SEO has been around for a while, but a lot of people still don’t realize such a thing and when it does, they are at best confused. Shawn Byrne, founder and CEO of SEOPhoenix.net talks about what SEO is and what it is about.
It’s easy to think that search engine optimization, or SEO, has become a household name. After all, SEO has been around for at least two decades, so everyone already knows and understands what it’s about, right?
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The problem is, SEO remains a mystery to many. Never mind that it spawned an entire industry that employs so many people all over the world. For all of the impact it has had on the lives of people and businesses in general, SEO is still as alien to many internet users as it was when it began all those years ago.
What’s worse is that despite clear evidence of the positive results it has produced over the years, many individuals and companies still refuse to use SEO to achieve their goals. For them, SEO might as well be magic.
Also Read: How To Use SEO And SEM To Boost Customer Experience Results
What sorcery is SEO?
Sorry to disappoint, but there’s nothing remotely about SEO. It stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s all about the processes and strategies people use to rank higher on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. in order to drive more organic traffic to a website.
How does SEO benefit your company?
When optimizing a website, SEOs fill it with signals such as title tags, meta descriptions and high-traffic keywords within the content, which are intended to attract the attention of search engine bots – also known as spiders or crawlers – the websites crawl a lot after these Signals.
Once the bots get the signals they are looking for, they report the information back to the search engine, which then processes everything to determine which website is ranking for the users’ searches.
A higher ranking means better visibility on search engine results pages, or SERPs, and therefore better chances that users will click on your link and see what your website has to offer.
Therefore, ranking high in the SERPs ultimately means more organic traffic, which in turn increases the likelihood of your website receiving leads and conversions that your company can safely use.
So SEO is that easy?
Not in the least. It may sound simple, but with Google – the biggest search engine of them all – listing 200+ factors that you need to consider to increase your chances of high ranking, optimizing your website can get a little more complex.
If anything, SEO requires a lot of time, effort, and patience on your part. You will need all of this as you speed up your website, create title tags, make your website mobile friendly, get high quality backlinks, develop useful and engaging content, and meet many other ranking factors.
No instant SEO results
There are many SEO companies out there who love to promise potential customers that they can offer optimization services that will get their websites high in the SERPs in just one week. Companies that know little to nothing about SEO would either turn down such an offer out of disbelief or use their services in the hope of quick results.
I’m sorry their bubble popped, but companies that hired SEO services because they promised virtually instant results have been contracted out. Organic SEO takes around four to six months to produce results, and those results will most likely not be that significant yet. After a few more months of sustained SEO efforts, significant results are achieved. SEO works, but you need to understand that it is a slow, deliberate, and long-term process.
Quality content for great SEO
In the past, SEO was all about filling keywords and not paying much attention to the quality of the content. However, when Google introduced massive algorithm changes, the content was brought to the fore and is now considered the top ranking factor in SEO.
The types of content that are good for SEO include:
- How-to Articles in Your Niche
- Relevant blog posts with developments in your industry and your opinion on them
- Listed articles that are well-written and engaging have always been popular with an audience that is likely to share them.
- Highly transferable infographics that provide readers with very informative snapshots on a specific topic in relatively fewer words.
- Videos, which is projected to account for 80% of all web traffic by 2020.
Also read: How to optimize paid search with Google Analytics
SEO can be confusing and overwhelming, but anyone can learn it with dedicated study and practice. It may take time, but you will, like many people before you.