What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is everything you do to boost search engine traffic to your digital assets.
It usually refers to websites, but it could also include social media accounts, product listings on eCommerce sites, or mobile apps.
Many may try to convince you that optimising content for search engines is exceptionally tough and requires years of experience and an unfathomable amount of talent and skills.
That is not correct. There is also a lot of speculation as to whether SEO is dead or not. No matter what you read online, there is one key takeaway you should remember from this guide: SEO is (still) a very effective tool for boosting website traffic. Just consider it.
Despite how complicated the web is becoming, there are only a few ways for people to access websites nowadays:
- Directly entering the website’s URL into a web browser: Known as direct traffic, though I bet if you try to think of the websites you visit in this manner, you will probably end up with fewer than 20.
- Clicking a link shared by a friend or one discovered on another website: Referred to as referral traffic, it occurs when a friend emails you a link to a [random/ stupid/ridiculous article]
- Clicking on articles shared on social media
- Using Google to search for something
Search is the most popular external traffic referrer, accounting for nearly 35% of all visits compared to 26% from social media. Your website will have a steady stream of organic, relevant traffic if you can optimise your content to rank on search result pages.
This guide will teach you exactly how to accomplish this.
How to Get a Lot of Traffic from Search Engines?
Many people say that SEO is too technical and hence it is difficult. That is not true. Understanding how search engines make money is probably the most powerful knowledge you can gain from learning SEO and increasing your traffic from search engines.
Below is how the search engine business model works:
- Search engines vie to deliver the most relevant answers to user queries.
- People use a search engine that provides the most relevant answers to their queries
- Search engines generate revenue by displaying ads on search result pages (more users = more ad revenue)
That’s all there is to it. If you want to be successful in SEO, your best strategy is to assist search engines in making more money, which you can do by helping them answer their users’ questions. Here’s how you do it:
- Understanding what users are looking for (and creating content that clarifies their questions) is referred to as keyword research.
- On-page optimisation helps search engines understand what your content is all about.
- Off-page optimisation demonstrates to search engines that you possess the authority to answer users’ questions.
- Technical optimisation ensures search engines can quickly find your content.
Let’s go over how each one of these works.
Step 1: Keyword research
Keyword research includes finding, organising, and analysing user searches to develop an SEO content strategy. The analysis of search terms is the reason SEO exists at all. Conducting keyword research can help you quickly:
- Determine the market demand for a product or service
- Improve understanding of your target market
- Discover hidden opportunities that you may have otherwise overlooked
One of the great things about SEO is that everybody has access to keyword data, which means even small businesses can compete against large corporations. To conduct keyword research like a professional, you need to know the following:
- How popular each keyword is, that is, how many people search for it
- What content needs to be created based on what the searchers are looking for
- How much competition each keyword has, that is, to determine how difficult it will be to rank your content for it
- How popular a keyword is, in terms of search volume, by using a third-party tool
Search volume measures how frequently users enter a keyword into a search engine: The greater the search volume, the greater the demand for a specific keyword.
Search volumes for different keywords may often vary (sometimes significantly) depending on the tool you use. Hence, search volumes should be considered relative rather than absolute metrics. Next, determine what the users typing a search term are looking for – this is known as searcher intent.
One important thing you can do is copy the keywords you’re looking up and enter them into the search engine. You’ll eventually realise that you were wrong about what people are searching for.
For example, you might believe that people who search for “how to write good” on a web browser are searching for copywriting tips. It could be a relevant keyword for a company that provides content marketing services, right?
Wrong. In reality, most people who type this keyword into a search engine are searching for a book titled “How to Write Good,” which was written by a popular YouTuber. That is why it is critical to understand the popularity of a keyword and what users imply when they type it into the search bar.
Finally, keyword competition is also a factor to consider here. If a keyword appears to be a good fit for your website, it’s most likely a suitable fit for others too, which means you’re probably not the first to notice.
If you discover that all of the landing pages ranking on the top search result page for the keyword you would also like to target belong to large corporations, it’s usually a good idea to look for other opportunities.
There are numerous ways to assess the authority of various websites. However, some keyword research tools may also include a competition metric that you may use. That’s all you need to know to be a top keyword researcher:
- Produce content for key phrases that people are searching
- Understand the intent of the searchers for the keywords you’re targeting
- Target keywords for which you can contend and rank
Also Read: The Ultimate Guide to Building a Successful Digital Marketing Plan in 2023
Step 2: On-page optimisation
On-page optimisation includes enhancing the content of your landing pages so that search engines can better understand what they are about. The algorithm of search engines, as sophisticated as it may be, cannot comprehend the contents of a webpage as accurately as humans can.
