What is SEO and How Does it Work?

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is a marketing tactic to increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your website. It is  that your website can be found in search engines for relevant words and phrases for what your company is offering. It improves the position and click-through rate of organic search results, also known as ‘free’ or ‘natural' traffic. To achieve this, digital marketers can adapt website content, make changes to source code, and make technical changes such as enhancing metadata or fixing broken links. SEO is a long-term strategy, but it yields a significant return on investment (ROI) in comparison to other marketing strategies.

Currently, 93% of all digital journeys start with search engines, which should ring alarm bells for organisations that aren’t currently adopting SEO in their digital marketing strategy. But how does SEO work and how do organisations secure those top spots on Google search pages?

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So, how does SEO work?

When it comes to successful SEO, Google's are the rules to follow. Google accounts for 94% of all search engine traffic and 96% of all mobile search traffic, meaning their word goes for SEO.

So, what works? How does Google determine which pages to show in response to searches? And how do you get all this valuable traffic to your site?

The key areas that affect the ranking result for search are:

• High-quality content that is relevant and engaging
• Backlinks and marketing signals from relevant and credible sources
• Mobile optimisation
• Technical factors

Factors That Impact SEO

Now you know what SEO is and what it's based on, the next question is how does SEO optimisation work? SEO involves both technical and creative activities that are often grouped into ‘Onsite SEO’ and ‘Offsite SEO’ – splitting the practices that can be performed on and away from a website.

1) Content Marketing

One of the key factors that Google looks for in its top-ranking websites is rich and relevant content. If your company can identify which keywords or phrases potential clients are using in their online searches and incorporate them into your site, Google will more easily be able to identify your website as a suitable result.

Similarly, more engaging and effective content means that visitors will spend more time on your site. A high bounce rate signals to Google that visitors aren’t finding your information useful, making it rank lower in the search results.

Content doesn’t have to refer to just text either. Having a wide variety of content, from blog posts, whitepapers, infographics, and videos is vital in keeping your viewers engaged. Video content is particularly powerful in generating SEO results. Videos not only make landing pages more engaging but are 50x more likely to drive organic search results in comparison to just plain text.

2) On-page SEO

On-page SEO are those website features and elements over which you have complete control. This goes beyond purely content marketing to the deeper levels of your sites HTML. Here are a few on-page SEO factors that can help improve your search ranking:

• Title Tag – in under 70 characters this tells the search engine what your page is about.

• Sub-headings – not only do sub-headings make your content easier for visitors to read, but it can also help improve SEO. Using H1, H2 and H3 tags will help search engines better understand what your content is about.

• Internal links – links to other content on your site can help search engines learn more about your site.

• Image Name and ALT Tags – including a keyword or phrase in the image name and alt tag will help search engines better index your images when users perform an image search.

• Mobile optimisation – with more searches now taking place on mobile devices, it is essential that websites are responsive in their design. Not only will this increase user experience, but it can also affect your SEO.

With on-page SEO you need to be careful to avoid over-optimisation by trying to include too many keywords, as this could result in penalties from Google and other search engines. Each piece of content should aim to focus on one or two keywords, as this ensures it is relevant and specific and avoids negatively affecting your SEO ranking.

3) Off-Page SEO

In addition to on-site SEO, off-site SEO can also affect your ranking. Whilst you may not have direct control over these factors there are techniques you can implement to get them to work in your favour:

• Backlinks – this refers to links back to your site from other sites for example, through the content of others that are within your industry or field of interest. The more links that point towards your website, from quality and relevant sources, the better!

• Social – likes and shares on social media can also help boost your SEO. The more quality content you publish, the more likely you will be to get people to share your content with others.

 

As above, Steve Clayton, Chief Storyteller at Microsoft, retweeted our post on Twitter.

SEO has a huge impact on website traffic and your company's overall digital performance. It has a much higher conversion rate than traditional marketing methods, and though results are not seen overnight, it is the best way to build a sustainable online presence that will continue to bring in new organic site traffic for years to come.