What Is SEO?
SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. It involves practices aimed at boosting traffic to your website and enhancing the ranking of web pages on organic search results—a popular means through which people access content on the internet.
How important is SEO?
As a business, knowing the relevance of SEO in marketing is as important as answering the question, “what is SEO?” Therefore, the definition of SEO has been dissected into three parts for better understanding.
Organic search results: A user’s query is usually formed by unpaid listings on search engine results pages (SERPs), mostly made up of ads, especially pay-per-click ads). However, ads are not the same as organic search results since these results are ranked based on the search engine algorithm instead of the advertising bid amount. In essence, you do not need to pay a fee to attain a higher position on the organic search results.
Quality of organic traffic: There is a need to know website content’s relevance to the user and search query. SEO might be of no use to you if a search engine directs people who need Apple products to your website when you are a distributor of apple fruits. Visitors are unlikely to convert into customers when you sell a different product or service from what they desire.
The quality of your organic traffic is good when your website receives visitors who have a genuine interest in the product, service, or information you are offering. Furthermore, great SEO takes advantage of a search engine’s role in ensuring a prospective customer’s intent, as evident when the search query corresponds with the website listings in the SERPs.
Quantity of organic traffic: SEO professionals can determine if their tactics are working by ascertaining the number of visitors who can access your website through organic search results. There is a big chance that a user will access websites ranked closer to the top of SERP. Hence, SEO practices should focus on positioning relevant pages as high as possible. When an increased number of users searching for your product visit your website, there is a greater chance that those hits will translate into increased conversions.
How does SEO work?
Crawlers, also referred to as bots or spiders, are used by search engines to assemble data found on the internet. Beginning from a web page, a crawler tracks down “internal links” to other pages within the website and “external links” that lead to the pages of different websites.
The tracked webpages and links allow crawlers to identify the relevance of each page and the semantic connection to other pages in an index—a vast database used by the search engine.
When a query is typed into the search box, the search engine uses a complex algorithm to gather a list of relevant results, which contain news, articles, images, videos, and other forms of digital content.
Bottom Line
Search Engine Optimization is an evolving field that often requires the involvement of a professional SEO agency for better and longer-lasting results. However, business owners need to have a fundamental idea about SEO to understand its importance for business growth.
Business owners who wish to expand their reach on the internet should be able to answer the question “What is SEO?” as understanding the concept may be the difference between a substantial online presence or a non-existent one.