What is SEO? What You Should Know About Search Engine Optimization
Looking to perform SEO on your website but not sure about what it can do for your business?
SEO can seem too complicated to understand, as it involves tweaking websites and working with search engines. But it’s simpler than you think!
What Does SEO Mean?
SEO is short for search engine optimization, a combination of activities designed to drive visitors to your website. This internet marketing practice helps search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo find your website and deliver information from your site to users who are searching for it.
How Does SEO Work?
Ever wondered why certain web pages appear at the top of Google results when you search for a certain term or phrase? It’s the optimization performed on those websites and outside of them that boosts their search engine rankings.
SEO activities fall into two groups: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. Both have the same goal: to rank a website higher on search engines and drive traffic to it. They differ in the tasks involved to achieve that goal.
On-page SEO (also called on-site SEO) – On-page SEO optimizes elements on a website such as content, title tags, and meta descriptions.
Off-page SEO (also called off-site SEO) – Off-page SEO builds links outside a website through publishing useful content on other websites, reaching out to influencers, and other activities to earn links to the site.
What SEO is NOT
People who are frustrated about not getting results from SEO most likely have unrealistic expectations of it.
Let’s set things straight. Here are four things SEO is not:
A quick fix
You can’t build a certain number of links and expect results in just a month. SEO doesn’t work that way. Optimizing your website for search engines is a long-term strategy—from researching the right keywords to use for your site to building links naturally and measuring results.
An SEO strategy takes time to deliver results but, when done properly, the time—and money—spent on it will definitely pay off in the long term.
A magic trick to deceive search engines
Black hat and grey hat SEO techniques like stuffing a website with keywords and buying links are a thing of the past. Today, Google penalizes websites that don’t help users at all.
To achieve long-lasting results, your best bet is to use white-hat SEO practices that focus on providing users with relevant and valuable information.
A single solution for businesses
SEO brings plenty of benefits to a business, but it doesn’t mean you should rely on it alone to increase your sales.
Rather, SEO is a critical part of a digital marketing strategy. It complements other marketing activities that can involve content, video, email campaigns and social media.
Paid advertising
SEO is different from paid advertising and even search engine marketing (SEM). Don’t be confused by these terms!
SEM refers to paid techniques such as pay-per-click marketing (PPC). With PPC, you spend money on ads to get your website on top of search results. That isn’t the case with SEO, which involves ranking a website in organic search or unpaid search results.
Can SEO be Learned?
Anyone can learn SEO. But not everyone has the time to implement it. Running successful SEO campaigns requires time as well as expert knowledge and high-level skills.
A cost-effective approach is to enlist the help of a professional team that can do the job for you and let you focus on your business. Talk to us to learn more about how you can leverage SEO to achieve your business goals.