Robots are amazing, but they aren’t quite there yet. For example, whenever a search engine crawls a webpage containing the word “bat,” it must determine whether the page content is about:
- A British-American tobacco group
- A flying mammal
- A baseball bat
While all you need to do is look at the page to figure out its content, search engines need to look for indicators that unveil the same. Search engines will primarily look for these hints in content:
- Keywords (and their placement within the webpage – including meta title, meta description, body of the content, etc.)
- Synonyms
- Contextually relevant keywords
- Image alt text
- The website’s theme that published the webpage
Search engines have become smart over time and discovered that how users engage with the content is an excellent way to comprehend what the content is about. Assume you search the phrase “baseball bat,” and the search results present you with the following three options:
Option 1: An overview of how the British-American Tobacco Group over the years
Option 2: 10 reasons why bats are the most fascinating mammals
Option 3: Where can I buy used bats?
By selecting option 3, you are telling the search engine that this webpage is about baseball bats. Here are a few of the user signals that search engines are likely to consider:
- CTR (click-through rate): The proportion of people who clicked on a specific search result for a particular query.
- Bounce rates: The percentage of people who visit a website and then leave after only viewing one page.
- Time on page: The time users spend on a webpage
- Pages per session: The number of pages of a site a user visits during a session
By providing these hints to search engines, you’re essentially assisting them in providing better responses to their users (and making more money), which they will reward by ranking you higher. Win-win!
What’s the best part? On-page optimisation is the most powerful aspect of SEO that you can control.
Step 3: Off-page optimisation
You’re probably aware that search engines strive to provide the most accurate answers to their users’ queries. With over one hundred trillion web pages indexed by Google alone, there must be more than ten (the number of pages included on the first page of search results) good answers for each search query.
So, how do search engines determine which results are the most relevant for each query?
First, they filter based on relevance – this is why we discussed on-page optimisation in the previous section. Despite that, there are millions of possible results for each search query – the total number of results is displayed at the top of the page when you search for a keyword on Google. Simply put, it all boils down to popularity.
Search engines have discovered that the more popular a web page (and the website it belongs to), the more likely it is to deliver better answers to its users. Although search engines do not publish authority metrics, several tools have developed their own:
In SEO, authority is determined primarily by links – specifically, the links that come to your site from external sites.
Consider a link to be a vote.
When another website links to yours, search engines consider that link to be an affirmation of the content on your website.
Off-page optimisation, also known as backlinks, refers to acquiring links to your site from third parties to boost the authority of your pages.
In general, more links equals more authority.
However, not all links are created equal; here’s a quick rundown:
- Links from distinctive domains are much more meaningful (for example, ten links from ten different external sites are better than ten links from a single external website)
- Links from high-authority pages and websites are much more valuable (that is, webpages and websites that also receive a lot of backlinks)
- Links from sites related to the subject or topic of your content are much more meaningful (that is, links from websites that focus on similar topics as your website are more valuable than links received from websites that focus on a completely unrelated topic)
- Links with relevant keywords are much more meaningful (for example, a backlink with your target keyword is preferable to one that says “click here”)
- Links placed higher on the page and within the body of the webpage are much more meaningful (compared to the links that are placed lower in the webpage)
Link building is a hard-to-crack aspect of SEO, which means that if you master it, you will have an unjustified advantage over your competitors. Companies that excel at obtaining links stand to benefit considerably from increased traffic.
Also Read: Ultimate Guide to Building a Sales Funnel in 2023
Step 4: Technical optimisation
So far, we’ve discussed all of the high-value aspects of an SEO strategy. If you imagine SEO as a house, we’ve laid the foundation, constructed walls, added a roof, furnished it, and landscaped it. It is now time to address the plumbing, electrical, and wiring.
Water and electricity will not make your home appear or feel amazing, but it is still necessary. That is how you should approach technical SEO.
Anything you do to make it simpler for search engines to discover and index your content accurately is known as technical SEO. If you have little or no technical knowledge, it may appear intimidating. Don’t be concerned. You must primarily focus on the following four issues:
1. Ensure that search engines can index your pages
First and foremost, search engines cannot index or rank your web pages if they cannot find them or if you are inadvertently blocking them.
You can avoid this by simply:
- Providing an XML sitemap to search engines.
