With millions of people using search engines to find products and services every day, having an effective search engine presence is essential for brands that want to succeed. Since the advent of search engines, search engine optimization or SEO has been the focus of website owners thirsty for more traffic. Similarly, many digital marketers have centered their attention around SEO, promising their clients high rankings and speedy results.
How exactly does SEO work, and can businesses manage it themselves?
The Basics
Google is the most used search engine in the world. And for good reason. Since its introduction in 1997, Google has tirelessly worked on improving its search algorithms in order to provide the most accurate and informative service to its users.
For search engine users, this is fantastic news as it means that they can quickly and easily access the information they need without worrying about being directed to spam sites. For brands, however, this presents the challenge of keeping up to date with the latest developments in search engine technology.
In the early days, the majority of search engine functions revolved around keywords and key phrases. Thus, many cheeky SEO marketers and website owners started to do something referred to as ‘keyword stuffing’ where they simply repeated a whole host of target search terms numerous times on a page.
Often, these keywords were used without context or simply appended to the start and end of each page like a nonsensical appendix. These ham-fisted attempts to fool the system may have worked for a little while, but they ultimately cheapened and tarnished a brand’s online presence.
Over the last two decades, Google has responded to the dubious SEO hacks that people employed by fine-tuning its search processes. The search engine has since reduced its emphasis on basic signals like keywords and meta tags and has written rules into its search algorithms to gauge the legitimacy of web pages.
Keyword stuffing, duplicating content, sneaky redirects, and many other techniques are now considered black hat SEO, and are mostly ineffective. If sites are deemed by Google to be utilizing black hat SEO, they can get demoted in search engine result page (SERP) rankings or banned outright.
SEO Fundamentals
White hat SEO, on the contrary, refers to measures taken to improve SERP rankings while maintaining the integrity of a site and respecting the terms and conditions of search engines. Because white hat SEO is about addressing the needs of the audience— as opposed to getting a quick and nasty rise up the ranks—it has to be approached purposefully and methodically.
Keyword Research
Before you can even start to think about playing with SEO for your site, you need to first define your target keywords. Keyword research is a whole discipline in itself that can make or break your SEO strategy. For example, there is little purpose in optimizing your page for ‘best florist’ when the audience at large is searching for ‘fresh flowers’.
Keyword research involves using a variety of tools to determine which keywords your audience and competitors are using. This will help you to make strategic decisions based on the type of content related to the keyword; the difficulty of ranking for said keyword; and the level of traffic you can expect to receive.
It also helps to have some idea of the thought processes of your visitors, so you can optimize content for lead generation and conversion.
On-page SEO
Once you have decided on your focus keywords, then you may start to make tweaks to your web pages to enable them to rank higher in SERPs.
As there are countless spam sites with automated content and filler text that try to fool search engines, Google has instituted certain indicators to determine the validity of content. The word count of your content, its readability, and its uniqueness are assessed by search engine crawlers as they try to decide if your page is truly useful or not.
Does the meta information match the content on the page? Do keywords form part of the content naturally or are they haphazardly strewn around? Is the content structured in an informative fashion, with headings, subheadings, and paragraphs of a reasonable length? Outside of writing compelling copy, there are multiple considerations when performing on-page SEO.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO, as its name suggests, is concerned with the backend aspects of your site. Because nobody likes to wait, search engines are increasingly emphasizing site loading speeds.
Modifications such as changing image formats, reducing unused scripts, deferring offscreen images, and minimizing third-party usage are some of the many ways to improve page loading speed.
As more and more users move to mobile devices, mobile-friendliness is another important technical SEO marker that will be considered by search engine crawlers. Other technical SEO issues can include header response codes, redirects, XML sitemaps, site architecture, and more.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO is the practice of using elements outside of your domain to improve the SERP ranking of your site. Sharing links to your site on social media, receiving reviews on third-party platforms, and getting physical address citations are some standard forms of off-page SEO.
Link building is another off-page SEO tactic and one that is commonly discussed. Link building is extremely important to off-page SEO efforts since Google judges a site by the source of its incoming links. When sites with a high domain authority such as CNN.com or Wikipedia.org link to your site, Google confers part of their clout onto you, giving you a bump up in SERP rankings.
Quality Over Quantity
Link building is a tried and proven method of SEO and a powerful tool if used correctly. Unfortunately, it has become the favorite of black hat SEO companies. Black hat SEO companies sell the idea of hundreds of backlinks for client sites but provide links from disreputable domains and link farms.
This, combined with a variety of other poorly executed SEO maneuvers, can harm rather than help and result in hapless clients being blacklisted by Google.
Therefore, it is recommended that brands who want to undertake advanced SEO only engage white hat reputable SEO consultants. These SEO professionals are constantly updating their methodology to keep pace with the changes in search engine algorithms.
While some business owners may be able to undertake basic edits, SEO—like any technical field—is best left to the experts. With their focus on above-board techniques and long-term benefits, experienced SEO consultants can help your site generate increased traffic and exceptional ROI.