You’ve probably had this conversation before if you have a business page, website, or a blog.
It went like this:
“I have all of this content, but it can’t be found on Google search engine.”
Well, why don’t you optimize your Google content for SEO!
“SEO?”
Yes, it stands for search engine optimization.
If you want to be visible on search engines first result page or even rank high, you will need to follow certain action steps.
“Oh, I hear you, so,
What is SEO?”
SEO is the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of your page, website, or blog to gain visibility, and eventually increase traffic. The exposure you will get on search engines results through practices will be non-paid, or organic. SEO is the linking bridge between users’ online searches on one side, and the search engines’ results ranking on the other side.
One the first side, SEO is about attempting to understand what users are searching for online, the answers they are looking for, the words they are choosing, their intent behind the search, and the type of content they wish to consume. You must know the answers to these questions to connect to the users who are currently searching online for the content you offer, and who will hopefully convert into your audience.
On the other side, search engine optimization would be about delivering your content in the best way for search engines to display it as a relative search result.
“How can my content be a relative search result?”
Once a user enters a search query, search engine results pages — often referred to as SERPs — present him with all relative results. These featured results could be both in advertising or ads format, and dynamic organic results formats – called SERP features. Examples of SERP features are snippets, People also ask, image carousels, or video markups. The main drive for SERP features to emerge is meeting the users’ search intentions.
For instance, when you search for “GMT to EEST Time”, your top SERP result will be a quick 2 lines read telling you the time difference. Scrolling down a bit, you will see SERPs in the form of People also ask like “What is EEST in GMT?”. And if you continue to scroll, SERPs will feature links to different time conversion websites.
Keep in mind that search engines strive for a win-win situation. Search engines make money from advertising, while SERPs solve the searchers’ queries and keep them coming back for more content. Another note here is that not all of the search features can be influenced by SEO. Some of these features usually present data acquired from proprietary data sources like Wikipedia, WebMD, or IMDb.
“Why is SEO that important then?”
Search engine optimization still drives the majority of online traffic in search engines in comparison to paid advertisements, social media, and other online platforms.
Savvy searchers will recognize the best SEO search results content, even when it’s organic. In fact, organic content receives 20 times more clicks than paid advertisements! That’s 20 times more traffic. Think of it for the long term too. Search engine optimization could be an online marketing channel that can nominate you as an authority in your area of expertise over time.
That’s why you shouldn’t underestimate any solid piece of content you produce using strategies such as the targeted keywords. With the right keywords, your traffic will snowball gradually, passively, and totally free. SEO is definitely important when you treat it as a journey with the goal to deliver better information to search engines and to be properly indexed and displayed at the top of search results.
“Are there specific techniques or guidelines to abide by?”
Actually, there are.
White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO
White hat are the search engine optimization techniques and best practices that you would want to follow. White hat strategies are the ones that abide by the search engine rules and regulations, with the primary focus to provide valuable content to users.
Black hat refer to spamming, tricking, or fooling techniques that trick search engines and users as well. Theoretically, black hat can work, however such techniques put websites at tremendous risk of being penalized, removed from search results, or subjected to ethics trials. Black hat represent an alarming reason to be careful when choosing an SEO expert or agency.
“How do I know if I need professional SEO assistance?”
As a start, you can perform basic SEO techniques all by yourself. But, if you’re willing to multiply your productivity, traffic, and sales, you would prefer professional SEO assistance. Depending on your budget, goals, timeframe, and complexity of your website, you can benefit from the services of SEO consultants, freelancer experts, or agencies.
Different SEO services can vary greatly in quality. So, it’s key to know how to choose the ideal service that can save you a lot of time and money. And once again, be aware of the wrong SEO techniques that would actually harm your content instead of boosting it.
“Is that all I have to think of when optimizing my content for SEO?”
As a last piece of advice, remember that SEO, visibility, traffic, and even ranking all are means to an end, not ends by themselves. Consequently, all of the traffic you drive and ranking you reign on will become a step closer to your larger business objective.
