In this article, we will focus on a very important and extensive part of any business’s marketing strategy: SEO. We are sure that many of you have at least once asked the question, “What is SEO?” We’ll answer in an effort to be as helpful and comprehensive as possible.
If you have an interest in digital marketing or own a business that needs support to ensure excellent placement in organic search results, you’ve come to the right place.
And now, we head to our main topic – What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), in short SEO, is a technique that is mainly used for websites to improve the visibility of the website among search engines like Google. SEO is a means of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to a website, which in turn leads to increased sales or enquiries.
It’s important to note that SEO is part of a long-term marketing strategy that works to benefit the business and that the timing of achieving visible results depends on the specific industry and niche.
Typically in Bulgaria, results start to be seen in 3 to 6 months. In more competitive niches, it can take almost a year.
Have you ever wondered how exactly to rank certain sites at the top of the search engine? That’s right, through SEO.
What exactly is SEO
Optimizing a website is a process that makes it more visible to the search engine and thus to users. SEO aims to improve a website’s ranking so that it ranks at the top of Google’s results pages.
Optimization encompasses many strategies, tactics, and research designed to help businesses reach a wider audience and achieve desired results. Optimization steps include:
- Improving the metadata – the title and description of every page on the site that should appear in Google’s top results;
- Improving the website’s content and all the other elements that search engines use to index and rank it.
You are about to find out what these elements are, what Google’s algorithm is and how SEO works to meet the “requirements” of the search engine.
What is user intent
User intent is one of the most important SEO factors to consider when they undertake an SEO approach. And what does user intent mean? Generally speaking, it’s the goals and desires that users have when undertaking any search online.
The SEO specialist’s role is to strategize the creation of quality content that must contain the right keywords and be targeted to specific user desires and intents. This way, the website will have the opportunity to rank at the top of the search engine in front of the relevant audience, and this contributing to achieving the set goals. It’s important for any business to know its users, so they know why and how they visit the website and provide them with a much better user experience while browsing the web page.
Here are the main types of user intent:
- Informational: consumers are looking for information about a product or service. They are at the top of the marketing funnel and have yet to be directly purchase-oriented.
- Navigational: Users want to visit a specific website or page and type its name into a search engine. In this case, providing a good user experience is essential to increase the chance of moving on to the next step in the user journey.
- Commercial: consumers want to compare products or services before making a purchase. They are in the middle of the funnel.
- Transactional: Consumers actively want to buy or request a service. They are at the bottom of the funnel.
How SEO helps businesses
To understand how SEO can help your business, you need to know how search engines work and what Google’s algorithm actually is.
How Google’s algorithm works
A search engine is a software program that helps people find information on the Internet. When you enter your search, it looks through all the websites in its index relevant to your query and tries to find the ones that will give you the answer you want in the best possible way.
Google uses its ranking algorithm for this purpose. It’s a set of rules that helps decide which websites are best for you. There are about 200 known factors that influence the algorithm, but they don’t all have the same weight, and they change over time. More information about them can be found in the article: “200 SEO factors and their weight“.
The ranking algorithm takes into account the following:
- relevance of the website to the search you are making;
quality content; - popularity of the site (i.e. does it have a high rating);
- site speed;
- usability in terms of user experience;
- technical condition;
- authority;
- and much more.
There are different approaches to optimizing a website, focusing on one element or another of the overall SEO strategy. To be effective, they all involve proper keyword selection, publishing high-quality content, and acquiring links from quality and relevant sites.
Keywords are the words and phrases people use when they search for something. If you want a web page to show up when people search for a particular keyword, it must be present in the text, title and metadata. Also, in order to rank well, the site must have high-quality content, tailored according to good SEO and copywriting practices and aligned with a content strategy aimed at a specific target group.
Link building, or building links from other websites to yours, is also an important part of SEO. Search engines use backlinks as a way to measure a site’s quality and rating. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the better your website will rank.
What are the ways to optimize a website
Any comprehensive optimization strategy includes:
- internal website optimization (On-Page SEO);
- Off-Page SEO;
- technical SEO.
SEO is done by an experienced search engine optimization specialist, as the process requires specific skills and knowledge.
On-page SEO – internal optimization
On-page SEO is a mandatory part of website optimization, aimed at ranking specific pages for specific searches on higher positions in the search engine results page. If On-Page Optimization is done correctly, it will lead to generating more quality organic traffic.
Part of On-Page SEO is the use of optimized titles, metadata, and the inclusion of relevant keywords and phrases in the text content and the descriptions of the images used.
Some of the most important aspects of On-page SEO are:
- Short descriptive URLs;
- Optimized metadata containing the target keyword;
- Optimized H1-H6 elements (title and subheadings);
- SEO copywriting with properly selected and used keywords;
- Optimization of images – appropriate size, format and Alt text (an element in the code describing the content of the iso).
- Adding and optimizing structured data.
SEO copywriting
As already mentioned, the website content needs to be optimised for a website to rank at the top.
The goal of SEO copywriting is to create texts that help the website rank better and are useful to the user. It is mandatory to use specific keywords based on user search, behavior and intent.
Here are some examples of SEO content :
- blog articles;
- category descriptions;
- product descriptions;
- landing pages;
- link-building articles for external media;
- any other type of content that provides useful information, i.e. content that solves specific problems.
SEO copywriting is essential for any website that wants to increase its visibility by reaching a larger and more relevant audience.
Off-page SEO – external optimization
Off-page SEO is the practice of optimizing a website for higher search engine rankings by obtaining quality external links and engaging users on social media.
A major Off-Page factor is the building of so-called backlinks. The more quality and relevant links from high authority sites a website has, the more weight it gains. For Google, external backlinks are like a recommendation. If site A links to site B, it means that site A is trusted to send its users to site B – that is, site B has quality content and expertise in the niche.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO will help you have a website that is easy for search engines to crawl and index. It is a process of steps leading to the elimination of technical issues and ensuring compliance with Google search algorithm requirements.
Technical SEO starts with a full technical audit and includes the following:
- Optimizing URLs.
- Removing broken pages and problematic redirects from one page to another.
- Providing a “spider web” of internal links to allow Google bots to fully crawl the site.
Without technical SEO, a website may be inaccessible to search engines and consequently invisible to users. It’s important to note that Technical SEO is a complex process and does not end with a one-time removal of the errors found in the analysis through various tools. Every website is “alive”, and to be 100% technically upright, regular monitoring of its status and timely removal of identified problems is necessary. Google’s algorithm is dynamic and new criteria for evaluating sites are constantly being introduced. Technologies are also evolving to track whether these requirements have been met and the site deserves to rank first for specific searches. For this reason, SEO and DEV specialists work together to achieve optimal results.
SEO – a faithful friend of business
SEO can help businesses many ways. Because of it, more quality organic traffic is generated to the website, providing leads and sales.It can also help build consumer loyalty and trust in the brand.
It is important to note that SEO cannot deliver results without CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) and SEO copywriting. If the website design is not good enough, the user path navigation is not optimized, and the content doesn’t meet the audience’s expectations, it doesn’t matter how much traffic will be generated, the conversion goals cannot increase.
Why choose CreateX as your digital partner
Working with good professionals is essential to get the most out of SEO. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need digital support to implement your marketing strategy.
Our team of SEO specialists work alongside experienced developers, designers and copywriters to ensure impressive results and growth for your business.
If you want to learn more useful information related to digital marketing, be sure to follow future posts on our blog.
