- SEO involves research, planning, and continuous optimization
- Search engines use crawling, indexing, and ranking processes
- Key SEO elements: content, technical aspects, and user signals
- Regularly monitor and adjust strategies to maintain SEO performance
You arrived at this page by conducting a Google search using the terms [what is SEO] or [SEO].
Creative SEO Hub, a reputable online platform known for its extensive knowledge and experience in the field of SEO features this guide.
These (and additional) factors have contributed to this guide’s favorable standing with search engines, which has maintained its position at the top for years. Its accumulated signals indicate that it is credible and authoritative; consequently, it merits a ranking when an individual conducts an SEO search.
But let’s take a broader view of SEO. Overall, SEO operates using a combination of the following:
These individuals or groups are tasked with executing or overseeing the strategic, tactical, and operational aspects of search engine optimization.
Processes: The measures taken to improve the task’s efficiency.
The technology comprises the platforms and instruments used.
Activities: the output or final product.
Numerous additional factors influence how SEO operates. A high-level examination of the most critical knowledge and process components follows.
Six crucial elements, when combined, make SEO effective:
1. Understanding how search engines work.
Simply put, to ensure that individuals can locate your organization through search results on any platform, you must comprehensively understand the engine’s underlying technical mechanisms and send the appropriate “signals” to affect that visibility.
Traditional web search engines, such as Google, operate through four distinct phases of inquiry:
Crawling: Search engines use crawlers to find web pages using sitemaps and link analysis.
Rendering: Search engines use HTML, JavaScript, and CSS data to determine how a page will appear.
Search engines examine the metadata and content of the pages they find during indexing, incorporating them into a database; however, note that not all pages on a given website will undergo indexing.
Searchers input a query, and intricate algorithms evaluate a variety of signals to determine if a page is pertinent and of sufficient quality to display.
However, Google’s search engine optimization differs from platforms like Amazon or YouTube.
Consider Facebook, where engagement metrics (including likes, remarks, and shares) and user connections are critical considerations. As a result, on Twitter, signals such as recency, interactions, and the author’s credibility hold significance.
Furthermore, to add complexity, search engines have incorporated machine learning components to optimize content discovery, which further complicates the task of determining whether a particular element has improved performance.
2. Researching
Conducting research is vital to SEO. You can use the following forms of investigation to improve SEO performance:
Conducting audience research is critical to understanding your target market or audience. Regarding their demographics and psychographics, who are they? What causes them discomfort? What questions do they have answers for?
Keyword research identifies and incorporates valuable and pertinent search terms that people use to find your pages. It also provides insight into the competition and level of demand for these terms.
Investigate the competition. What are your rivals up to? What are their merits and demerits? What sort of material do they distribute?
Client/brand/business research: What are their goals, and how can SEO help them achieve them?
Researching a website: An assortment of SEO assessments can reveal potential improvements and challenges that are impeding organic search success. Consider conducting the following audits: technical SEO, content, link profile, and E-E-A-T.
By understanding the search intent for a given query (e.g., commercial, transactional, informational, or navigational), SERP analysis enables you to develop content with a greater chance of achieving high rankings or visibility.
3. Planning
Your SEO strategy comprises an extended course of action. Setting objectives and developing a plan to achieve them is essential.
Consider your SEO strategy to be a road map. While your route is susceptible to change and development over time, the ultimate goal should remain unambiguous and unaltered.
Your SEO strategy may consist of the following:
Establishing objectives (e.g., SMART, OKRs) and anticipations (e.g., deadlines/milestones) is crucial.
We are aligning and defining meaningful KPIs and metrics.
It is crucial to choose the method of project development and execution—internal, external, or a combination of both.
I am responsible for managing communication and coordination with both external and internal stakeholders.
We are selecting and deploying technologies and tools.
We are recruiting, educating, and organizing a group.
Establish a budget.
I was reporting and quantifying findings.
We are documenting the process and strategy.
4. Creating and implementing
Once all investigations are complete, it’s time to implement ideas. This implies:
I am guiding the content team regarding the content that needs to be created.
Suggesting or executing modifications or improvements to current web pages: This may involve identifying additional methods to optimize the content, integrating keywords, topics, or entities, or enhancing and improving the content.
Eliminating obsolete, substandard, or out-of-date content includes material that fails to generate conversion-oriented traffic, ranks poorly, or assists in accomplishing SEO objectives.
