A Beginner’s Guide to SEO
Have you ever wondered how Google determines what links to show you when you make a search? Why your competitor’s site is the top result while yours isn’t even on the first page? Why your customers are struggling to find you online? This short guide will help you to understand the basics of the answer each of these questions: SEO.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process of optimizing a website’s structure and content so that the website appears as high as possible on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for relevant searches.
Why Does it Matter?
95% of Google’s search traffic only views the front page of results for any given search. This means that the almost everyone who searches on Google will never click to the second page for most of their searches. In other words, if your site isn’t on the front page of results for relevant searches, it may as well be invisible.
Ranking within the front page matters, as well. The first three results receive a combined 61% of all clicks, with the first result alone taking about 33%. These aren’t just vanity metrics for your business. People search regularly for products and services, and are increasingly turning to search engines for directory information like store hours and location.
How Does it Work?
Google and other search engines are constantly sifting through the internet using software called “crawlers”. These crawlers look at every web page that they’ve previously visited, and search for more by following new links. When a crawler arrives at a new page, it indexes the new page.
Indexing consists of organizing and categorizing web pages based on their content. Sites are then scored for relevance and authority, determined mathematically through certain algorithms.
Relevance is established by the content of the page being crawled. If the text on a site corresponds closely with the keywords used in the title and headers of the page, and the code is structured properly, then that site will likely score well for relevance.
Authority is determined based on PageRank. It’s a fairly common misconception that the “Page” in PageRank refers to web pages; in fact, the formula is named after one of the founders of Google, Larry Page. PageRank assesses a website’s authority by measuring how many links go to and from the site, and by evaluating the quality of the linked sites. Being linked to by a respected site, like CNN.com, will do more for a site’s authority than being linked by a lower authority site.
The higher a site’s relevance and PageRank, the higher it will appear in the list of results.
How Can I Improve My Site’s SEO?
SEO is not an overnight process, as acquiring high quality backlinks takes time. Backlinks from high authority websites will give you the most “link juice”, but there are some easy on-page SEO changes you can make to optimize your website for search engines. Updating meta tags with keywords related to your website, improving slow page rendering speeds on desktop & mobile, and fixing any broken pages will all help to improve your SEO.
If you want to begin optimizing your website’s infrastructure for search engines, you can learn more about SEO best practices and how to implement them here. If you don’t have time to teach yourself, consider hiring a digital agency.
