How SEO Works (And Why You Need It!!!)
So you wanna know how SEO works? Great! You’re definitely in the right place.
And guess what? Today I’m gonna teach you exactly how SEO works.
BONUS: You’ll also learn why you need SEO desperately for your business and how you can make stacks of bills from it! Get excited!!!
But before we get into it, let’s begin with the super basic stuff.
What Does SEO Stand For?
SEO stands for search engine optimization.
TO PUT IT SIMPLY: it’s everything that is done to “optimize” or perfect a website. This is done basically so that the search engines know how to categorize your website and when it should populate in search results.
SEO helps search engines such as Google:
- easily understand what your site is about
- decide if your website is important (and where it should rank)
- determine the keywords and search queries your website is linked to
SEO Controls What Shows Up In Search Results
The way that SEO works is that it controls what shows up in search results. Well…. kind of…
When you do SEO to a website, you essentially alter the site and what’s happening around it. You change the structure of the website itself, and you cause other online sources (such as blogs, directories, and social media) to create signals that point directly to your website.
Doing all of this stuff is what causes search engines to rank your website. By creating a structurally sound website that has other websites signaling to it, you ultimately end up ranking. In effect, the search engines determine that your site is important (and that it should be featured at the top of the results for certain search queries).
Now, if you want to know specifically what are SEO services don’t worry. We’ll definitely be covering that. But also be easy on yourself.
SEO IS A LOT! It’s hard to fully grasp in just one sitting. So that’s why you hire a skilled agency (such as Bizmap LLC) to do the SEO for you.
SEO Is Broken Up Into 4 Parts
Keyword Analysis
The process of optimizing a website so it can be found on Google begins with keyword analysis. During the keyword analysis of your business SEO services, the thought process of your potential customer is reverse engineered. The SEO agency asks the following questions:
- what keywords are customers using to find my business
- what location specific queries might customers use to find my business
- what questions might be relevant to someone seeking answers on my website
From here, the keywords are individually analyzed for their search volume and competition. And this is how the process begins!
On-Page SEO
With on-page SEO, the structural elements of a website are optimized. This is done so that Google can easily understand what the website is about. The website is designed so that it’s user friendly and meets Google’s quality standards.
When you hire a web design agency, you should always be sure that they have some knowledge of SEO. Without an SEO optimized site, your business website will literally be lost online.
With on-page SEO, keywords are optimized to specific pages. Although a page might rank for many different keywords, its main keyword is set and the page somewhat revolves around it. From here, all web and html elements are optimized for that particular search query and other LSI keywords.
On-page SEO includes:
- Page title
- Meta Description
- URL structure
- Page speed
- Image optimization
- SEO content
- Keyword density
- H1-H3 headings
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is everything that happens off of a site that shows the search engines the relevance and importance of a website. An SEO will commonly do link-building in order to speed up this process and rank your website.
Some off-page SEO factors include social media signals, backlinks, referring domains, and press release distribution. As SEO practices change, so do the means of automating some of these process. However, every SEO uses different strategies.
Local SEO
Local SEO is another important factor of how SEO works and boosts a business’s rank. Local SEO includes location specific signals that tell the search engines where a business is located and what type of business it is. Local SEO prompts a business listing to show up in the Google maps “snack pack” or 3 pack.
Local SEO Elements Include:
- Google my business optimization
- directory listings and citations
- reviews
- location specific pages
Combined, These Strategies Can Rank Your Website!
When combined, these different strategies and elements of search engine optimization can rank just about any website. Of course, a lot of analysis and trial and error takes place during the process. For this reason, SEO isn’t something that just anyone can do. You have to be an expert to do it correctly.
Search engine optimization requires the knowledge of how SEO works, experience, and strategy. This strategy is then put into play to slowly build a website’s online presence.
Over time and with continued SEO, the website should continue to see huge advances in traffic, phone calls, and ultimately revenue. If it doesn’t, it should be assumed that the project hasn’t been properly analyzed. In cases such as this, you should probably find another SEO agency.
Conclusion
SEO is a complicated set of strategies that really can’t be explained in a short blog post. Additionally, due to the nature and constant changing of online marketing, SEO is always changing as well.
For this reason, it’s hard to answer the question of how SEO works because how it works now might not be how it works in a few days or a year.
Staying immersed in the digital marketing world, and continuing educations is one of the crucial ways to stay on to of the world of search engine optimization. And that is essentially how SEO works.
