What Is SEO? (Definition + Basics Explained)

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is a set of procedures designed to improve your website's visibility in search engines (such as Google).all to get more organic traffic.

In essence, SEO aims to satisfy users' search needs by fulfilling possible, high-quality material and offering the greatest user experience.

Both on-site and off-site SEO activities are possible. This is why “on-page” and “off-page” categories for SEO are often used.

In practice, SEO typically involves:

• Keyword research
• Content creation and optimization
• Technical Optimization
• Link building

Why Is SEO Important?

Every day, billions of Google users search for information and items. It should come as no surprise that search engines are frequently one of the primary sources of traffic to websites.

You must rank among the top search results for your target keywords to fully harness the potential of this traffic source.

The relationship between the two is straightforward: the higher you rank, the more people will visit your page.

A page ranking in position No. 10 is 10 times more likely to receive a click than a page ranking in position No. 1.

Additionally, the top three organic results receive more than half of all clicks.

This is where SEO enters the picture.

Your rankings will improve as a result of search engine optimization. More traffic equates to better rankings. Additionally, increased traffic results in more new clients and brand recognition.

In other words, neglecting SEO would mean neglecting one of the most significant traffic sources, giving your rivals full control of the market.

SEO vs. PPC

There are typically two types of results on search engine results pages (SERPs):

• Paid results: With the use of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you must pay to be here.
• Organic results: Your rankings here must be “earned” via SEO.

You may ask: Why not just pay to appear in the ads section?

There is an easy solution. The vast majority of people just ignore ads and click on organic results.

Yes, even though it focuses on “free” organic traffic, SEO requires more time, work, and resources.

But if you start to show for your target keywords, you may reach more people and provide “passive” traffic that remains after you stop spending.

Note: PPC advertising remains a vital channel. It just has a distinct role in marketing strategies. PPC and SEO may complement one another rather than be in direct competition.

Ahmed Samir Founder as-educate

How Do Search Engines Work?

Any search engine's ultimate objective is to satisfy users with the results it finds.

Search engines must find the finest pages and present them as the top search results to do this.

Side note: There are other search engines besides Google. But it is unquestionably the most well-liked. So whenever we talk about search engines, we always use the word “Google.” Additionally, the foundations of SEO are often the same for various search engines.

To find and rank content, Google uses the following stages:

1. Crawling: Google searches the web for new or updated pages using “bots,” or computer programs. A page needs to have at least one link pointing to it for Google to find it.
2. Indexing: Google then tries to understand each page individually. The Google Index, a large database of websites, then stores this data.
3. Serving results: Google determines which pages are the best in terms of both quality and relevance when a user submits a query and ranks them in the SERP.

As a website owner, it is your responsibility to make it as easy as possible for search engines to scan and index all of your site's pages. the ones you don't (and none of them).

Technical SEO, sometimes referred to as “on-page SEO,” refers to several procedures and best practices that you may use to guarantee the crawlability and indexability of your pages.

Now that you know how Google discovers and categorizes pages, it's time to look more closely at how the top results are chosen and the role of SEO in this process.

How Does SEO Work?

To rank pages, Google uses very complicated processes referred to as “algorithms.” To determine where a particular page should rank, these algorithms take into account a huge number of ranking factors.

You don't have to understand how search algorithms work. (In reality, nobody can say with absolute confidence.)

Knowing the fundamentals, though, will help you better comprehend how SEO works and what it takes to optimize your pages for Google rankings.

Ensuring Relevance

Making sure your content is relevant is your top job when it comes to SEO.

Why? Because showing users relevant results is Google's top priority,

Relevance is considerably more than merely showing pages for “dogs” searches that are about dogs rather than cats. Additionally, it entails addressing the user's search intent, or the rationale behind the user's choice of a search query.

There are four types of search intent: 

• Navigational (e.g., “Spotify login”)
• Informational (e.g., “what is Spotify”)
• Commercial (e.g., “Spotify review”)
• Transactional (e.g., “Spotify premium”)

Here’s an example:

You don't want to find articles on various dog diets or homemade dog food recipes when you search for “best dog food.” Even though both are intended to be topically relevant, they do not meet your search objectives.

Google is aware that if you search for “best dog food,” you almost certainly want to purchase dog food based on the actions of millions of other users.

Because of this, Google prioritizes either product pages or reviews of the top dog food brands (i.e., the search intent is either transactional or commercial).

So how can you ensure that your page satisfies the search query's intent?

Thankfully, Google does all the tedious work. Simply look at the search results and evaluate what you find.

Considerations for producing relevant content:

• Topical relevance: By taking a look at the keywords that occur on the page, Google may identify the topic of a page. Do some keyword optimization for your pages, but don't go overboard.
• Type of content: By examining the kinds of results that rank for the term, make sure your page offers the appropriate kind of content for the search (e.g., landing pages, product pages, informational posts, reviews, etc.).
• Content freshness: Certain subjects, like news updates or product evaluations, call for new, constantly updated types. You must make sure your content will remain current if the search query is time-sensitive.
• Location: Depending on the searcher's location, Google could provide various results. If this is the case, you should modify your technique (e.g., if you run a local business, follow local SEO best practices).

Where to Start?

Any SEO strategy relies on keywords as its foundation. They assist you in determining the topics that your target audience is searching for so that you can target those topics with relevant content.

Conduct keyword research first. (To achieve that, you'll need a keyword tool.)

