Search Engine Optimization, better known as SEO, uses various techniques to improve a website’s ranking in search engines. This is done in the hopes of attracting more visitors. After all, more visitors means more conversions, which means higher potential profit.
Consider these facts:
- Did you know your website is a competitor to more than 1.7 billion other websites? Yes! You’ll need good SEO scores for your website to rank high. And without substantial traffic, you can’t make the most out of your website.
- Less than one-quarter of internet users browse past the first page of search engine results. That means if your content isn’t featured on page 1, over 75% of search engine users will not discover your products/services.
- If you want your online content to get found by search engines such as Google, you may want to enlist the services of SEO experts or specialists.
- SEO experts are the gurus who have vast knowledge and technical experience with the ins and outs of the SEO industry. On the other hand, companies may hire SEO specialists to oversee the implementation of recommendations made by SEO experts.
What’s SEO All About?
SEO is the art of tweaking your digital content to have a high priority in search engine rankings. The goal is to derive maximum organic traffic from search engines. Some SEO techniques commonly employed to boost website search rankings include producing good quality content, centering your content on targeted keywords, and creating backlinks (hyperlinks to web pages from external sites).
About 90% of smartphone users use search engines daily to shop or research. Do you want your website or blog articles to feature on the number-one spot of search engine results without paying for adverts? Then, consult SEO experts about tunneling free web traffic to your site all the time.
How Search Engines Rank Content
Intelligent algorithms (computer programs) analyze queries to determine your question’s most appropriate answers (results). Within fractions of seconds, the Google search engine scans its index, containing millions and millions of web pages, to determine the best results to be shown to you.
The big question is, what criteria do the internal algorithms use to determine which website’s content best answers a search query? So far, it’s understood that Google doesn’t want to reveal the mode of operation of its algorithms.
That means that an SEO expert and SEO specialists cannot claim to know everything about search engine optimization. Nevertheless, the tech-giant Google has given some clues about the factors determining which website content constitutes the correct answer.
Here are some factors that Google uses to determine which website to show or not to show.
Related Keywords
Assuming you entered the query “SEO” into a Google search page. It will be absurd to see results about “goats and chickens.” These are unrelated terms that don’t have any meaning concerning the query. So, Google immediately knows that they are irrelevant to the request. On the other hand, pages containing related keywords such as “search engine optimization SEO” will be given much consideration.
This explains why some content creators often cram repetitive keywords into their articles and assume they are SEO experts.
Authoritative Websites
Search engines also determine the authenticity of your content by considering the number of external websites linked to your blog (site). The assumption here is that if more links are referencing your site, it could be that your content is more authoritative.
That’s why SEO experts attach importance to back-linking. For example, if website A has 20 backlinks and website B has ten backlinks — Google may conclude that the former is more authoritative than the latter. Consequently, website A may get higher rankings than website B.
If you are wondering why Yahoo is losing the search engine race to Google, the answer lies in the ability of the Google search engine to measure backlinks statistics.
Content Usefulness
Google clarifies that your content can be authoritative and relevant, but it won’t be promoted to the top spot in search rankings if it lacks the elements of usefulness.
To further break this down, assume a world-renowned doctor writes an article on the coronavirus pandemic. The doctor’s content may have high authority, but it may not rank for usefulness if it’s not well-organized and simplified. On the other hand, if a high school student writes a well-organized article on the coronavirus pandemic, they can rank higher for usefulness than the doctor and his authority article.
How end-users react to your material also suggests whether it’s practical. In general, content that receives many positive comments may significantly boost rankings because it’s deemed valuable.
What Do SEO Experts Work On?
Modern SEO experts work on three key pillars of search engine optimization. These are summarized as the on-page (on-site), off-page (off-site), and technical SEO. SEO experts strive to perfect their tasks on these three main components for better results.
Technical SEO
This talks about how you can best optimize your content so that search engine crawlers and indexers will not have difficulty understanding your content. SEO experts may take it upon themselves to properly set up your content to make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site.
On-Page SEO
Here, experts perform extensive keyword research studies to tailor their optimization to the individual pages on your website. When SEO insights reveal a popular keyword relating to your niche, you can create content around your target keywords.
To summarize, an optimization process on your website’s admin panel is known as on-page SEO. Optimization of your content title, subtitles, descriptions, thumbnails, and images — all constitute on-site SEO.
Off-Site SEO
Simply put, this refers to link building. As explained earlier, more backlinks pointing to your site suggest to search engines that your content is trustworthy. Apart from taking charge of the on-page SEO stuff, SEO experts may also work on increasing your link building to your website.
However, link building may not count much if the number of external websites referencing your content is not authoritative enough.
Search Engine Marketing and SEO
SEO experts and search engine marketers also share a close relationship. Search engine marketing (SEM) falls under the universal set of digital marketing. SEM processes are usually directed towards organically improving a website’s online visibility or through paid advertising.
You can purchase ranking spaces in the search engine by leveraging paid search advertising opportunities. This can be done by creating campaigns targeting keywords that best describe the content you want to promote through PPC (pay-per-click) advertising.
PPC advertising is an alternative path to gaining web traffic if your site doesn’t rank organically. Instead of waiting too long for your website to hit the number one spot, advertisers can use networks like Google AdWords to steer their content to the top of search engine results. With Google AdWords, advertisers only pay for each valid click on their promoted content.
Even though search engines like Yahoo and Bing also offer PPC advertising services, they’re not very popular compared to Google Ads.
Search Engine Marketing vs Search Engine Optimization
When mentioned in SEM, many marketers tune their minds to PPC advertising. You can, however, compare organic SEO and paid SEM in terms of their advantages. SEO experts recommend organic SEO as the best marketing technique to help businesses realize long-term competitive advantages on the web. If a website ranks top organically for specific keywords, online publishers can gain steady traffic and online income each month.
Websites that employ Google AdWords to market themselves and get significant amounts of web traffic. But they must pay for the ranking spaces each time. Once you cancel your campaign, your traffic will diminish.
However, organic SEO also has its downsides because it takes quite a long time for websites to rank. Conversely, paid search advertising can get the SEO job done faster. Whether a content creator chooses organic SEO or paid SEO depends on their business goals.
To summarize, SEO strategies continue to evolve with time. So, do search engine algorithms get more innovative each year? At the center of SEO stand SEO experts, specialists, managers, and analysts, among other professionals. The difference between an SEO expert and an SEO is pretty much self-explanatory. SEO experts execute SEO principles to help content creators boost their visibility and web traffic.
For professional SEO consulting services, get in touch with Search Geeks. Our reputable SEO experts help clients hit the top spot on Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) rankings.