What Is SEO & Understanding Basics of SEO

As of June 2023, the Internet hosts a staggering 201 million active websites, presenting a daunting landscape for anyone seeking online visibility.

Within your niche, thousands of websites vie for the coveted attention of your target audience. The harsh reality is that achieving a coveted spot on the first page of Google SERP (search engine results pages) is an uphill battle in this fiercely competitive environment.

So, how do you secure a top-ten ranking in your niche and ensure visibility for your target keywords?

That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play.

But what is SEO, and what does it entail? Read this detailed guide to learn everything you need to know about SEO.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization, commonly known as SEO, is a set of practices and strategies aimed at optimizing a website to improve its visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Search engines like Google use a long list of ranking factors to determine website rankings for any keyword. SEO helps you optimize your website to get a high score on all important parameters, such as authority, trust, relevance, and user experience.

Semrush clearly explains the concept of SEO in the image below.

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• What: SEO is the process of improving a website’s search visibility and rankings on search engine results pages (SERP).
• Why: The higher a site ranks on SERP determines how much organic traffic it will get because people typically don’t look beyond the first page to find answers to their queries. Sites that rank at the top get the most clicks and organic traffic.
• How: SEO involves improving a website’s performance on search engines’ ranking factors, such as relevance, quality of content, backlinks, authority, and user experience. It involves a variety of tactics like keyword optimization, code optimization, and content optimization to achieve this.

What Is the Importance of SEO?

SEO is a sustainable, low-budget marketing strategy to drive traffic to your website, which can turn into leads and even customers.

But before we discuss the benefits of SEO in detail, it’s important that you understand how search engines work. As such, SEO involves improving aspects of your website that search engines use as ranking factors.

Let’s get started!

How Do Search Engines Work?

Search engines like Google use crawlers (aka bots or spiders) to crawl millions of web pages and index them based on relevance. They have a database of all active websites and keep updating that database via continual crawls.

When a user types a query in the search bar, search engines go through this database to provide the most relevant results. They sort the results and rank them based on relevance, authority, and numerous other ranking factors.

The image below explains this concept:

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So, where does SEO come into the picture?

SEO can help you improve your score on these ranking factors, giving you better chances of ranking highly for relevant search queries.

Clearly, SEO plays an important role in improving search visibility and rankings for websites. Let’s discuss this and other benefits of SEO in detail in the next section.

Key Benefits of SEO

Here are the key benefits of SEO:

• Improves SERP Visibility and Rankings:
  

  SEO helps you optimize your website so that search engines understand and index it better. This improves the search visibility for relevant keywords.

• Helps Drive More Website Traffic:

   By optimizing your content for keywords, you can ensure your content ranks for the right search queries. This helps boost organic traffic.

• Boosts Authority and Trust:

  SEO tactics like backlinking and online review management help improve trust in your website. This, in turn, boosts authority and rankings.

• Provides a Better User Experience:

  On-page and technical SEO focus on improving the user experience in myriad ways. From creating easy-to-read relevant content to improving page speed, SEO can help your site visitors better engage with your website.

• Generates Leads and Drives Sales Conversions:

  Using internal linking and persuasive content, you can drive sales conversions from your website.

SEO Fundamentals: The 3 Pillars of SEO

There are three types of SEO strategies: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.

Both on-page and technical SEO are on-site SEO techniques that people often club together. However, to give you more clarity, we’ll cover these separately.

Let’s get started.

1. On-Page SEO

On-page SEO involves SEO practices that require you to optimize your web pages and content to improve your search visibility and rankings.

On-page SEO deals mainly with the content on your website and not the backend code. Let’s discuss some of the key on-page SEO factors in detail.

Keyword Research

Every blog post or web page on your website should be focused on a target keyword. This is the keyword that you want your page to rank for when a user searches for it on Google.

Conduct thorough keyword research using SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs. Semrush’s Keyword Magic tool, for instance, generates thousands of keywords based on a seed keyword or topic.

• Simply add a broad topic or keyword in the search bar, as shown below:

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• Press the “Search” button, and it will give you a long list of keywords to choose from.

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For each piece of content you create, choose a target keyword based on:

• Relevance
• Search volume
• Keyword difficulty (KD)
• Search intent

One of the best SEO best practices is to choose 3–5 side keywords to provide more context to search engines about your content. Search engines use these keywords to understand what your content is about and then index and rank it accordingly.

Content Optimization

After choosing your keywords, you should create high-quality content that is:

• Unique and covers a topic in depth
• Relevant to your audience and provides value to them
• Well-structured and easy-to-read
• Optimized with your target and side keywords
• Research-backed and has ample statistics and images
• In alignment with the search intent for your chosen keyword

As a general rule, you can keep the keyword density at around 1% for blog posts and 2% for landing pages. Keyword density shows the percentage of the number of times a keyword appears in your content against the total word count.

