Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Explained
Tools, metrics, type of content, and how it works - your basic guide
For over a decade, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has helped businesses of all sizes reach their prospective audiences. All companies, including students and big companies like Amazon, Apple, and Samsung, depend on SEO to reach a wider audience effectively.
With more than 83%, Google dominates the world of search engines. For many, Google has become a verb, rather than an organisation. All you have to do is “Just Google It” for all your questions and needs.
If your business has a digital presence, implementing a good and technical SEO strategy should be at the top of the list to rank higher on Google or any other search engine. No matter at what stage you are in your marketing funnel – awareness, consideration, or lead generation – SEO can help drive traffic to your web pages.
Also read: What is email marketing? Your 101 guide to email campaigns
How does Search Engines work?
Search Engines like Google and Bing work on basic principles of Crawling, Indexing and Ranking.
Whenever you add a search query on Google, it will crawl the entire internet, related to that specific query, to find, fresh and relevant content. Now, content in this case can be anything – an image, video, webpage, news link, blog. Once the bots have crawled the pages, it will store all the data in ‘Google Index’.
Finally, Google ranks each website on several different factors – relevancy, freshness, authority, sources, and location and settings. These factors vary as per the nature of the query. If you are searching for recent news, then it will rank the most recent article above others. However, if you are searching for ‘best places to eat near me’ then it could use your location tracking and serve the relevant results.
How does SEO work?
The first step for a successful SEO strategy is to have a landing page that is mobile-friendly and optimised so that Google can crawl and index the page on relevant search queries. Then comes the most crucial part – content. There are different types of content you can opt for your landing page – long form, short form, informational, transactional, and so on.
However, to make sure that a person stays on the page for a longer period, you need to add as much as content possible. For this, it’s better to think like your target audience. They should get all the information they need from your website.
For instance, if you run an e-commerce portal on beauty products that highlight different hair products and accessories, and within that, there’s a landing page for ‘Hair Oil’. To make it SEO-optimised, you need to add as much relevant content as possible, that the target audience will resonate with. For a better understanding, you can check out this product page from Nykaa.
Once your landing page and content are SEO-optimised, do comprehensive research on keywords and run Google ads on those keywords. Let’s assume you to have run a Google ads campaign on the keywords, “Hair Oil”, “Best hair oil”, and “Hair oil for different hair types”, and your ad copy is short, crisp, and rich in keywords.
So, when a person searches any of the above terms, Google will crawl several websites and whichever website is the most optimised in terms of performance and SEO, will be ranked higher and shown to the customer.
Also read: Social media marketing (SMM): advantages, how it works and how could it help your brand
Types of SEO
On-page SEO:
The SEO techniques you implement on the landing page to improve the ranking is called on-page SEO. Here’s the checklist you should follow to improve your on-page SEO:
- Optimise Website content: headers, meta descriptions, keywords, title tags, blogs, etc.
- Keep the content fresh and unique
- Keyword-rich URLs
- Check Internal and external links
- Improve page performance
- improve user experience
Off-page SEO:
Off-page SEO is all about keeping the reputation of your website high. Through link building, content marketing, reviews, and backlinks from reputable sources, off-page SEO increases your chances of getting ranked higher on search engines. Ranking factors on search engine results pages also consider pages that have more Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E.A.T).
Compared to on-page SEO, you have limited control over off-page SEO since you need a great extent of exposure from reliable sources to get backlinks.
SEO metrics and how to measure its performance
When it comes to digital marketing, data should be your holy grail. Without data tracking, no matter how much SEO-rich content you post or how quick your landing page is, it won’t matter.
We know, not everyone can be an SEO expert overnight, but if you are running a website, there are some basic metrics that you need to track constantly.
Organic Traffic:
Organic traffic refers to the number of visitors that your website has received organically, without clicking on any ads. High organic traffic suggests that your landing page is doing exceptionally well and it has all the relevant keywords and information that a person is searching for.
Keyword ranking:
Every word on Google has a ranking on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Hence, you should target keywords that have high rank, which could eventually lead to more traffic. However, these rankings are frequently changed, depending on a variety of factors. So make sure if you are tracking certain keywords, you do it regularly.
Bounce rate:
Bounce rate means the percentage of visitors who have left the landing page without completing any action. A very high bounce rate means that either the landing page isn’t optimised or that the content isn't relevant to the target audience.
Backlinks:
To maintain your website authority, you need to track the backlinks that you get from other reliable sources. This is one of the most critical metrics to get ranked higher on Google. This metric not only shows the viewers how trustworthy your landing page is, but it also helps you increase your traffic.
Page speed:
This one is pretty straightforward. A fast-loading webpage on different devices and browsers always has a positive effect on the viewer experience. If your page is slow, then no matter how engaging your content is, it’ll always have low traffic.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Visibility:
SERP visibility is the percentage of how often your landing pages are displayed on Google for relevant keywords. If the percentage is less, then you need to add relevant content that is engaging, fresh and updated.
SEO Tools:
There are several tools that you can opt for to improve your SEO strategy. Now, choosing the right tool is a bit complicated. Because you need to factor in your budget, your goals, and which metrics you’re looking to track. Each tool has its advantages and disadvantages. To start, you can check out the below tools as these will help you track the basic metrics.
- Google Analytics
- Semruch
- Moz
- Arehs
- SE Ranking