There is so much written about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), that it becomes overwhelming for beginners to get the fundamental knowledge and know-how of SEO. It has to be said that SEO has advanced and come a long way – but that should not stop beginners from understanding this technology. The following information provides a high-level conceptual overview of SEO. If you are owning a business, or a marketing agency, or simply want to know what SEO is, read on.
What is SEO?
It’s a set of techniques that are applied on your website or mobile site so that it appears in search engine results when users search for information, where the searched information is relevant to you or your business. Note that you don’t need to pay anyone to get your site organically or ‘naturally’ on first or second search results pages of popular search engines such as Google or Bing.
Why SEO?
Traffic can be generated to websites through digital advertisements on social media sites, online platforms, or linked sites. But by large, traffic to websites are driven by search engine results. This is because a majority of people like to exercise their choices by searching for information in search engines.
How can the search engine be pleased?
Search engines have three main functions, namely, crawling, indexing, and ranking. Crawling is when search engines discover content such as webpages, videos, images, PDFs, etc. Indexing is when search engines store newly discovered web content in a huge database. Ranking is when discovered websites are ranked based on content relevancy, quality. If your site is not being picked by search engines, then the following could be the reasons:
- Your webpages haven’t been crawled yet
- No links exist to your website from other websites
- Your website’s navigation is disorderly making it difficult for search engines to crawl over the contents effectively
- Your website contains code that is blocking search engine crawling
- Your website has been penalised by the search engine for using spammy techniques such as keyword stuffing for example
What is the difference between paid versus unpaid SEO?
Paid SEO and unpaid SEO are also called as paid search and organic search. Paid search is implemented by putting up digital ads so that when users click them, they are navigated to the relevant websites. Search engine marketing is the term used in this regard. Advertisement software such as Google AdWords is used by marketers to craft advertisements and place bids on ad placement on specific sites in the auction.
Organic search is achieved solely based on the quality of the website and web content. Search engines rank a website high if it is navigable, has well-structured content, relevant keywords, meta description, URL, title tags, etc. There are a lot many more organic search engine techniques used which enables a website to rank high with search engines.
Is keyword research for paid search or organic search or both?
Keyword research is only to determine what people are searching for, how many people are searching for that particular keyword, and how do they want to consume that information. Keyword research is an integral part of SEO, irrespective of paid, or unpaid SEO.
Which one is better – organic SEO or paid SEO?
Organic SEO pays rich dividends in the long run. Because good content will always draw visitors. The website gets referred, linked, shared, liked. It gets promoted on its own without any intervention from the website promoters. There are so many websites that are earning millions of dollars without any paid search SEO promotions. Therefore, getting hold of an organic SEO ad agency like Mo Mantra right away to get your website crackling with visitors is the need of the hour.