What Is SEO, and How Does SEO Work?

SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization, a digital marketing strategy. It revolves around competition and how your website can stand out against that of the competitors in the industry. An understanding of SEO will help you rank better on search engine results, such as Google or Bing. It will increase your ranking and visibility. And possibly it will also bring business to your company or brand.

Search engines and SEO

As you are reading this article, you might wonder what a search engine cares about ranking? Why don’t we unpack it for you?

When a search query is made on a search engine, a person will be delivered to a search engine results page, also known as a SERP. This page will present two types of results. We have the organic results that are ranked by SEO and the ‘pay per click ads’ that are paid for by companies in some particular service industry to Google.

Google reveals they cannot be paid to influence organic results. But it is from the paid spaces they are able to make their money. So, think of it this way. If the search engine delivers excellent results, won’t people want to use the site again and again? As people stream in, the search engine can get more ads and more money over time.

And the odds are that a person searching for a service won’t look past the first few pages. It is only with proper optimization, you can be better than your competitors.

How it works

You now know that search engines only seek to provide you with the best options in the market. But how do they choose? Let’s break it down for you.

Search engines make use of spiders, automated robots that creep around search pages collecting information. The information they collect is centered on social signals, site speed, title, and alternative tags, backlinks, internal linking, and the list goes on and on.

To appreciate the technicality of these spiders, you must remember that they are bots and not humans. They cannot access your page and see the beautiful and flashy video and audio clips. They are more interested in the code of your page.

There are also on-page and off-page SEO Optimization options to consider. On-page optimization refers to activities that happen on your website and which the website admin has control over. Off-page SEO refers to activities/ links that will improve the awareness or drive traffic to your site from other sites.

Conclusion

To determine the ranking of pages and websites, search engines work with up to 200 various elements. Though we have tried to explain it as simply as possible, SEO strategies are a bit complicated and require an expert to touch them. But if you want to rank highly on search engines and increase the revenue to your business, you will need to implement SEO strategies for your website.

Contact the SEO professionals near you. They offer specialized packages to your clients considering their needs, particular industry, and unique goals.