What is Search Engine Optimisation and How it’s Works?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the comprehensive process of enhancing your website’s ranking in search engine results.
Whenever you input something into a search engine, it must decide which websites to present to you.
The search engine considers many indicators, called “ranking factors.”
SEO involves optimising your website to account for these ranking factors so that your site appears on the first page when someone searches for something related to your business.
In the marketing world, there is a joke that if you want to hide a dead body, you should put it on the second page of Google because who scrolls past the first page?
In reality, most people don’t even scroll past the first five results. So if you are not willing to try PPC to be on the paid search results, the only option is to do SEO to be on that first page.
SEO helps your website appear in the top five search results for relevant search queries, thereby organically increasing website traffic to your business.
If you want to learn more about SEO and how it works, check out this ultimate guide.
Key Points
- SEO works by making specific changes to your website’s design and content, making it more appealing to search engines.
- Creating more engaging and effective SEO-focused content can increase the likelihood of bringing in more targeted organic website traffic.
- By defining your website’s SEO, you make your digital content easier to find and view.
How Does SEO Operate?
SEO works by making specific changes to your website’s design and content, making it more appealing to search engines.
This is done in the hope that the search engine will display your website as a top result on the search engine results page.
As previously stated, Google’s algorithm considers hundreds of ranking factors when determining which websites to display in the search results and in what order.
It is impossible to optimise your website for every single ranking factor, but following several best practices can be helpful. For businesses that are just starting to build their website, create their product pages, or undergo a website redesign, SEO can be a bit intimidating.
But it does not have to be that way.
Even if you do not have an experienced in-house SEO specialist, you can still make positive changes to improve your SEO.
How Search Engines Determine Website Rankings
Search engines, such as Google and Bing, employ a variety of ranking factors to ascertain and deliver the most important content for a specific search query. However, before they can accomplish this, search engines must first crawl and index websites. Here is a breakdown of what crawling and indexing entail.
Web Crawling Crawling is the process of discovery that occurs when search engines dispatch crawlers or spiders to find updated and fresh content. Google states, “We utilise software called web crawlers to discover publicly available webpages. Crawlers examine webpages and follow links on those pages, much like you would if you were browsing content on the web. They traverse from one link to another and bring information about those webpages back to Google’s servers.” The content can take the form of a webpage, image, video, PDF file, blog post, etc. However, regardless of the format, links are always used to discover the content. To appear in organic search results, ensure that every page of your website is crawled.
- Indexing
Indexing is the process through which search engines, such as Google, organise information before a search to provide quick responses to users’ queries. Generally speaking, Google and other search engines possess structured data of web pages and other content that they are familiar with. Once these pages are indexed, search engines can use the information they have about the pages and their content to determine whether to display the content in their search results.
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and SEO Marketing
SEO meaning and SEO marketing may appear complicated due to the various factors that influence your ranking, page authority, and domain authority. However, the process of search engine optimisation is simpler than it seems. Also, don’t confuse SEO marketing with search engine marketing. The latter is different, and you can read about its meaning in a subsequent post. For now, let’s discuss how SEO marketing works.
How SEO Marketing Operates
Search engines desire to provide their users with the best service possible. This entails delivering results on the search engine pages that are not only high-quality but also relevant to what the searcher is seeking. As previously mentioned, to achieve this, search engines will scan or crawl various web content to gain a better understanding of what the site is about. This enables them to provide more relevant results to those searching for a particular subject or keywords. Additionally, search engines will scan the site to determine its ease of navigation and readability. They reward sites that provide a positive user experience with higher rankings on SERPs.
SEO is the process that businesses go through to ensure that their website ranks high in the organic results for relevant keywords and phrases. For example, suppose you have an article about building a birdhouse. In that case, you will want to optimise this blog post to ensure that when people search for the target keyword “build a birdhouse,” it appears as a top result. Business owners should know that SEO offers numerous advantages to their business. By enhancing your SEO, you can expand your visibility on search engines, reach your target audience, and engage more potential customers. By creating more engaging and effective SEO-focused content, you can increase your chances of attracting more targeted organic website traffic. By modifying your website and content for greater visibility and readability, you help give your SEO meaning. There is no need to settle for low SERP rankings when you could be at the top.