What Is SEO? — Search Engine Optimization In 2023

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

The question remains intact- 'What is SEO?' and 'Why should YOU care?' Let's take the following example to understand what SEO is and its importance.

Suppose you have created a website that teaches people Origami.

You have put in all your efforts and have come up with the best content that appeals to you. You are gagging for it to generate a decent income. But wait, here is a catch- the website that you created, does not have traffic. There are no visitors to your content.

No matter how great the content may be, if no one finds it, it DOES NOT EXIST. To be a successful content creator, the audience is NEEDED, and the content needs to be VISIBLE.

So what should be your next move to engage visitors to the site?

Here are a few ways that you may think of:

1. Cold calling or spamming the inboxes of your acquaintances asking them to visit your website: This way you shall get very fewer visitors and only a handful of conversions.

2. Running advertisements on Facebook, YouTube, Google, and other platforms: It is an expensive way of getting followers. Individuals and small start-ups won't benefit much from this approach.

The ways mentioned above are inorganic and often unsustainable in the long run.

What could be the best way to bring visitors by organic search?

It is when SEO or Search Engine Optimisation comes in handy.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a technique to rank your site higher on the internet than other millions of websites in response to a given set of keywords.

What are these Keywords? The phrases are added to the web content to improve search engine ranking. For instance, you search for 'dance classes' on some search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. 'Dance classes' here is a keyword.

The search engine crawls every page on the web and provides a list of websites with relevant information concerning the search query or the keyword. It is what happens all the time when you search for anything on the internet. Do you know how Google or any other search engine creates this list out of the available sites? Or how is the rank of a website decided on the list?

There is an algorithm of SEO that runs behind the ranking of these sites, which is an unknown secret. This algorithm cannot be manipulated or cracked easily. It keeps changing now and then to bring about the most relevant content at the top of the search result. Also, algorithms vary from one search engine to another.

If your website does not exist on this list of websites, you will never be able to meet your customers online.

To get business, your website needs to be ranked top on the major search engines for the specific keywords that are relevant to your potential customers.

Therefore, the content of your website needs to be highly optimized to rank on Google and other search engine platforms. No rank in results leads to no visitors and hence, no business.

But once your site ranks at the top, it could generate passive income for a long time by running advertisements on it.

Now the question arrives, how to rank the site on top and how to make use of SEO?

Implementing SEO:

Well, there is no specific way to learn SEO tricks, yet the fundamentals remain the same.

The content put on the internet, should not only be optimized but should also be engaging and human-readable. After all, you created it for humans to consume, and not just to feed machines or search engines, right?

Before implementing the tips and tricks to SEO, you should know that there are two faces to SEO:

White Hat SEO

The optimization techniques utilized in this case are done in an attempt to engage real humans. An effort is made to make the content human-understandable and not just to throw it away to the search engines. This approach is organic and helps you to be in the game for a long time.

Black Hat SEO

The web content so produced in this case is not reader-friendly. It is made, in a sense, to rank without considering the engagement of the audience. It is an inorganic approach to ranking the site. It may help you to make some quick money but may not help you sustain yourself in the long run. Such sites are often banned or penalized.

It would be best if you decided for yourself as to which approach to follow. You could use either of the two or a combination of both to get the most out of the content you put up.

Further, there are two distinct branches of SEO: On-page SEO and Off-page SEO. There are different sets of rules to attain for each of these branches.

Here is a detailed insight into these.

On-page SEO

It is a term used to refer to all the necessary measures taken within the website to improve the overall ranking of the site in search results. There are various elements within the website that need improvement.

So, what are the changes that need to be made within the website to improve on-page SEO?

Read along, and you shall know!

The content of the website needs to be fresh, of good quality, and should contain relevant keywords.

One can make use of tools like Ubersuggest, Google Trends, or Answer the Public to find suitable keywords. The keywords with maximum search volume should be added to the content of the website.

The data of these tools cannot be trusted blindly. However, an accuracy of about 60-70% can be achieved. A rough idea of the frequently used keyword usage can be achieved. The URL of the webpage has to be user-friendly. It will be an added advantage if the URL and title of the page contain relevant keywords. The same goes for the description of the page.

Now it's time to modify the values of attributes in HTML code. Relevant keywords need to be fitted in the title tag and meta description. Appropriate use of keywords in the alt tag should be done to increase the ranking of an image in image search results.

Various tools are available to check the accuracy of HTML code.

Removal of error pages and the ones that no longer exist, also adds to the optimality of a website.

What other things can be done to increase the optimization of a website?

The protocol of the website needs to be changed from HTTP to HTTPS.

Further, the load time of the website needs to be reduced by removing unwanted or extra code and files. This is important as many users may not like to wait for the site to load if it takes too long.

Various tools let you check the load time of a given site. Some of them are Pingdom Tools, GTmetrix, and PageSpeed Insights.

Next, you need to take care of the bounce-back rate of the website. It is done by making the site more engaging to the visitor. Internal linking of relevant web pages at the end of every page of the website can be done to engage visitors for a longer duration.

Off-page SEO

It is a term that refers to the measures and activities undertaken outside your website to improve the ranking of the site in the search results.

Off-page optimization of a website is achieved as follows:

Suppose, there are two websites named A and B. A has a good ranking while B does not stand any closer. If a link to site B is posted on any of the pages of site A, it will lead to an increase in the ranking of site B. This procedure is referred to as backlinking wherein external sites refer to your website to increase your website's ranking in search results.

An increment in the number of backlinks leads to an increase in the overall ranking of the site.

There are various tools available to find a list of all sites that have backlinks to a specific website. If a given site has a good ranking, you could see the sources of websites that have referred to it by means of backlinks. Thus, you could use a similar strategy for yourself.

One could also make use of social media promotions to promote the visibility of a website.

Final Words:

In this online competitive world, you need to be visible on the web, to run some business. In such a scenario, SEO holds great importance.

It is not necessary in any case, that a site that ranks at the top for a given keyword shall remain in the same position forever. Some other site owners may effectively make use of SEO and overtake the space of it. Who knows you could be the one doing that!