Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization, commonly known as SEO, refers to the process of enhancing website traffic through increased visibility on the search rankings of a particular search engine. For instance, consider a case where you are running an online store specializing on selling coffee; effective search engine optimization would improve the chances of individuals locating your site when they key in “buy coffee” in the search bar of their browser.

Why is SEO important?

The most clicks in Google are received by the top few organic results, unless you rank here you should not expect any traffic. Here is how you will get there, that is SEO. Our blog, for instance, ranks high for thousands of keywords and receives around 654,000 monthly visits from organic search. Should we not have done SEO, to get the same traffic we would be required to pay approximately $728,000 per month in advertisement costs.

How search engines work:

Search engine optimization, commonly known as SEO, refers to the process of enhancing website traffic through increased visibility on the search rankings of a particular search engine. For instance, consider a case where you are running an online store specializing on selling coffee; effective search engine optimization would improve the chances of individuals locating your site when they key in “buy coffee” in the search bar of their browser.

How SEO works?

Given how search engines work, a web page will only rank high if it’s indexed and the search engine thinks it’s the best result for the search. It also needs to load fast and offer a good user experience.

With that in mind, here’s the SEO process in a nutshell:

• Find what people search for.

• Create relevant, optimized content.

• Get backlinks.

1. Find what people search for

Ranking for terms nobody searches for is pointless. You won’t get traffic even if you rank #1.
To find what people are searching for, you’ll need a keyword research tool like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. Here’s the process:

• Enter a few broad “seed” terms.

• Go to the Matching Terms report.

For example, if you enter “coffee” you’ll see 3,740,238 keywords containing that term sorted by their monthly search volumes

2. Create relevant, optimized content

Relevant content is whatever best matches what the searcher is looking for; the intent. Understanding what this is and how to create it can get complicated, but half the battle is creating right type of content.
Here are a few popular content types:

• Blog post

• Interactive tool

• Video

• Category page

• Product page

There’s no exact science to figuring out which one searchers are looking for, but the top-ranking results are usually a good proxy.
For example, interactive tools dominate the first page for “days between dates” whereas videos dominate for “excel for beginners.” This is a clear indication of what searchers want and the best type of content to create for each keyword

Relevant content is the foundation, but you also need to optimize your content by following SEO best practices. And this starts with making sure you cover the topic in full to give searchers what they expect.
You can do that manually by looking at commonalities between the top-ranking pages, such as headings, FAQs, visual aid, how deep they go into the subject, etc.
You can also use SEO tools like Ahrefs to find the keywords that top-ranking pages rank for. Some of the keywords point to good subtopics or points to include in your content. Here’s the process:

• Put your target keyword into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer.

• Scroll to the SERP overview and select a few top-ranking pages.

• Click Open in and select Content gap.

here’s an example for the query “content marketing.” It’s a hint that searchers may be looking for a definition and actionable advice for creating a strategy or a plan.

Other best practices include:

• Structuring the text in a clear, logical way and using easy-to-digest language.

• Offering something unique, such as original research and expert quotes.

• Sprinkling in some “optimizations”: internal links, user-friendly URLs, alt text for images, etc. You’ll find the full list with actionable advice in our guide to on-page SEO for beginners.

3. Get backlinks

When one site links to another, such links are referred to as backlinks. These “votes” make certain that some pages rise in the SERPS as a result of having more “votes”.

We studied nearly a billion web pages to find this out: Referring domains, which are links from different websites, are closely associated with natural search traffic.

Generally speaking, there are three ways to get backlinks:

• Earn backlinks by creating compelling content with assets designed to attract backlinks, such as original studies, free resources, infographics, or a unique view on a topic.
• Create backlinks by manually adding them to popular directories and resource pages.
• Build backlinks by reaching out to people who can include links to your pages on their website.
  Building backlinks is something that preoccupies the SEO industry. In fact, many SEOs and agencies specialize in that alone. To give you an idea of how this works, here’s a quick overview of a few popular backlink building techniques.
• Broken link building: Find a “dead page” and ask linkers to swap the links to a working page on your site.
• Guest blogging: Write a blog post for another website and earn a link back to your site in return.
• The Skyscraper Technique: Find content with lots of backlinks, create something better, then ask everyone linking to the content you improved to link to you instead.
• Resource page link building: Get backlinks from webpages that curate and link out to useful industry resources.
• HARO (and similar services): Use services like HARO to find relevant journalist requests for quotes. You can usually earn a link to your site if your quote gets published.

What you want, though, is not just any kind of backlinks. The consensus in the SEO community is that there are five factors that make up a backlink’s quality:

Conclusion

The final point that must be made is that in today’s digital environment with billions of sites getting developed every day, SEO represents more than just one of strategies aimed at promoting something online. In order to take advantage of these benefits, firms should learn how search engines work so as to optimize their materials as well as keeping themselves updated when trends change. It should also be noted that this is not something you do once and leave behind forever, but rather a journey that should continue all through the lifetime of such websites drawing upon dedication as well as flexibility while providing worth for their audiences consistently. Therefore, regardless of whether you are a beginner or an experienced marketer, you can improve your brand online presence through embracing SEO power and driving it towards increased heights of success.