If you have old content that is not optimized, you should conduct regular audits and update and optimize your old content for specific keywords.

Mobile Friendliness

Given that over 50% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices, you must create content that renders well on all devices.

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Here are some tips to make your website mobile-friendly:

• Use a mobile-responsive design and layout for your website
• Compress images and don’t use heavy media files
• Use a legible font that is big enough to be read on mobile devices
• Avoid the use of intrusive pop-ups
• Use a minimal design and declutter your web pages
• Create scannable content by using H1, H2, and H3 tags

Page Speed

Speed is one of the most critical Google ranking factors. Slow-loading sites deliver a poor user experience and are penalized by Google for poor rankings.

Here are some tips to improve site speed:

• Use a Content Delivery Network
• Leverage browser and CDN caching
• Compress all media files you upload to your site
• Use lazy loading to load sections of a page as needed
• Reduce HTTP requests for your site

URL Structure

Here are some things you should do.

• Use a simple and easy-to-understand URL structure for your website. URLs should show a clear path from your homepage to the specific page.
• Have a logical URL structure that shows exactly where a page is located within your site’s hierarchy. This helps both users and search engines navigate your site better.

Here’s an image by Ahrefs showing the anatomy of a URL.

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You can follow a similar URL structure for your website.

Here are some other best practices to optimize your site’s URL structure:

• Keep the length short, preferably below 70 characters
• Include each page’s target keyword in its URL
• Hide the www prefix to shorten a URL further
• Use static URLs
• Use simple, descriptive words and avoid complex numbers or characters

Meta Titles, Descriptions, and Tags

Meta titles and tags play an important role in SEO—they help search engines and site visitors provide more content about your content and make it more readable.

When creating content, always use H1, H2, and H3 tags to structure it and make it readable. Ensure that you use your primary keyword in your meta tags, as this helps search engines better understand and index your content.

For each page, add a meta title and description and include your main keyword in each. Here are some best practices you must follow:

• Include your main keyword at the beginning of both meta-titles and descriptions.
• Make sure these are relevant, and tell the readers exactly what they will get if they click on your link.
• Ask a question in your meta description to pique interest.
• Write a meta description that addresses the search intent.

Internal Linking

While internal linking may not directly impact SERP rankings, it’s still an important part of SEO.

Here’s what internal linking can help you with:

• It directs your site visitors to related content or resources on your website that they will find useful. This improves the user experience.
• It encourages site visitors to stay on your website longer, which signals to Google that people find your content useful and relevant.
• It helps you direct prospects to relevant sales pages and helps drive sales conversions.
• It improves crawlability for search engine crawlers and helps them better understand your site structure and find new pages on your site.

So, ensure that you add relevant internal links to all your web pages and content.

2. Off-Page SEO

As evident from the name, off-page SEO involves things you do outside your website that impact your site’s search visibility and rankings.

A common misconception regarding off-page SEO is that it involves only backlink building, but that’s not true. There’s more to it than link-building.

Let’s discuss the three off-page SEO aspects you should focus on.

Link Building

Building high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites in your niche is the most important part of off-page SEO. It helps build trust, authority, and credibility, all of which are important ranking factors.

Here’s how it works:

• When a reputable website links to yours, it gives its vote of confidence in your site.
• This signals to search engines that your website is trusted by other authoritative websites, so it must be good.
• This, in turn, builds your site’s authority and improves your SERP rankings.

The image below perfectly explains the concept.

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Some common practices for building backlinks include the following:

• Guest posting
• Claiming unlinked brand mentions
• Broken link building
• HARO link building
• Answering Quora or Reddit questions

Social Media Signals

Social media has become an essential part of any company’s off-page SEO strategy. By improving your social media presence, you can drive social traffic to your website and build a positive online reputation.

The more likes, comments, and shares you get on your social media posts, the more search engines think your brand is reputable and trustworthy.

Just like authoritative backlinks, social signals also help build your website’s trust and authority.

Online Reviews

Customer reviews can make or break your company’s reputation, not just with prospective customers but also with search engines.

A company that has tons of negative reviews loses trust and authority. Search engines would not want to rank such a site at the top when users are clearly unhappy with its products or services.

That’s why reviews and reputation management are important parts of off-page SEO.

Here are a few best practices you should follow:

• Encourage customers to leave honest reviews for your company.
• Respond promptly to all reviews, good or bad.
• Handle negative reviews with politeness and solve customer problems or take corrective measures based on customer feedback.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO deals with improving a site’s code, architecture, navigation, and crawlability. It involves optimizing the technical aspects of a website to improve its search visibility.

Before we discuss the various technical SEO strategies, make sure you have a good web hosting service provider and plan. Your website’s speed and performance will depend a lot on that. 

