8.5 Billion Searches are made on Google per day, this shows how important it is to be on Google if you want that your product or services reach out to the people looking for it. But to be on Google and reach out to your potential audience, you need to know What is SEO – Search Engine Optimization? and how to implement Search Engine Optimization, with a customized and solid SEO strategy, so you can rank and can represent your website to the people who are digging for you.
So when you know SEO is what can help you rank on top of Google SERP, where the top 3 Google search results get 75.1% of all clicks, now the question arises.
What is SEO – Search Engine Optimization? What are the all benefits of SEO? How does SEO work? and How you can apply your search engine optimization SEO techniques correctly for your website.
You would get the answer to all the above-mentioned questions here in the post. You will get a clear understanding of the Search Engine Optimization picture, and how meaningful it is for your business and website even if you are a complete beginner.
So let us get started with the basic that is the definition of SEO.
What is SEO: Search Engine Optimization?
SEO is the nickname for Search Engine Optimization, so from now if someone asks you what is SEO? You simply can answer; hey, SEO is the abbreviation of Search Engine Optimization. Voila, you got the answer What is SEO? Isn’t it?
No, SEO is not that simple, the definition of SEO could seem simple. In addition, here it is for you in very simple and easy terms so you got the basics clear in your mind.
SEO is the set of processes and actions we take for a website to help it rank higher on Google SERP (Search Engine Result Page).
The purpose of SEO is to make your website visible in front of people who are looking for the product or services you offer.
To make it even simpler let us understand SEO with an example.
You open Google on your device (that could be a mobile, laptop, MacBook, or any device where you can access search engines), and you searched for the term ‘SEO learning center near me‘.
You got some results that provide online learning courses; also, the results would show you some ‘SEO learning centers near your locations’ as you add the term ‘near me’ in your keywords.
Therefore, here is the huge list of options in front of you for your search query. The website that is on the top 3 to 5 results has a great chance that the searcher opts of them to join the SEO course.
So the main work of Google is to help the searcher meet their requirements, and the work of SEO is to help the website rank higher at the top of the SERP results when users search for them.
Consequently, if you want your website or piece of content to become discoverable for the people who are enquiring about it, you need a solid and customized SEO Strategy as per the nature of your business and website.
What Are the Different Types of SEO?
Now there is another question that could be in your sharp brain, Are there any different types of SEO? So, for an instant, the answer is Yes.
There are three main types of SEO, and the purpose of all the types is to make your website visible in search results. The 3 common types of SEO are:
- On-page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Off-page SEO
And if state clear, these are not types but the different stages that we employ to increase the visibility and E-A-T(Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) of the website, so it gets a higher rank on Google for the keywords or search phrases related to your business.
So lets some detailed information about all the 3 types listed above:
On-page SEO
What is On page SEO? The straightforward answer is the changes you made to your website in terms of how it looks and how easy it is to understand and navigate the website content for the duo which are the user and the search engines.
As On-page SEO also called On-Site SEO, is the actions you take on your website to make it more familiar to search engines and users. Some common elements that come under On-page SEO optimization are:
- URLs
- Keywords
- Written content
- Headers
- Title tags
- Images
Technical SEO
Technical SEO term itself tells you what it is, working on the technical side of a website and making it easily accessible for search engine spiders so they can crawl and index the website more effectively.
The more your website is technically strong, it increases the more chances of faster indexing and indirectly that helps to help improve organic rankings.
Technical Search Engine Optimization steps include:
- Website architecture
- Sitemaps
- HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Crawlability
- Page speed
- Schema
- Hreflang tags (international SEO)
Off-Page SEO
The answer to What is Off-page SEO?
All the actions that are taken outside of your website, and help you get your rankings higher on the search engine are known as Off-Page SEO.
The term itself indicates that SEO is done out of the page is Off-Page SEO.
You have less control over this type of SEO when compare with the 2 mentioned types which are On-Page and Technical SEO.
Some of the actions that include in Off-Page SEO are:
- Link building
- Social media marketing
- Guest blogging on other sites
- Managing customer reviews and testimonials
- Influencer marketing
Why is SEO important?
53% of all the trackable website traffic comes from organic search.
92% of traffic goes to the results on the first page of Google.
Is there anything else you need to understand about why SEO is important for your website and business growth?
If you have a website, SEO is necessary for it.
Let’s understand it this way, you have a website but no one can see it, is this make sense of having a website when no one can find it?
Optimizing your website is essential if you want more visibility, and that direct indicates more traffic and more possibilities to flip prospects into customers.
Search engine optimization is important not only for big marketing budgets but also for small businesses, as it is the most cost-effective method of marketing.
