What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Every website owner aspires for their site to top Google’s search results for targeted queries. However, achieving this isn’t a stroke of luck; it requires dedicated work on search engine optimization service (SEO).

Let’s delve into what SEO is in simple terms and why it’s essential if you own a website.

From This Article, You Will Learn:

  • What SEO is
  • How search engine bots work
  • How to improve your website’s search ranking
  • The stages of search engine optimization

What is SEO?

The goal of SEO, or search engine optimization, is to increase a website’s exposure in search results. In English, SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. 

Website visibility refers to the percentage of your target audience who see a link to your site when they enter a specific phrase or query into the search bar. By improving your site’s visibility, you can increase the number of visitors from organic search results.

Compared to paid advertising or other methods of attracting visitors, SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels, though it has its drawbacks.

One major challenge is the time required to see significant results. For less competitive queries, an existing site can see improvements in a month. However, in highly competitive fields, it can take 6 to 12 months to notice positive effects from SEO efforts.

Additionally, there are no guarantees of success. As Google states:

“No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs who claim to guarantee rankings, or that have a ‘special relationship’ with Google, or advertise a ‘priority submit’ to Google.”

How Search Bots Work

Understanding how search engine bots and ranking algorithms work is crucial, though it’s a vast topic. Here’s a brief overview:

  1. Crawling: Search bots crawl the web pages.
  2. Indexing: The crawled pages are processed and added to the search engine’s database, which for Google is over 100 million gigabytes.
  3. Ranking: Pages are ranked based on their relevance to the search query, using hundreds of factors. Google, for example, considers over 200 factors.

Here are a few criteria for site relevance:

  • Relevance and quality of site content
  • Number and significance of pages linking to your site
  • Keywords on the page
  • Synonyms for keywords
  • Spelling
  • URL and page titles
  • Type of requested information (web page, image, video, article, personal result)
  • Personalization
  • Recommendations from friends and contacts

Interesting Facts:

  • Billions of queries are processed by Google daily.
  • Since 2003, Google has received over 450 billion unique queries.
  • 16% of daily searches are new and unique.

How to Improve Your Website’s Search Ranking

Before starting SEO, it’s vital to set clear goals. Otherwise, the outcomes might not meet your expectations, or there might be no results at all.

Potential Goals for SEO:

  • Attract more targeted clients
  • Increase overall site traffic
  • Make it easier for users to find your site for specific queries
  • Optimize site pages to be highly relevant to targeted search queries
  • Help search bots index your site
  • Boost site recognition

If your site is a sales platform, gaining new clients and sales will be a priority. Content-focused site owners often aim to increase visitor numbers.

Aligning your SEO plan with these goals is crucial for effective optimization.

Outdated SEO Methods

SEO strategies evolve, and outdated practices can be ineffective or detrimental:

  • Content Overload: Pages stuffed with excessive keywords were hard to read and often hidden from users but shown to search bots.
  • Meta Tag Spam: Overloading Title, Keywords, and Description tags similarly.
  • Link Spam: Flooding forums, bulletin boards, and blog comments with links, often done automatically.

Due to past lack of sanctions, these methods were widely used. Now, they are either ineffective or less impactful.

Current Best Practices

Modern seo agency focuses on comprehensive site optimization rather than just individual pages.

Stages of SEO

SEO is a multifaceted process with several stages:

  1. Analytics Setup: Adding your site to webmaster tools, setting up analytics counters, and submitting your site to search engines.
  2. Technical Audit: Identifying and fixing errors affecting indexing and ranking.
  3. Keyword Research: Selecting and distributing keywords across site pages, creating new sections or pages as needed.
  4. Content Optimization: Crafting texts and meta tags that address user queries and solve their problems.
  5. Internal Linking: Linking pages within your site to distribute link equity properly.
  6. External Optimization: Building and optimizing external links to your site.
  7. Behavioral Factor Optimization: Improving click-through rates (CTR), interaction metrics, page depth, and time spent on site.

We’ll explore each of these stages in detail in our series. Follow our search engine optimization agency guide to make the optimization process understandable and manageable, leading to improved site visibility and increased visitor numbers.