The Basics of SEO – What is SEO and Why Does it Matter?

What are the basics of SEO?

What are the main components of search engine optimization? In this article, we’re going to answer these questions and more.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, has become increasingly important for businesses to stay relevant in the digital age. So what is SEO, exactly? It’s about on-page ranking tactics that optimize your website so that search engines can find, index and rank your site when a search engine user conducts a query. 

For example, if you type boot stores near me into Google Search bar on your computer, the first five results are likely to be websites advertising footwear brands with stores near you. 

By adding keywords related to their business to their page titles, meta tags, headings and other SEO basics throughout their content, companies improve the odds that they will appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).

How Do Search Engines Work?

Search engines work by crawling the web looking for content. They will then store all the information they find, rank it based on relevance to a keyword, and serve up relevant results in response to search queries. 

This means that any website can rank well for a given keyword if the content on the site matches what people are searching for. SEO marketing involves understanding how search engines work in order to create content that aligns with popular keywords. 

The goal of SEO is to get your site ranked as high as possible so when people search for certain terms or phrases you show up on the first page. SEO marketing also includes off-page optimization techniques such as link building, social media engagement, guest blogging, blog commenting and more.

Why Are People Interested In Learning About SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps businesses compete online, by boosting their website’s ranking on search engines. SEO can be time-consuming and challenging to learn, but there are many SEO tools out there to help you succeed. 

SEO marketing is a form of internet marketing that involves optimizing your website for search engines. This includes using relevant keywords in your content, ensuring that you have the appropriate code in place, and choosing the best title tags. SEO tools can make SEO easier for beginners. 

Keyword Research

SEO tools can make SEO easier for beginners. A few popular SEO tools include Yoast SEO, Google Analytics, Bing Webmaster Tools, SEMrush and Ahrefs. These are all valuable resources to help improve your site’s performance on search engines.

For example, if you wanted to know what other people search for when they think about your business niche, then Google AdWords would be a good place to start.

On-Page Optimization

To optimize your site for search engines, you need to make sure that: 

1) the website name (domain) matches the page’s title tag; 

2) each page has a unique title tag that conveys what the page is about; 

3) pages have meta descriptions with compelling content; 

4) all images have alt tags that contain keywords relevant to the content on the page. 

Off-Page Optimization: 

The way links are built between sites plays a key role in how well they rank in Google. If a link goes from one site to another, there needs to be a no follow attribute applied. On social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, if people share a URL, those posts will also pass some link equity. 

The more engagement that’s created around your content on these networks, the better chance it’ll be indexed by Google and drive traffic back to your site.

Tools for Researching Your Website’s Progress

– Google Analytics: Google’s free analytics service can provide a wealth of information about where your site needs improvement. It will give you an overview of your site’s traffic, how many visitors come to your site, what they do while they’re there, etc. 

– Moz: Moz offers comprehensive analytics and offers a wide variety of tools that help in researching your site’s progress. 

– Ahrefs: With this tool, you can see which keywords are driving the most organic traffic to your site, which pages on your website have the highest organic search rankings for specific keywords, the backlinks leading to those pages, who links to them (the referring domains) and more! 

– Majestic: Majestic has built its reputation as the go-to tool for analyzing domain authority. Domain authority is calculated by looking at several aspects of the link profile such as the number, quality and relevance of links pointing to your domain. Majestic also tracks all changes to a domain’s linking structure so you can watch when new sites link or stop linking over time.

Final thoughts

SEO may seem like an overwhelming topic, but with a little knowledge and practice, you’ll be able to implement a successful strategy. Whether you’re just starting out or looking for ways to improve your existing strategy, these tips will help you get started.