The type of content you need to identify the search intent will be clear to you, along with your target keywords. Use this comprehensive, step-by-step keyword research guide to get going.

Creating Quality Content

Finding the right keywords is just the first step.

In addition, you need to produce content that will rank for those keywords. SEO cannot function without both content generation and optimization.

John Mueller of Google responded to a question regarding the most crucial aspect of being in the top search results with a single word:

If you want to rank high in Google, you must create content that is truly among the top ten pieces on a given topic. On the first page of each SERP, there are 10 organic results, and you want to be there.

Here are some fundamental characteristics that set high-quality content apart from inferior content:

• Comprehensiveness: Provide comprehensive coverage of the subject and respond to any inquiries visitors may have. Word count is not relevant. Verify that each page gives searchers a comprehensive resource.
• Uniqueness: You shouldn't only include the top results in your content. It should constantly provide something more, whether it's a fresh perspective, unique information, useful examples, or inventive graphics.
• E-A-T signals: Expertise, authority, and trustworthiness are three factors that Google emphasizes (E-A-T). The information you give should be accurate and trustworthy, and you should demonstrate your expertise both on and off-site.
• Readability: Your writing needs to be simple to read. This entails logical content organization, concise sentence construction, the avoidance of passive voice, a constant tone of voice, etc.

Where to Start?

It's time to start developing content when you've finished your keyword research.

Although it might be difficult to assess content quality precisely, a tool like SEO Writing Assistant can be useful. Readability, SEO, originality, and tone of voice are the four areas in which the tool analyses your content and suggests suggestions for improvement.

Providing Great Usability

Google favors websites that are easy to use.

Again, technical SEO is crucial in this role. SEO makes sure your website fulfills usability criteria in addition to making sure it can be crawled and indexed.

This includes factors like:

• Site security: Your website should meet standard security standards, such as obtaining an SSL certificate (using the HTTPS protocol instead of HTTP).
• Page speed: Because they provide a better user experience, Google ranks quicker pages higher in the search results.
• Mobile friendliness: “Mobile-first indexing” refers to Google's evaluation of your content depending on how well it functions on a mobile device. Mobile SEO makes sure that your content is accessible to mobile users.
• Ease of use: Your website should have an intuitive structure that makes it simple for visitors to find everything. and easily explore your site without encountering any issues or obstacles.

Where to Start?

Run a thorough website audit for the best overall perspective of your website's usability.

You may find several reports focused on various facets of your website's performance in Semrush's Site Audit.

The tool not only allows users to examine over 140 problems, but it also offers recommendations for how to resolve them.

Building Authority

Search engines evaluate the credibility of your site using several off-page signals.

Backlinks—links from other websites pointing to your site—are among the strongest signals and ranking factors overall.

Backlinks essentially serve as votes for search engines.

In general, Google will give your page more authority if it gets more high-quality links. which could result in higher rankings.

Link building, or the process of obtaining backlinks to your website, is crucial to SEO because of this.

There are several different link-building strategies. For instance:

• Creating linkable assets: producing content that has a great return on investment and naturally draws links (e.g., original studies, interactive pages, free tools).
• Guest posting: submitting articles to other websites with a link to your website.
• Broken link building: Identifying broken links on other websites and offering to replace them with links to your pages

When building links, pay attention to quality rather than quantity. A single backlink from a high-authority page will carry more authority than 100 backlinks from unrelated, low-quality pages.

You do want to have as many links as you can. But those links must come from reliable, relevant pages that are linked to the topic of your quality.

Last thing to remember: 

The total number of backlinks to your website might still have an impact on a single page's rankings even though Google ranks pages rather than websites (i.e., they assess authority at the page level).

How? You can convey authority between your pages via internal linking (linking from one page of your website to another), just as authority travels from external pages to your site.

When making internal links, keep this in mind. And make sure enough internal links are pointing toward your most important pages.

Internal linking is one of the most important things a website can do to help Google and visitors find the pages that the website's owner deems important, according to Google's John Mueller.

Where to Start?

Examining the backlinks of your rivals is the quickest way to discover opportunities for backlinks.

To examine the backlinks your competitors are missing, put your domain and their domains into a tool like a Backlink Gap.

In this way, you may really “reverse engineer” the backlinks of your rivals and use them on your website.

7 Truths About SEO

So, in actuality, that is what SEO means. But before starting your SEO adventure, consider the following seven truths:

1. SEO is not about cheating Google. Instead, think of it as showing Google the value you provide users to convince them to rank your page.
2. SEO is not about hacks. Avoid getting stuck looking for new, innovative SEO tips and methods. Usually, all you need to do is execute the SEO fundamentals really effectively and consistently.
3. SEO is a long-term game. The majority of the time, SEO results take time to materialize, but there are rare exceptions, such as when a critical problem is fixed. When possible, think in terms of months rather than days.
4. SEO is more than just installing an SEO plugin. SEO plugins are useful resources. However, just because you set one up doesn't automatically mean your website is “SEO-friendly.”
5. You're never “done” with SEO. The process of search engine optimization is ongoing. Even if you rank well for all of your keywords, you should continually strive to become better. The rivalry is constant.
6. Knowing your audience is key. It is simpler to develop a successful SEO strategy the better you understand your target audience (customers, readers, or subscribers).
7. SEO is just one part of the puzzle. If you forget to work on the foundation of your business—your product or service—no amount of optimization will assist you.