What is SEO? How does it work?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization is used to optimize and improve website to increase its rank in search results to generate more organic web traffic. Technical SEO, on-page SEO, off-page SEO are the three types of SEO. Search engines go through the process of crawling, indexing and ranking to present best results to its users.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique of improving and maintaining the website’s position and its visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs). Higher rank on search engines such as Google, Bing, etc leads to higher organic traffic on website.
SEO is used to optimizing website and its content so that its pages can easily be appeared on search results whenever a user searches for a related query.
In simple words, SEO means improving a website in order to achieve the goal of driving organic traffic and increasing rank of the website.
What are the Common Types of SEO?
There are three most common types of SEO –
1. Technical SEO – Technical SEO is the process of optimizing the technical aspects of website to assist search engines to crawl and index its content. Site structure, page speed, mobile friendliness, broken links, XML sitemap, duplicate content, are some of the key components of technical SEO.
2. On-Page SEO – On-page SEO refers to the practices of optimizing content on website’s pages to rank higher on relevant search results. Keyword research, meta tags, content optimization, page speed, internal links, image optimization, etc are factors of on-page SEO.
3. Off-Page SEO – Off-page SEO refers to all the techniques that are executed outside of the website to increase its ranking on search engines and generate more organic traffic. Link building, guest posting, social media, reviews, etc are some of the factors of off-page SEO.
How do Search Engines Work?
A search engine is a software program that enables users to search for the information on web by making a query.
Search Engines use algorithms to crawl, index and rank website pages to display the most relevant search results. Here is the process of how Search engines work.
1. Crawling – Search engine use program (called as “web crawlers” or “spiders”) that explores the website pages to collect the information by following links from one web page to another.
2. Indexing – The data collected by the web crawler is then stored and organized. When web pages are indexed, it allows search engine to present the results with web pages to a relevant query of user.
3. Ranking – Search engines use algorithms to provide the best results of a search query. Web pages appeared on search results are ranked based on their quality and relevance.
How Does SEO Work?
SEO works with optimizing your website to appear in the SERPs using relevant keywords related to your niches. Then you will index your web pages through Google Search Console so these web pages will be visible at the top of search engine results pages.
Search Engines (particularly Google) crawlers crawl and then index website content in order to rank them on search engine results.
Google Algorithms consider over two hundreds ranking factors when determining which website to appear on search results.
Top 5 Benefits of SEO
Implementing SEO strategy on website can help companies to achieve the major goals such as generating leads and web traffic.
There are many benefits of using SEO on website. But here we are considering few benefits of SEO.
1. Increases Organic web traffic –
One of the major benefits of SEO is that it helps in delivering web pages to audience that leads in increasing organic traffic of website. Keyword research plays a vital role for attracting relevant audience on your website. By preparing list of keywords helps you to reach your targeted audience.
2. Improves Credibility - Webpages that rank higher on search engines are more trusted and a credible source. SEO helps websites to increase the credibility by improving its position on SERPs.
3. Increases Brand Awareness – SEO is one of the strategies of digital marketing that helps you to enhance your website’s visibility on SERPs. When your website ranks higher on search engine, audience are more likely to engage with your website that results in increasing organic web traffic to your website.
4. Economical – The cost of SEO is lower than other marketing strategies like PPC advertising, social media marketing. Even small businesses can use SEO strategies to increase their online visibility on search engines. Businesses can reap the benefits of SEO with consistent efforts. High quality and valuable content as compared to content on competing sites helps in getting organic web traffic to your site.
5. Improves site’s usability – By creating high quality content, enhancing website structure, optimizing website for mobile, increasing page loading speed, creating backlinks can help you to improve website usability as well as user experience.
SEO Vs PPC
PPC (Pay-Per-Click Advertising) is a strategy of digital marketing in which advertisers pay a fee to publisher every time for a click on their ads.
SEO is a long-term strategy that includes optimizing a website to increase the rank in organic search results and its results are displayed below the ads. However, PPC includes paying for ads in order to be appeared at the top of search results.
SEO strategy requires time but its results can be seen for a long period while PPC offers immediate results of investments but traffic stops when budget runs out. SEO involves targeting over content quality, keywords and other factors. PPC enables targeting based on various factors such as keywords, interest, demographics, etc.
SEO includes investments for website optimization, content creation, and consistent efforts to maintain ranking on SERPs. There are no direct costs per click unless costs are related to SEO efforts. PPC costs based on keyword competition, ad copy, bidding strategy landing page, etc.
FAQs
1. Do I need SEO?
Ans. It depends. Due to arise of the competition in today’s world, even small businesses require SEO to increase their website rank on SERPs. You can get web traffic without using SEO but it gives you the opportunity to rank higher on search results to drive more organic web traffic.
2. How much time does it require to see results from SEO?
Ans. SEO is a long-term strategy. SEO often takes 3 to 6 months to even longer in showing results. Its results depend on numerous factors such as competitiveness, position of website, etc.
3. What are the best practices of SEO?
Ans. Some of the best practices of SEO-
- Keyword Research
- On-page and Off-page optimization
- Link Building