand.
In terms of time, effort, and resources—that is, hiring an SEO specialist, creating content, and optimizing the website— SEO calls for an upfront commitment. Once set, organic traffic is more affordable over time since it flows constantly without extra expenses.
Conversely, when it comes to sponsored ads, you pay for every click (PPC) or impression (CPM), thereby stopping traffic immediately upon the expiration of the ad budget. Particularly in competitive markets where cost-per-click (CPC) is high, long-term reliance on ads can be expensive.
Search engine optimization works in intricate ways. To understand this, we need to know how search engines show keyword results.
The first thing a search engine does is crawl or scan. Like Google, search engines use automated bots called “crawlers” or “spiders” (e.g., Googlebot) to probe the internet visiting websites. Following links across pages, these bots find fresh material and updates to current pages. Searching for particular elements, crawlers find:
Once a crawler examines a page, it determines if the content deserves to be kept in the index—that is, the database of the search engine. Indexing means looking at the page’s structure, information, and usefulness. Pages that don’t have any useful information on them, have duplicate content, or use meta tags or robots.txt to stop search engines from indexing them might not be indexed, so they won’t show up in search results. A quick fun fact about indexing is Google has over 400 billion documents indexed.
Ranking is the final step, where search engines determine the order in which pages appear for a specific keyword query. The ranking process considers hundreds of factors, such as:
Search engines rank websites using algorithms—complex mathematical formulae and rules. These systems are always changing to provide accurate, relevant, user-oriented search results.
Remember the ranking factors we mentioned earlier? SEO encompasses multiple different criteria, as rankings on search engine result pages (SERPs) depend on many things. As a result, SEO is divided into several different types, primarily:
Other than these, aspects like local SEO, international SEO, and e-commerce SEO become more important as you go the advanced route. We will explore the main types of SEO in the next section.
As mentioned before, there are many aspects of SEO. However, if we had to define the “core elements”, then the following three would be the right candidates.
On-page or on-site SEO is about optimizing web pages for visitors and search engines. Basically, anything you do on your website that can improve search engine visibility and ranking is considered on-page SEO.
Here are some of the things that fall under the umbrella of on-page SEO:
Keyword research is about finding relevant keywords with search volumes and creating content around them. When your web page contains certain keywords that people search for, Google will naturally show your website on their SERP. Keyword research is done using tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and Semrush.
Results on search engines not only contain links to websites but also meta titles and descriptions. This way, users can get a gist of what the web page can offer before clicking the link. As a result, on-page SEO is also about optimizing meta titles and descriptions, often with keywords, so that people are more likely to click on your page.
The quality of the content on your web page is highly important for search engine ranking. Google and other similar platforms are more likely to show helpful visual and written content that meets users’ search intent. Poor and irrelevant content will always fall under quality pages, no matter how keyword-rich it is.
Interlink linking is about linking to other pages of your own website. This helps both users and crawlers to navigate your website, improving its SEO.
We learned that on-page SEO involves everything you do on your web page to help it rank better. In contrast, off-page SEO involves actions taken outside of your website that manipulate your website’s authority, ranking, and search volume. Here are the two primary factors of off-page SEO:
Backlinks are hyperlinks that point to your website. Think of a highly-regarded website with tons of traffic. If they link to any page of your website, some of that traffic is funnelled to you. Moreover, it improves the reputation or authority of your website to search engines, overall having a long-term effect.
Social signals encompass several things, such as social media and brand mentions. When your brand is getting visibility and awareness outside of your website, it’s likely that those things will affect your traffic positively.
Many technical elements of a website can affect its ranking. Improving those aspects falls under the category of technical SEO. In brief terms, technical SEO is about making sure that search engines can easily crawl and index your website as well and that users don’t have any technical issues (loading or broken pages) when visiting any page. Here are some of the elements of technical SEO:
Site speed is an important ranking factor for Google. It makes sense, as users are not likely to stick around when a website takes too long to load. Slow pages reduce the incoming traffic, while fast-loading pages do the opposite, making site speed a part of SEO.
Websites are 3 times more likely to be visited from a mobile device than a desktop. This statistic alone proves the importance of making your website mobile-friendly. If a site does not respond well on a mobile device, it loses the potential of gaining a huge amount of its traffic.
XML Sitemaps list all the pages you wish to be indexed, therefore guiding search engines over your site. Robots.txt tells search engines where on your website should or shouldn’t be crawled. Both of these are technically manipulable aspects.
Structured data offers a consistent arrangement for search engines to access information about a page and its contents. It helps search engines figure out what your website is about and show better search results, which are called “rich snippets.”
Usually, in JSON-LD style, schema markup is the code you include in your website to apply structured data. It explains components like:
For example, a recipe page with schema can display cooking time, ingredients, and star ratings directly on the search results page, making it more appealing to users.
SEO brings in highly valuable organic traffic with the potential for growth. However, compared to other forms of digital marketing, SEO is arguably more challenging. As a result, if you are willing to start your SEO journey, there is a long path ahead. The best way to start is by learning from the experts themselves, which you can do via well-crafted courses on Sikkhon. Learn digital marketing, SEO, writing, and other forms of skills from the best.
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