SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of increasing a website’s chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO’s main purpose is driving more visitors to a website – leading to more sales, customers, and revenue – making SEO an ongoing process that must be carefully planned out, implemented and monitored to be effective.
SEO starts with understanding Google. Google’s job is to deliver accurate, trustworthy, and relevant results for every query submitted by its users or from its own research. In order to do this, it crawls web pages across the Internet and stores them in its index of web pages before using its algorithms to evaluate each page and rank it according to quality, relevancy, and authority to deliver specific query rankings.
This process relies on an intricate feedback loop between user input and Google’s search algorithm. Your interaction with search results tells Google what you prefer from those results and helps inform future rankings.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) involves crafting content to meet searchers’ needs, with three categories being divided up as such: on-page, technical, and off-page SEO. On-page SEO involves changing aspects of websites or pages which can be controlled by webmasters; it includes activities like keyword research, optimization of the on-page content, link building etc.
On-page optimization is one of the most powerful SEO techniques a website owner can use to increase SEO, and includes activities like including keywords in title tags and meta descriptions, optimizing URLs to contain more words than strings of numbers, using alt attributes for images to describe them, and including keyword-rich metadata into page code.
Off-page SEO involves building links from other websites back to yours through activities such as guest blogging, participating in social media marketing and building relationships with other webmasters. Google places a high value on inbound links when ranking websites – remember this when performing off-page SEO for yourself!
Technical optimization refers to a set of practices designed to meet Google’s minimum requirements for SERP visibility. It may involve activities such as submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console and installing an SSL certificate, making sure all pages are crawled and indexed correctly, and addressing speed and mobile friendliness concerns among others.
SEO is constantly evolving and it can be impossible to predict exactly which tactics will have the biggest effect on search rankings at any given moment. But having an in-depth knowledge of core concepts outlined in this starter guide – as well as knowing how to evaluate claims made by SEO specialists using methods outside this framework – will help you avoid making costly errors that have lasting ramifications for your rankings.