What is SEO? (How it works)

Are you wondering what is SEO? Well, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, a technique for improving the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through the results of organic search engines. Also, it is the process of optimising online content so that it prefers search engines to display it at the top search result for a particular keyword.

When it comes to SEO, it’s you, search engines, and researchers. If you have an article on making vegan lasagna, make sure it appears in search engines (Google for 90%) as the main result for anyone looking for the phrase “vegan lasagna.”

What does SEO mean?

Many of us have a common query “what does SEO mean?” Search engine optimisation is the process of optimising a web page and its content so that users looking for terms related to your website can quickly identify it. The term SEO also refers to the process of searching, crawling, and indexing sites by simplifying web pages for search engine indexing software called “crawlers.”

The concept of SEO is relatively simple, but many newcomers to SEO still have questions about details such as:

• How can you distinguish between “good” SEO advice and “bad” or harmful SEO advice?
• How do you “optimise” your site or business site for search engines?
• How do you know “how much time to spend on SEO?”

Perhaps the most critical aspect of search engine optimisation is how to leverage SEO to increase the traffic, leads, and sales that are most relevant to your business.

What is SEO, and How it works

Did you ever wonder What is SEO and How it works? You can imagine a search engine as a website you visit to enter a question in a box. Bing, Google, Yahoo, or any other search engine you’re using, will magically respond with a long list of links below. A web page that may answer your question. That’s true. But have you ever stopped thinking about what’s behind those magically linked lists?

The mechanism is as follows

Google (or the search engine you use) has a crawler that collects information about the content found on the Internet. The crawler reports all these 1’s and 0’s to the search engine and creates an index. Then, an index is fed through an algorithm that attempts to match all the data with the query. There are many factors involved in search engine algorithms. This is all about how SEO works.

SEO Part O, also known as optimisation, is where people who create and post all content to their SEO website can see that content and those sites and allow search engines to understand their content. You will love what they see.

There are many forms of optimisation. It’s all about making sure that both the title tag and the meta description are helpful and of the right length to show an internal link to the page you’re proud of.

What is SEO marketing?

Paid social media, PPC (Pay Per Click), and other online platforms can generate traffic to your website, but most online traffic is driven through search engines. The organic search results cover more digital real estate, receive far more clicks and appear more credible to people than paid ads.

Simply put, SEO has 20 times more traffic opportunities than PPC on both mobile and desktop. Also, SEO is among one of the few online marketing channels that, when properly configured, can continue to be successful over time. If you provide solid content that deserves to be ranked by the right keywords, traffic can spike over time, but ads require ongoing funding to send traffic to your site.

Search engines are getting smarter, but still, they need our help. Optimising your site helps search engines provide better information and allows your content to be correctly indexed and displayed in search results.

Should I hire an SEO expert, consultant, or agency?

Depending on your capacity, learning motivation, and website complexity, you can do some basic SEO yourself. Or you may want to get the help of an SEO expert. It’s essential to know about the SEO  agencies and consultants that “provide SEO services” when seeking professional help, but quality can vary significantly. Choosing a good SEO company can save you a lot of time and money. The wrong SEO technique can do more harm to your site than it helps you.

Google My Business Listings

Basic principles:

• Make sure you are eligible for inclusion in the Google My Business index; you should have an actual address, even if it is your home address, and you must serve customers face to face, in your location (like a retail store) or from them.
• Fair and accurate representation of all aspects of local business data, including names, addresses, phone numbers, business categories, website addresses, business hours, and other features.

Things to avoid

• Abuse of the review portion of Google My Business listings due to false positives of business or false positives of competitors
• Costly beginner mistakes due to not reading the details of Google guidelines
• Create a Google My Business listing for non-target entities
• Misleading expressions about your primary business, such as “stuffing” geographic or service keywords into your business name or creating a list of fake addresses.
• Use a PO Box or Virtual Office instead of an actual address if you don’t have a physical address.

Black hat vs White hat SEO

“White hat SEO” refers to best practices, SEO techniques, and strategies that adhere to search engines’ rules, the main goal of which is to provide added value to users.

“Black hat SEO” refers to strategies and techniques that attempt to spam/deceive the search engines. While black hat SEO can work, it exposes websites to a considerable risk of being penalised and removed from search results and has ethical implications.

Sanctioned websites have gone bankrupt. It’s just another reason to be cautious when choosing an SEO services company.