What is SEO? (For Beginners)
There are so many acronyms nowadays, but if you’re selling a product or service online and want to grow your business — SEO is one you should learn about. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is about matching the audience’s intent with your content. That way, the search engine’s algorithm can best find, understand, and then present it back to the correct audience.
The goal is to optimize your page or website for higher rankings in search results within search engines. This works for search engines like Google but also websites like Amazon. So if you’re not aware of SEO, now would be an excellent time to learn a bit about it.
Being on the first page of the search results is very important because over 90% of searches end on that first page. So much so that a meme has been popularized, being that the best place to hide a dead body is page two of Google search results.
Now, if you’re thinking, “I can just advertise my site to get traffic.”
Think again!
SEO can be more powerful than using the pay-per-click(PPC) method in the long run, and running a PPC campaign without optimizing your site can end up wasting your hard-earned money. SEO is a great way to increase your site’s visibility organically. It is also more cost-effective long-term because you can make constant improvements to your content. Using the link-building tactic, you can build more trust and credibility.
To best optimize your site, you need to understand how search engines work. We can break them down into three processes; Web Crawling, Indexing, and the Algorithm.
At its most basic level, Web Crawling is the search engine continually finding out what is being published on the World Wide Web, creating a copy, and updating any changes found.
The copy then needs to be returned to the search engine and stored in a data center. Once it is stored, it needs to be organized to be quickly and easily found — this process is called Indexing.
Lastly, the Algorithm is how a search engine can rank all of the sites based on relevance and specific keywords/keyphrases. Each search engine has its elaborate algorithm, essentially calculating all sites' worth regarding search terms.
Now that you know how search engines work let’s get into the Hierarchy of SEO Needs.
- Crawl Accessibility
The search engines need to be able to reach and index your content. - Compelling Content
The website needs to be able to answer the searcher’s query. - Keyword optimized
The website needs the right keywords to match the needs of the searcher and search engines. - Great User Experience
This includes having a compelling user interface (UI) on any device, ease of use, and fast loading speed. - Share-Worthy Content
The site needs to earn links, citations, and amplifications. - Title, URL, and Description
This is to have high Click-through-rates (CTR) within the rankings. - Snippet/Schema Markup
This is to stand out on the search engine result pages(SERPs)
Just like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you can achieve higher needs without first establishing a solid base. The content you choose is vital to establishing a great website that ranks highly. Using the correct and most relevant keywords is also essential to improve SEO. Overall, SEO is necessary to appear on the first page of search results organically and to have many impressions, clicks, and high CTRs. Search engine optimization is a great way to establish your website as one of the finest.