Using SEO can change the success game even for small businesses if followed by a correct, solid, planned, and customized SEO strategy.
70% of users trust information that they find online
To avail, the users trust you need to be found in front of them when they make a search related to your business online.
What are the benefits of SEO?
For better awareness here I am listing out some great benefits of SEO for websites.
- SEO Helps Establish Brand Awareness
- SEO targets Quality Traffic
- SEO help you Reaches Your Intentional Target Audience
- It Boosts the website’s Credibility, Usability, and User Engagement Rates
- Constructs a reliable Web Experience for customers
- Fetches in more customers via Organic Search
- You get quantifiable results means you can track SEO campaigns
- Helps you outrank your toughest competitors
- Decreases advertising costs as SEO is one of the most cost-effective terms of marketing
- SEO Is A Long-term Marketing Strategy
How does SEO work?
The objective of performing SEO for your website is to improve the website’s rank on search engine results pages.
If you want to reach out to a greater number of people searching for your product or services,
you should focus on reaching out to the top 3 results for your targeted keyword.
But the question here is how does SEO work, what are the best SEO practices that can help you achieve the aforesaid goal for your website?
Before understanding how SEO works you need to comprehend How Search Engines work?
There are three basic steps in which Search Engines work, they are:
- Crawling the internet to discover new and unique web pages and compositions
- Positioning that content in a considerable index/database
- Ranking that content on different ranking factors
So here is the final answer on How SEO works:
Search Engine Optimization functions by assembling specific modifications to your website design and content that makes your site more appealing to a search engine and users too.
SEO works by making your website accessible and easy to navigate for users and Search Engines.
The SEO works by making sure your website is responsive so that it can be accessed smoothly on all the devices your users used to explore the website such as desktops, smartphones, tablets, or MacBooks.
Here is the list of metrics on which you can focus to make Search Engines consider that they rank your content to their users as the best, most classic, and most extended answer to their search queries.
- Unique, Rich, and Fresh Content
- Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions
- Headings
- Outbound Links
- Website Architecture
- Link Building
There are more than 200 ranking factors, so you need to execute a tangible SEO strategy as per the nature of your website.
What are the types of search engine optimization techniques?
Now as you complete some of the steps as you know what SEO is, its type, and how SEO works, so you finished the foremost step of enhancing a site’s search rankings.
Here is a basic checklist of various SEO techniques to optimize the site for search:
- Keyword Research
- Write Content
- Optimize Content
- Link building
- On-Page Optimization
- Technical SEO Optimization
- Site Architecture Optimization
- Semantic Markup
- Competition Analysis
- Search Intent
As the list is very long stay tuned and follow Optimized Owls for detailed Search Engine Optimization techniques blog later on.
Top SEO tools
There is a huge list of SEO tools and software that counts on to help with website optimization. Below are some generally used free and paid tools listed based on my SEO experience:
Google Search Console: Google Search Console is a free tool supplied by Google, and is a familiar tool in the SEO’s toolkit. GSC furnishes rankings and traffic reports for top keywords and pages and can help determine and fix on-site technical problems.
Google Ads Keyword Planner – Google Keyword Planner is another great and free tool offered by Google. This works great to have a list of unique keywords related to your business.
Google Keyword Planner even provides you with excellent insights into the Keywords.
These insights are Search Volume, CPC, and competition level, of the keywords. These perceptions help you construct the best list of keywords for your SEO strategy.
Backlink analysis tools:
Backlinks tools help you to explore and study the backlinks pointing to your website. This tool also helps you in Link Building.
There are many Backlink analysis tools available online, but my personal favorites are Ahref, Ubbersuggest, and SEMRush. All of these work wonders for analyzing and getting the list of competitors’ backlinks.
Some of the other great SEO tools are listed down for your reference:
- Surferseo.com
- Screamingfrog.co.uk
- Frase.io
- Google Trends
- Bing Webmaster
- H-Supertools
Conclusion:
SEO should be the foremost and most effective Digital Marketing tactic if you have a website. There is no meaning in having a website if you do not spend time on SEO.
As someone said, “Website without SEO is like a Car without Fuel”.
This simply means that SEO is not an option, SEO is an opportunity.
For getting traffic and turning that traffic into sales SEO could be your priority.
SEO is a long-term marketing strategy and you need to wisely employ it for getting a win-win situation with SEO for your business.
That’s it for now! Next time when someone is studious about, “What is SEO?” Take control and start illustrating. Have queries? Keep me updated on the mentions downward. I’ll attempt my best to respond to all of them.
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