SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of optimizing a website and the contents within the pages to improve its organic rankings and visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO aims to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to a website through organic search results.
This can be done in a variety of ways using dozens of tools. SEO is more than just optimizing. It’s researching, tracking, strategizing, planning, and reporting. It involves knowing the website and its users. It is understanding data sets and analytics, and more than that…it’s intuition.
How Does SEO Work?
Optimizing for “search engines” can include many like Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Baidu, and Google. That Google makes up 84% of all searches worldwide, it’s the one most SEOs focus on. So how does one optimize for Google? To know that it’s best to understand Google and the internet, briefly.
When a website, webpage, product page, landing page, or blog page gets posted online, it needs to be able for other people on the internet to find it. Google acts as the Over-All-Seeing Webpage Collector. It scraps the world of online content (using Googlebots aka spiders) and reports the information back to the hive aka google.com.
Therefore, when someone enters a word or phrase into Google and clicks enter, it’s searching the archives of the hive. The hive being what it is, a massive corporation, there are certain guidelines and best practices one can follow to improve how Google understands and reveals a page it in the SERPs.
Once you have a better understanding of SEO ranking factors and best practices, you can start improving website by using various methods. The basic well-known areas are on-page, off-page, technical, and local.
What Are the 4 Types of SEO?
There are FOUR main types of SEO: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO. On-page SEO refers to the optimization of elements “within “on the website”, like the copy and meta information. Off-page SEO is, by definition, optimizing elements “off the website”, like external links and brand health. Technical SEO is diving deeper into the website and analyzing the backend data and health of a website.
One of the most important aspects of on-page SEO is the use of keywords. Keyword research is a big part of on-page SEO that looks into primary brand keywords, long-term low-competition keywords, and dozens of other methods. A robust keyword strategy can improve the overall conversion and ranking of a website. In addition, keyword placement and density should be considered. Are they placed in the titles, headers, and enough times, or too much?
Another important aspect of on-page is the architecture and organization of a website. Search engines use many factors to determine the relevance and authority of a website, which include headers, content hierarchy, and internal link structure. By organizing a website in a logical and easy-to-navigate way, it can improve its visibility in search results.
Off-page SEO is mostly focused on building backlinks with some brand reputation management. Backlinks are external links from other websites that point to your website. Backlinks are a strong way to improve the authority and relevance of a website. The more high-quality backlinks a website has, the bigger of a boost it gets in search results. There are numerous ways to obtain backlinks, such as guest blogging, submitting to forums, or having such good content that others will want to link to you.
Technical SEO looks into areas of the site that could positively or negatively impact the site. Areas that can cause issues like site speed, file sizes, image sizes, sitemaps, status codes, and many others. Technical SEO keeps the whole SEO machine running.
A more recent development in SEO is the importance of local SEO. Local SEO is the process of improving website content and the Google Business Profile (GBP) accounts for local search results. This is more commonly used for businesses with a physical location. It involves using local keywords, localized pages, and having proper citations in place.
Keep in mind, SEO is always changing along with Google and its constant algorithm updates. As a result, it is important to stay up-to-date with the latest SEO best practices and to regularly monitor and analyze the performance of a website in search results.
How to Learn More About SEO?
The industry of search engine optimization is ever-evolving. There are constant new trends and tactics to test. Google continuously hits website owners with updates. Industries themselves will change over time to adapt with consumerism. As SEOs, we must always stay up-to-date and adhere to Google’s guidelines.
How do we do this? Well, there are a number of ways…
Official Google Resources
The Google Search Central blog is a great resource that comes directly from the source. Packed with useful and helpful information like news on core algorhythm updates, announcements, and features. Google Alerts is a more specified way to receive specific alerts based on keywords via email notification.
Courses & Certifications
Besides getting info from the source itself, there are a number of sites that provide SEO education, certification, and an endless supply of content. SEO is more than just website optimization. Social media, video platforms, and other search engines all use SEO.
Here’s a list of some of the best SEO courses:
| # | Course | Length | Expertise Level |
| 1 | Coursera Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialization | ~5 months | Beginner |
| 2 | SEMrush Academy | Various | Beginner |
| 3 | Moz The Beginner’s Guide to SEO | 5 chapters | Beginner |
| 4 | Reliablesoft SEO Course Bundle | 34 lessons | Intermediate |
| 5 | Hubspot SEO Certification Course | 3.5 hours | Beginner |
| 6 | Yoast Online SEO Training | ~3 hours | Intermediate |
| 7 | DistilledU Online SEO University | 133+ hours | Intermediate |
| 8 | Simplilearn Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Program | 36 hours | Advanced |
| 9 | Clickminded SEO Training | ~40 hours | Intermediate |
| 10 | Market Motive Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Certification Training | 30+ hours | Advanced |
Blogs
Another great source of SEO news, education, and resources are blogs. Subscribe to those of your choice to get daily or weekly updates along with the content that comes with it. Top blogs also provide deeper insight to the industry with case studies, research, tips, and ebooks.
Here are some of the well-known SEO blogs:
Search Engine Journal – a plethora of SEO information including ebooks, podcasts, webinars and more.
Search Engine Land – an extensive blog covering digital marketing across various platforms with reports, white papers, and webinars.
Search Engine Roundtable – an in-depth blog with daily updates on technical search on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Backlinko Blog – known for lengthy, high-quality blog posts covering effective and efficient optimization strategies.
Ahrefs Blog – professional and up-to-date articles on SEO strategies, along with courses.
Semrush Blog – from beginner to expert level posts on digital marketing and using their tool.
Moz Blog – high-quality blogs on all things SEO backed by a number of professional SEO writers.
Hubspot Blog – a compilation of articles across digital marketing, industry trends, sales, and customer conversion.
Seer Interactive Blog – latest digital marketing news and tutorials.
Social Media
Like everything else, there’s always social media platforms to get latest news and info on any topic. For SEO, one could follow the previous mentioned blogs, or follow one of the following leaders in the SEO industry.
John Mueller – Senior Search Analyst @ Google, Twitter @Johnmu
Martin Splitt – Developer Relations @ Google, Twitter @g33konaut
Rand Fishkin – Cofounder + CEO @ SparkToro, Twitter @randfish
Danny Sullivan – Founder of Search Engine Land, Twitter @dannysullivan
Brian Dean – Founder of Backlinko, Twitter @BrianEDean
Ross Hudgens – Founder of Siege Media, Twitter @RossHudgens
Barry Schwartz – Founder of Search Engine Roundtable, Twitter @rustybrick
How do I SEO my website?
You may be asking this very question, and with the types and complexities and ever-changing world of SEO it can all seem quite overwhelming. Should you start with off-page and build links, or optimize old content on your blog? Maybe begin with the homepage and work down, or look at more technical things like site health and site speed?
This is the reason to conduct an SEO audit. An audit can provide detailed insight to what’s happening on and off a website based on tools and historical data. An individual should be able to walk away from an audit with a clear understanding of everything on the site positively and negatively affecting it. Audits usually consist of red flags, fixes, potential downfalls, opportunities, tracked KPIs, and other important metrics.
That’s It…
If not already known, SEO is a long-term, multi-layered process that involves optimizing a website to enhance its rankings and visibility in the SERPs. The four subcategories of SEO (on-page, off-page, technical, local) are all important parts of the entire hive. Each one having its own tactics and strategies for optimizing.
To rank better in the SERPs and stay ahead of competitors in SEO, it’s important to be up-to-date with the latest best practices and to constantly be monitoring, analyzing, and improving the content and performance of a website.
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