Once you have that, optimize the following aspects of your website:

Crawling and Indexing

Here are some tips:

• First, ensure that only one version of your website is accessible to crawlers and that there are no duplicate content issues.
• Next, make sure all the pages and content on your website that you want Google spiders to crawl are accessible. Make sure no important pages are blocked by a robots.txt file.
• Use Google’s URL Inspection tool to see if a page is accessible to Google’s crawlers and being indexed or not.
• You should also use a simple and logical site structure to improve crawlability and indexability, but more on that later.

XML Sitemaps

A sitemap is a map of your site containing all important pages. Submitting a sitemap to search engines allows them to crawl better and index your pages.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Use tools like Screaming Frog and Ahrefs to create an XML sitemap for your website.
• To submit your sitemap, go to Google Search Console’s “Indexing > Sitemaps” section and add a new site

Structured Data

Using structured data makes it easier for Google to understand your website’s content. Think of it as a language that only the search engines understand.

So, what exactly is structured data, and how does it work?

• It’s a standardized format for providing information about a web page, one that search engines understand very well. Since it helps search engines get more context on a page, it also improves your chances of ranking higher for relevant search queries.
• Using structured data helps your search results be displayed as rich snippets, which look different from regular search results.

For example, when you search for a recipe on Google, you’ll see rich search results with images, as shown below. 

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The websites that used structured data have their results displayed at the top like this, while others appear as regular search results. That’s the benefit of using structured data.

To create structured data, use a schema markup generator. Many such tools are available for free, so you can easily create and use schema markup for your web pages.

Canonicalization

Here’s what you need to know:

• If your site has duplicate content, then Google will be confused as to which page it should index. Make things simpler by using a canonical tag (rel= “canonical”) to tell it which page to index.
• This also helps you optimize your site’s crawl budget, as search engines do not need to crawl all the duplicate pages, just the main ones.

Site Architecture

Use these tips to improve site architecture:

• Create a simple and logical site structure for your website, with a clear hierarchy of pages. This will include the homepage, category pages, subcategory pages, etc.
• Add a navigation menu to help users find the right pages quickly.

This image by Semrush shows an example of a simple site architecture that’s easy for both users and search engines to understand.

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Why is this important?

Because it improves site navigation for both your site visitors and search engines, the former enhances the user experience, while the latter helps improve indexability and search rankings for your website.

Website Code

Using unnecessarily long website code is not just lazy but also bad for SEO. Minimize your website’s code and make it more efficient. This can be done by deleting extra spaces and comments that are only useful for developers but not for search engines.

It will help speed up your pages and reduce unnecessary bandwidth consumption.

Local SEO: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

Local SEO is a type of SEO that helps businesses rank for relevant, location-specific search queries. If you want to drive search traffic from a specific geographic location, then local SEO is more relevant to you than general SEO.

Here are some common local SEO tactics to get you started:

• Claim a Google My Business listing and add your accurate business details and contact information.
• Use location-specific target keywords for optimizing your blog and web content.
• Get your business listed in various local directories relevant to your niche.
• If you serve multiple geographies, create location-specific landing pages to cater to each and drive local search traffic.
• Pay special attention to mobile optimization, as most people search for local businesses using their mobile devices.

Use a mix of local and general SEO strategies to get the best results, especially if you have business operations in multiple geographies.

How Much Does SEO Cost?

There are no accurate estimates of how much SEO costs because it varies from business to business, depending on various factors.

Some factors that determine the cost of SEO are:

• SEO Goals: These will determine the scope and duration of your SEO campaign, which directly affects the SEO costs.
• In-House vs Outsourced: Whether you choose to use an in-house team or outsource to an agency will also affect your SEO costs. Agencies can charge a lot for SEO services, so if you’re on a tight budget, you can do a lot yourself.
• Industry Competition: If you’re in a small and unique niche, you may not have a lot of competitors, and SEO will cost less for you. But if you want your website to rank in an already saturated industry, it’ll cost a lot.

Assess your SEO needs and get quotes from agencies to estimate the exact SEO cost for your business. If you choose to do it in-house, your main costs will include the cost of the SEO tools that you use.

How Long Does It Take to See SEO Results?

Before you start your SEO efforts, know this: SEO is a long-term strategy.
There are no shortcuts or quick wins. SEO takes time and consistent effort to deliver results. It’s not something you hire an agency to do one time and reap results for years.

As such, you should be clear that it’s a longer commitment before you start your SEO journey.

As for timelines, SEO can start showing results within months if done right. But don’t expect drastic changes during this period. It will likely take you a few years to establish your site’s authority and rank on the first page of Google SERP.

Conclusion

When it comes to SEO, it is essential to recognize its pivotal role in shaping a website’s online presence. By strategically implementing SEO practices such as keyword optimization, quality content creation, and effective link building, businesses and website owners can enhance their visibility on search engines.

Also, make sure you use a good website builder and hosting service provider to launch your website, and then start using SEO best practices right from the start. 

If you’ve not yet finalized a domain for your new website, use Crazy Domains to get one that is relevant to your business. It not only establishes your unique online identity but also contributes to better search engine rankings.