- Verifying that your robots.txt file does not prevent crawlers from accessing the pages you want to rank.
2. Fix broken links and errors
When crawling your website, search engines may discover errors. For example, suppose you deleted some content, and the URL now returns a 404 error. If third-party sites link to a URL that contains an error, you will lose the value that those links pass – search engines will recognise these as broken links.
One of the most critical issues with errors is this. You can fix this by checking your website for errors regularly and then deciding whether or not to fix them – most are easily fixed and only require a simple redirect to a new URL.
3. Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly
It is 2023. Everyone uses phones to access the internet. You will agree how annoying it is to visit a website that is not mobile-friendly. Search engines now use mobile-friendliness as one of the factors to rank web pages as it offers a better user experience.
If you are just starting, most new content management systems (such as WordPress, Shopify, etc.) have already resolved this. If you have a website that isn’t mobile-friendly, you must get a web developer to fix it as soon as possible.
4. Increase your website’s loading speed
The final consideration is that your site does not take an eternity to load. Search engines such as Google claim that the more time it takes for the content to load on a user’s device, the less likely they will interact with it.
That is why, when you improve the speed of your site, your ranking also improves. It typically entails things like enhancing or incorporating caching, optimising images, and removing unnecessary code – if you do not have the experience, you must consult a developer.
The main point to remember about speed optimisation is that it is easy to fall into a rabbit hole when attempting to fix everything recommended by a search engine. Do not do that.
It is usually sufficient to solve critical challenges that are also simple to solve. Spending weeks resolving minor issues will most likely have little impact on your rankings or the user experience.
After you have addressed the four major issues – indexing, errors, mobile friendliness, and speed – you should have resolved all critical issues of your site.
How to Measure the Success of Your SEO Efforts?
It is time to get into the nerdy details now. As with any digital marketing channel, there is a significant risk of being weighed down by an excess of metrics to measure your SEO efforts. If we were to pick the most important SEO metrics to concentrate on, they would be:
1. Domain authority & page authority
When Google stopped publishing its PageRank metric, it left a void for a metric that allowed SEOs to determine and compare the authority of different pages in the eyes of a search engine. MOZ, an SEO analytics company, created Domain Authority and Page Authority metrics to fill this void.
Later on, other third-party tools developed their versions too: ahrefs came up with Domain Rating and URL Rating, and SEMRush came up with Domain Score and Page Score. In essence, all of these mean the same thing and you can use them interchangeably:
- Domain authority: It measures a domain’s (or an entire website’s) authority based on the properties of the links pointing to its pages.
- Page authority: It measures a specific page’s authority (i.e., a single URL) based on the properties of the links pointing to its pages.
Most people believe that page authority is more important than domain authority when search engine rankings are concerned.
For example, if we compare two URLs with the same content, the one with the highest page authority usually ranks higher. If their page authorities are similar, the domain authority will break the tie.
2. Rankings and click-through rates
Rankings are possibly the prominent metric for SEOs. A search engine ranking is simply the position of a particular page in the search results for a specific query. Search engines’ default setting is to display ten results on the first page. So being on the first page of Google means ranking in the top ten for a specific keyword.
However, SEOs have realised that ranking in the top ten is no longer sufficient. Numerous studies have discovered that more than half (>50% click-through rate) of all search clicks go to the top three results. Your goal when performing SEO is to achieve a low ranking and a high CTR.
3. Organic traffic
We have discussed how you can improve authority, rankings, and links, but none will matter unless those improvements result in more traffic. Organic traffic refers to all visits to a website referred by a search engine. More organic traffic equals better results.
Furthermore, once you have access to this metric, you will be able to conduct more in-depth analyses, such as the behaviour of organic visitors vs. other channels, as well as the average conversion rate and value of an organic visitor.
The difference between branded and non-branded searches is crucial to remember when organic traffic is concerned.
- Branded searches include the name of your company or website in the search term. As you might expect, there is little competition for your brand name, and people who search for these keywords are already familiar with your brand – so organic traffic from branded searches seems to be very close to direct traffic (i.e., users type your URL directly in the browser).
- Non-branded searches are those where your brand name is not included in the keyword. When it comes to SEO, you’ll want to boost organic traffic from non-branded searches because it means you’re getting new visitors who would not have found you otherwise.
Also Read: What is Content Marketing And Why You Should Prioritise in 2023
4. Backlinks
We’ve already discussed the significance of links throughout this guide. The backlinks metric counts the number of links to a specific website from third-party websites.
