SEO Meaning: What Every Internet Marketer Needs To Know About
If you don’t know what SEO stands for, then you probably
don’t really understand how it’s changing the way you do business online. In
this post, we’ll explain what search engine optimization is, why you should
care about it, and what you can do to improve your rankings in the SERPs.
SEO Meaning
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of
improving the visibility of your website. This can be achieved through a
variety of techniques including increasing the quality of the content on your
site, creating a more user-friendly site, and building links to your site.
This way, your website is more likely to appear at the top
of search engine results pages. While a good quality website may rank well
without any work on your part, there are some things that you can do to further
improve your chances of ranking higher in the search engines.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 101:
What It Is
If you're familiar with how search engines work, SEO can
seem like a pretty technical topic. But if you've ever bought a product from a
search engine, you've likely noticed that there are ways to optimize your site
for it.
These are known as search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.
In short, SEO is a way to improve your ranking on search engines. It's all
about optimizing the content of your website for search engines so people can
find it.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a pretty straightforward
concept. The idea is to get listed higher in the organic (or unpaid) search
results for certain words and phrases related to your website or web page.
Obviously, you want to rank as high as possible on these
unpaid results because those are the results people are most likely to click on
if they are interested in what you have to offer.
The Four Types of SEO
There are four basic types of search engine optimization
(SEO): On-page, Off-page, Technical, and Copywriting.
These are the primary types of optimizations you should be
focusing on. In general, though, don’t worry about the other types until you
master the basics. They are as follows:
1. On-Page SEO
Improving your site content in such a way that makes it more
relevant to what the user is searching for. This includes things like using
specific and unique words in the titles, meta descriptions, and alt tags of
your web pages.
It also includes making sure all the content on your site is
grammatically correct, using relevant pictures, and having a clear, concise
site map that defines page relationships and lets the search engine spiders
find your site’s most important pages more easily.
2. Off-Page SEO
Building links to your site. The links you get from other
sites often have more influence on the ranking of your site than the actual
content of your site. So, the more links you have pointing to your site, the
higher you will rank.
There are many ways you can go about getting links to your
site:
●
you can offer to write for free for the webmasters of
other websites,
●
you can pay to be listed as a vendor in some of the
link exchange directories,
●
you can contact webmasters you know and ask if they
would be willing to link to your website, or
●
you could start building your own directory site where
you are actively soliciting links from other websites.
Whatever method you use to build your off-page backlinks,
you should do it with the same intensity you would employ to create a
successful PPC campaign.
3. Technical SEO
Making your site easier and faster to load, easier and
faster to navigate, and—importantly—easier and faster for your site’s search
engine spiders to index.
It means things like using shorter words instead of longer
ones, using relevant and specific descriptive titles, using clear headings and
subheadings, keeping your images small, and compressing as much of your site’s
content as possible.
4. Copywriting and SEO
Write a compelling copy on your website that will make
people want to link to your site. Good copywriters are very skilled at writing
sales pitches, blurbs, headlines, descriptions, and even testimonials.
Conclusion
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It’s the
process of tweaking and optimizing the content on your website (not just your headlines)
to get higher in the rankings on the search engines for specific keywords.
The more relevant and prominent your website is in the
search results, the more visitors you will get. It’s free traffic! This means,
if you are not already using search engine optimization, you should be.
SEO is a long-term game. It’s not a “quick-fix” strategy
that will get you rich overnight. However, it is the best way to dominate a
market with people who are actively searching for what you have to offer.
If you learn how to play the long-term game of SEO, you will
inevitably win. And, once you do win, the rewards can be tremendous!