Search Engine Optimization
Introduction
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on increasing the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's unpaid results—often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results. SEO involves the application of technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines. It encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines.
History of SEO
The history of SEO dates back to the mid-1990s, when the first search engines were cataloging the early web. Initially, all a webmaster needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed. This process, known as web crawling, is a fundamental part of how search engines work.
How SEO Works
SEO works by optimizing a website’s content, along with its backlinks and technical setup, to make it more attractive to a search engine. This is done with the aim of having the search engine display the website as a top result on the search engine results page (SERP). SEO can be broken down into three main categories: On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, and Technical SEO.
On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO refers to all the measures that can be taken directly within the website to improve its position in the search rankings. This includes measures to optimize the content or improve the meta description and title tags.
Off-Page SEO
Off-Page SEO refers to all the measures that can be taken outside of the actual website in order to improve its position in search rankings. These are measures that help create as many high-quality backlinks (incoming links) as possible.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers to the process of optimizing your website for the crawling and indexing phase. With technical SEO, you can help search engines access, crawl, interpret and index your website without any problems.
Importance of SEO
SEO is important because it keeps the search results fair. The higher you rank in results pages, the more clicks and traffic your site will generate. SEO also improves user experience, making it more likely for customers to become repeat buyers. And SEO is cost-effective.
SEO Techniques
There are several SEO techniques that can be used to improve a website’s visibility on search engines. These include keyword research, link building, and content marketing.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing actual search terms that people enter into search engines. The insight you can get into these actual search terms can help inform content strategy, and marketing strategy more broadly.
Link Building
Link building, simply put, is the process of getting other websites to link back to your website. All marketers and business owners should be interested in building links to drive referral traffic and increase their site's authority.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
SEO Tools
There are several SEO tools available that can help you improve your website’s visibility on search engines. These include Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SEMrush.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a no-charge web service by Google for webmasters. It allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites.
SEMrush
SEMrush is a software as a service (SaaS) company based in Boston that sells online visibility and marketing analytics software subscriptions.