This is the one question I have to answer more than any other, but with practice, it is easier to simplify. Many, if not all businesses are familiar with the term SEO, an abbreviation for the phrase Search Engine Optimization, but aren’t exactly sure what it means or how it works:
Keyword research and competitive analysis
Understanding your audience is vital when creating a successful online marketing strategy around search engine optimization. Once you realize how your target market searches for your products or services, you will be able to reach and retain them to maximum effect.
On-site optimization
On-site optimization involves designing a website or web page that Google and other search engines can understand with little effort. The ultimate goal of a search engine is to provide the best quality results for the searching public. Google does this by trying to differentiate between websites that offer valuable content (through the eyes of the reader) and those that don’t.
Your site should be easy to navigate and contain a unique, informative, and purposeful editorial. Many amateur SEO enthusiasts put too much emphasis on keywords and not enough on content, when writing a copy for your website, you should focus on the requirements of potential customers and nothing else. If Google thinks you’re writing with the sole intention of getting first place, you’ll be penalized for it, not always immediately, but it will happen. Google changes its algorithms on a daily basis (several times a day), in an attempt to give its users the best possible browsing experience, once it is blacklisted, it goes back to the drawing board!
There are many tricks and techniques that can be used to create a search engine friendly site, without sacrificing the integrity of your content. If it’s poor in Google’s eyes, I doubt your site visitors will find it of much use anyway, but most importantly; If you’re not giving potential customers good reasons to buy from you, they won’t!
Off-site optimization
Off-site optimization focuses on techniques used to increase Google’s perception of your site through the eyes of the searching public. It is very similar to a popularity contest, in which your website competes with others for votes, but in SEO the votes are backlinks (links from another website to yours). However, it’s not about getting the most votes per se, but the best ones (think anchor text), the ones that make the most logical sense. Before we begin, it helps to think like a search engine and give each potential backlink an imaginary score between 1 and 10. For example, if you own a cafe and get a backlink from an escort agency, you are seeing a score of 1, as there is no relevance. But get a backlink from a coffee supplier and it will be a 10. Think of each backlink as an endorsement – the higher quality you have, the more respect you get from Google!
There is no longer as much emphasis on backlinks as before, as it is no longer a reliable method of ensuring valuable and reader-centric content. Then; If you have a great product paired with a professionally structured website, and provide an engaging and original editorial and value to your visitors … Google is your friend!
Hope this has answered any questions related to the question; what is SEO?
