What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It
refers to the techniques and practices that increase the quantity and quality
of traffic to a website via organic search results. SEO works by improving a
website’s ranking and visibility on a search engine like Google.
“Organic” search results are the non-paid
section of search results. When you enter keyword(s) in Google and the results
are displayed, you might have noticed that at the top there are a few paid
results. Below are the organic (non-paid) search results. These are ranked by
Google in a certain way.
Therefore, websites must aim to rank high for
specific keywords if they want free traffic. This is the only way by which a
website can increase the quantity of its organic traffic.
SEO emerged in the 1990s, around the time when
first websites and search engines were created. These days it has become a
crucial digital marketing tool, with its demand increasing every single day.
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How search engines work
SEO for every search engine works in pretty
much the same manner. However, the term ‘search engine’ in this article can be
considered synonymous with Google. After all, 92% of the search engine market
share worldwide belongs to Google.
There are three main steps in which a search
engine gets information from web pages and generate search results:
1. Crawling
2. Indexing
3. Ranking
Crawling
Google keeps a list of known web pages. It
crawls from one page to another by following a link. New pages are discovered
in this way and the already known pages are updated. This process is assisted
when website owners submit a sitemap (list of pages on their sites) to Google.
Website owners can ask Google to crawl only one page (i.e., the homepage). This
is why a homepage must have a good navigation system and links that ensure
access to all other pages on the site.
Indexing
In this process, Google analyzes the content of
a page including pictures and videos on it and tries to understand what it is
about. Then the pages are categorized and stored in an index. The index is
basically a huge library or database that contains the information of the known
pages.
Ranking
When a user searches for something on Google,
the search engine tries to fetch the most appropriate results from its index.
This process is based on an algorithm that determines the best result for a
query. There are many factors that Google takes into accounts such as relevancy
and quality. Google’s only concern is to ensure that its users have a pleasant
experience.
Once the search engine ranks relevant web pages
for a particular query, they are simply displayed/served in that order.
Ranking Factors
Google does not publicly share the exact
principles of its ranking algorithm. However, there are some ranking factors
that are well known, and it is important to understand them if someone wants to
learn SEO. These factors are:
1. Relevance
Google primarily looks for web pages that are
as close to your searched keyword as possible. But a search engine cannot rely
just on relevance because most of the time there are millions of relevant
results to a keyword.
2. Authority
Google tries to determine how accurate and
reliable the information on a webpage is. This is largely done by considering
the number of backlinks a page has. Backlinks are links from other pages that
lead to that particular page.
3. Usefulness
Google acknowledges the importance of useful
content. It tries to present to the user content that is well organized and
easy to understand. It also takes into account the load time of a page. Because
if a page loads extremely slowly, it is of little use even if it has quality
content and backlinks from trustworthy sources. The usefulness of a page is
determined by the user experience on that page. Google tries to figure out if
users had a positive experience on a page, by factors such as the amount of
time they spent on the page and how they interact with the various search
results.
4. Context
This includes the user’s location, settings,
and search history. For example, if you search ‘bookstore’ on Google, you are
presented with completely different results in Pakistan than in another
country, for example, Saudi Arabia.
How SEO works
Now that the importance and purpose of SEO are
clear, let’s dive into some of the basic aspects of SEO.
1. User/Customer Research
It is extremely important to know what your
targeted audience is like so that you can create web content around the topics
they are likely to search for. Creating a customer persona is a valuable part
of this process. A customer persona looks something like this:
2. Keyword Research
Keywords are what your targeted audience types
in the search engine when they are looking to buy a product that you sell or
some information that’s on your website. It is essential to optimize the
keywords on your website if you want to be successful with SEO and show up on Google
when people search for keywords relevant to you. Keyword planning can be
assisted by analyzing Google auto completion surrounding your topic,
researching the questions that people ask related to that topic, and taking
help from keyword research tools.
3. Content Optimization
Make use of keyword research for optimizing
your content and finding popular topics. The next step is to organize the
content on your website. This is done by linking relevant topics and making
sure that they are easily accessible. Title tags, headings, and URLs should be
chosen very carefully. It is important to provide a suitable Meta
description.
4. On-page/Technical SEO
Some aspects of Technical SEO are mentioned
below:
Technical SEO relies on the usage of internal
links to improve the crawl ability of a website. This also makes your website
more user-friendly. Unlike external links, internal links are completely in the
hands of a website owner so it’s important to make the best use of them to
optimize your website. Categorizing the content on your website and creating a
menu can be one way to achieve this. Another example of internal linking is the
practice of including ‘further reading’ links on a post or page that lead to
other relevant posts.
Yet another helpful On-page SEO practice is to
create a sitemap for your website, which is basically a well-organized list of
all the pages on your website and helps search engines crawl your website more
easily. It is especially important for large websites and websites that lack a
significant number of backlinks or even internal links to have a sitemap.
It is also vital for a website to have an SSL
certificate i.e., https.
Page Speed is an essential aspect of technical
SEO. It is a ranking factor confirmed by Google. Speed can be optimized by
using good web hosting, caching, and AMP.
5. Backlinks
As we know, ranking depends largely on the
quantity and quality of backlinks. Backlinks should be relevant and should come
from authoritative sources. Getting quality backlinks is probably the hardest
part of SEO especially for new websites. It is not advisable to acquire
backlinks through spam or unfair means that try to manipulate the PageRank
algorithm. Google is extremely good at detecting shady links. A higher number
of backlinks can be achieved by producing content that is unique and valuable.
Then you can get in touch with experts from your field and ask them for
feedback. If your content is good enough, they will naturally link to it.
Guest writing or writing on the ‘write for us’
section of another website is an additional effective strategy for increasing
backlinks to your own blog.
These were the core strategies of search engine
optimization. I hope that you got the basic idea of SEO by reading this
article.
This article is written by Umm E Aiman Jalali, one of the contributors at the School of Literature.
