Question: What is SEO?
The question “What Is SEO?” is a question we surprisingly still get asked on a very regular basis. There are still plenty of website owners out there who aren’t familiar with the term.
**UPDATED October 2019**
Deeho Says:
The term SEO is an abbreviation for search engine optimization &, loosely speaking is any activity which seeks to improve the search engine rankings of your page.
The process of manipulating a combination of your on page content along with your site architecture & structure as well as off-page back-link popularity which ultimately drives search engine rankings.
Remember these two words: Authority & Relevance.
There are in excess of 200 factors that work together to affect where google rank you in search. Some have a more profound affect on your rankings than others, while some actually work negatively rather than positively, pushing you down the rankings, or worse still, excluding you altogether.
SEO is the process of going through each important element on or related to your website, making sure that it falls between minimum and maximum criteria as demanded by Google and the other major search engines. Think of SEO as quality control for websites.
There are several other factors including social media interaction, mobile device compatibility, User Interaction, hosting performance , Load Speed & several other factors that all need to send the right authority and relevance signals, so that Google is prepared to consider your page as one of the most relevant for a search query.
An optimisation campaign involves making necessary amendments to all the areas of your website that Google uses to organise site pages in their SERPs results.
What Is A Good Page For Google SEO?
Google lists what it considers to be the highest quality pages at the top of its results pages.
A high quality page is one that sends the right “authority” signals so that Google can see them. This means, great content that real visitors engage with, like enough to share & link to.
In essence, if people find your content useful, they will stay on the page and read it, furthermore, they will share it with their friends on social media (especially if there is a cat or dog video involved?!) and ultimately, they will reference your information on their website as a great, useful and valued resource for their visitors.
1. Engagement
Page content needs to connect with your audience. A tightly focused page, dealing with one specific topic will instantly be more relevant that a jumble of mixed information.
If someone finds you through search, your page needs to deliver some content that is useful, informative, helpful & relevant to the search term or phrase that the visitor used to find you.
If visitors don’t engage with your content then you won’t rank for long…. end of.
2. Sharing Content
Make it easy to share your content. You need people to share your pages on their social channels. The more they do, the more Google will love you.
For example, you are having dinner with your cousin, he mentions he is struggling with his new website to make any sales for his new online business. The following day, you happen to be here, reading this and hey presto, using the social media buttons on the left, you share this page with him on his Facebook feed…… bish, bash, bosh, simple as.
3. Backlinks
Alongside sharing, are backlinks. If a relevant, high authority website chooses to endorse you by linking to your page then google will reward you with a higher ranking in its results pages (for terms relevant to your page only of course).
Links to your site pass Authority & Relevance to you, making you more powerful as a result.
At this stage, many people want to skip items 1 and 2 and dive straight into the backlink building, but…… and it is a BIG BUT…..
that is not the best way to proceed.
Without great content, you won’t achieve the engagement that you need to succeed.
Summary for Question: What is SEO?
The effective manipulation of web content to meet the needs of search engines, providing a high quality resource that Google, Yahoo & Bing value highly, trust and value.
Read more about SEO and learn about everything that makes your website work online.