What is SEO? What does it do? Why does it matter?
Whether you are just starting out or having been marketing content for years on the internet, you know that there are many questions about SEO that still have yet to be answered. With changes happening to ranking algorithms on a near daily basis, knowing exactly what SEO is and what it does can be challenging.What is SEO?
SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and involves the use of good marketing practices, keywords, and competition analysis. The aim of SEO is to get your pages ranked higher within a search engine’s result pages, also known as SERPs, so you can draw more organic traffic to the page.
Without using SEO, you won’t be able to establish yourself as an authority of your niche or industry. Nor will you be able to access the correct demographics that you are targeting.What is on-page SEO?
There are a couple types of SEO, and on-page SEO is one of them. This refers to the SEO tactics that you use on or within a web page to boost its standing within the SERPs. On-page SEO includes things like editing HTML source code, using keywords in well-written content, filling out metadata and tags, optimizing images, Schema markups, and more. On-page has nothing to do with external links.
Why does SEO matter today?
The reason why SEO continues to be the king of content and digital marketing is because people will never stop searching for answers and things. Knowing how to access that endless traffic throughout the internet gives you an edge up against the competition. Using things like keywords, ads, link building, readable and shareable content has a positive effect on not only your ranks but the profit from this, too.
But without SEO, you won’t be able to sway the search engine algorithms that determine where pages get placed in the SERPs. Though these algorithms are complex, SEO doesn’t have to be.What factors affect SEO the most?
The algorithms that drive SEO practices are constantly scouring the internet for relevant information from authoritative sources. These algorithms crawl your content, evaluating it, to see if it is relevant to what people are looking for. This is mostly based on keywords, long-tail phrases, and other optimized sections of content, like headers and title tags. However, that is not all. Other factors like social metrics, keyword usage and density, brand features, and how people engage with your website—are they clicking ads or links to enter? Are they sharing the content? Do they ignore your page altogether?–come into play.
