SEO is an evolving field, in this post, we will attempt to Demystify Search Engine Optimisation for you.
SEO has been around for at least a couple of decades now, yet for many everyday online surfers who might have already heard of it, the concept is still shrouded in mystery.
Never mind that SEO has already done—and will continue to do—so much for businesses, organisations, and individuals the world over. To them, the work that an SEO agency does might as well be magic.
There’s nothing magical about SEO.
SEO is definitely not magic. It’s not even an exact science, but SEO can be as fascinating as both. An acronym for search engine optimisation, SEO is all about making your website—or any site for that matter—more discoverable than ever using a wide range of processes and strategies.
For more Internet users to discover your website, your site must rank higher in search engine results. Once your site ranks high, the chance of users clicking on your link and exploring your site improves. Organic traffic also usually comes with a higher ranking. With more people visiting your website, you get more leads, which could then result in more conversions that come in the form of subscriptions or, better yet, sales for your business.
How Google et al. work
Google, Yahoo, Bing, and all the other search engines crawl websites using bots. These automated software agents are tasked to pick up signals such as keywords, meta descriptions, backlinks, and title tags, then report them back to their respective search engines. It’s this information that will be the search engine’s basis for ranking pages for specific keywords, phrases, or queries.
Google is currently the biggest dog on the search engine block and is said to be using over 200 ranking factors in its algorithm. It is the job of SEO professionals to make sure their client websites are compliant with those factors, which include site speed, anchor text, mobile-friendliness, backlinks, and quality of content, among other things.
Quality content is tops.
Of Google’s many ranking factors, it’s quality content that will do the most wonders for your SEO, thanks to the earthshaking algorithm updates it has implemented over the last few years.
So what makes for quality content these days?
Authoritative blog posts that provide recent developments in your industry or your personal take on them would be great.
The same goes for how-to articles since Internet users these days seem to be always on the lookout for tips on how to do just about anything.
List posts have also proven to be quite entertaining and engaging, especially if they’re well-conceived and cleverly-written.
Infographics also make for great web content these days, considering their ability to give readers a very clear and easy to digest snapshot of any given topic.
If content is king, then video is probably the king of content nowadays, as they make up about half of web traffic. Experts even predict that this year, that figure will reach 80%.
SEO is an evolving field, and what it will become in the next few decades is still a mystery. Hopefully, however, the things mentioned above will help demystify SEO as it stands today to many people.