When you merge this metric with the investigation of the page and domain authority of the linking sites, you can get a decent idea of what SEO professionals call a backlink profile, which is a metric that assesses the quality and quantity of backlinks to a website. In SEO, you need to strive for the following:
- Obtain as many backlinks from authoritative websites as possible
- Obtain more backlinks from distinct sites vs. a large number of backlinks from fewer relevant sites
- Obtain backlinks from sites related to your site’s topic vs. backlinks from unrelated sites
5. Business metrics
Business metrics will be determined by the stage of the funnel for which each piece of content is created. These will determine whether your SEO traffic is producing results for your company or simply attracting the wrong type of traffic. Here are several examples:
- The success of an optimised blog post for lead generation can be assessed from the number of new leads generated from organic traffic or organic traffic to leads conversion rate.
- The number of customers acquired from organic traffic or the average value per organic visitor can be used to measure the success of a pricing page optimised to get visitors to purchase.
You can use Google Analytics to filter organic traffic, drill down to specific URLs, and check the performance for different goals to assess the impact of your SEO efforts in these metrics.
Avoid these SEO Traps
The SEO industry is full of bad advice compared to any other digital marketing channel. Even in the best-case scenario, following this advice will result in wasting lots of time and money on things that don’t work. In the worst-case scenario, you may receive an algorithmic or manual penalty from a search engine.
For beginners, navigating these can be difficult, so we’ve compiled a list of things to avoid:
1. Black-hat strategies
SEO takes time. It can lead to people wanting to try strategies that guarantee quicker and more drastic results – the majority of which fail. However, some tactics may be effective but violate search engines’ terms of service. These are known as black-hat strategies.
Even though some of these may provide fast results, we recommend avoiding them entirely. The risks of using such tactics outweigh the benefits, and search engines always identify them. Avoid private blog networks (PBNs), link exchanges, and paid links in general.
2. Excessively technical advice
Many SEOs enjoy getting overly technical – sometimes far too technical. It is normal and not done maliciously. Many SEO professionals work with large corporations where minor technical details can yield great results.
It’s natural to feel FOMO about such technical tactics if you subscribe to various SEO newsletters. However, if you’re just getting started, it’s usually best to avoid overly technical tactics and instead focus on learning the fundamentals of SEO.
Follow this simple rule of thumb: If something is far too complex for you to comprehend after reading this guide, it’s probably too niche for you to be concerned about. In general, avoid AMP, schema markup, structured data, excessive speed optimisation, and voice search for the time being. You can always take these up when you have a lot of organic traffic.
3. Outdated advice
Search engines’ algorithms are constantly being updated. Things that worked ten years ago are unlikely to work today. A lot of shady (or downright incompetent) SEOs will give you outdated advice.
Always double-check the information sources you find online or the SEO services offered to you. Check to see if what they’re recommending is still current.
Search Engine Optimisation: Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Is SEO necessary for my business?
Yes, your company should spend money on SEO. Search engine optimisation provides a method for increasing traffic without having to pay for each click. When running PPC ads, you have to pay for each click that leads to your website. This traffic, however, is essentially free if your website ranks organically on search engines (at least in terms of a cost-per-click).
If you can get your website to the top of the search engines, you’ll get free traffic that won’t stop even if ads are turned off. If you rank organically, you will have 24-hour visibility.
Q2. How does SEO work?
SEO is the method of improving your website’s ranking in search engines. But how does SEO work? Google employs over 200 ranking factors, which enable the search engine’s algorithms to rank websites depending on the relevancy and authority of their pages.
To be successful with SEO, you must guarantee that your content provides the most appropriate result for a particular search query and that your website is regarded as a reliable source.
Q3. How can I discover what keywords people use to find businesses similar to mine?
You can’t go into an SEO strategy blind. To optimise your site for these terms, you must first understand what consumers are looking for on Google to find businesses similar to yours.
You can accomplish this by utilising Google’s Keyword Planner. Load the tool and enter a term that you believe people will use to find your business online. You’ll then be served a slew of related keyword suggestions, along with their monthly search volume.
On a Concluding Note
Since every company is unique, so should its SEO strategy. Hence, it is impossible to create a universally applicable SEO strategy. Remember, the goal of your SEO strategy should be to drive as much relevant organic traffic as possible to your website.
You can read our knowledge base blogs to learn more about SEO or digital marketing and apply your learning to your business.