5. Monitoring and maintaining
Your website must notify you whenever an error occurs or malfunctions. Constant monitoring is critical.
Please notify me if traffic to a critical page decreases, pages become unresponsive or slow, or the site falls out of the index, your entire website goes inactive, links break, or any of a multitude of other potentially disastrous occurrences.
6. Analyzing, assessing, and reporting on performance
Without SEO measurement, it is impossible to progress. To make data-driven SEO decisions, you must use the following:
Website analytics: Establish and utilize tools to capture performance data (at a minimum, free tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Bing Webmaster Tools).
Platforms and tools: While it is true that numerous “all-in-one” systems (or suites) provide access to multiple tools, it is also possible to monitor the performance of specific tasks using only a subset of SEO tools. Alternatively, in cases where one has the necessary resources but no commercially available tools precisely meet one’s needs, one may fabricate their tools.
Comprehensive progress reports are required after data collection is completed. You can generate reports manually or with software.
Performance reporting should convey a narrative at meaningful time intervals and generally involve comparisons to preceding report periods (e.g., year over year). This will vary depending on the nature of the website (monthly, quarterly, or at another interval is typical).
SEO is ongoing.
SEO is perpetual. Search engines, user behaviour, and your competitors are all constantly evolving. Over time, websites evolve, relocate, and malfunction. The material turns sour. Your processes ought to become more effective and efficient.
In conclusion, one can perpetually monitor, test, or improve efforts. According to Bruce Clay, SEO will not be complete until Google ceases to make changes and your competitors cease to exist.
How to learn SEO
Now that you better understand what SEO is and how it operates, what else can you discover?
It is advisable to incorporate into your routine, whether on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, the consumption of current SEO news, research, best practices, and other pertinent developments (or their viewing, listening to, or viewing). Attending at least one to two events annually should also be a priority.
The ever-changing behaviour and expectations of searchers necessitate the continual development of algorithms to accommodate these changes. Technological advancements, such as the meteoric rise of ChatGPT in late 2022 and the abrupt incorporation of generative AI into search results in 2023, further contribute to this.
Discover how search engines work
A fundamental understanding of how search engines function is required to comprehend how to perform SEO.
Search engines must initially discover your page. They learn new pages using programs (website crawlers or bots) that follow links from known pages. This is referred to as creeping.
A search engine analyzes a new page’s content in anticipation of adding it to an index, an extensive database of pages like Google’s. Such a process is known as indexing.
In conclusion, the search engine employs a variety of algorithms to select the most pertinent and high-quality pages from its index for presentation as ordered search results in response to users’ queries. The term “ranking” is an example.
Search engines crawl and index documents as part of SEO. Furthermore, demonstrate to search engines that your content excels (about excellence, pertinence, and user satisfaction).
Problematic aspects can arise at each stage, including crawling, indexing, and ranking. Therefore, it is crucial to comprehend these concepts and how to optimize them.
Understand SEO Ranking Factors
SEO ranking factors influence the visibility of your website and its pages in search engine results.
According to our research on ranking factors, text relevance is the most significant Google ranking factor. This refers to the extent to which the content on your page aligns with the user’s query.
Additionally, Google considers the following:
- How quickly a webpage appears
- The number of external links directing to your website is significant.
- Whether or not your site employs the HTTPS protocol
- Recognize the variations in SEO
SEO’s principal categories include:
- On-page SEO entails improving a particular page’s ranking. Content optimization, title tag optimization, and internal linking are all tactics.
- Off-page SEO refers to SEO techniques implemented outside of a website’s confines. Link building, content distribution, and social media management are all tactics.
- Technical SEO: enhancing your website’s technical components to optimize it for search engines and users. Techniques include improving site architecture and page performance.
Moreover, there are SEO strategies tailored to particular content formats, such as:
- Optimizing images for higher rankings in both standard and image search results
- Video SEO is optimizing videos for higher rankings on search engine results pages, image results pages, video results pages, and platforms like YouTube.
- Additionally, there are SEO specializations for particular categories of websites or businesses, including:
- Local SEO: Methods that assist regional enterprises in attaining a higher position in local search engine results
- International SEO strategies for websites that cater to multiple languages and geographies
- E-commerce SEO: Online store strategies
- SaaS SEO: Software as a Service (SaaS) company optimization strategies
- SEO strategies tailored to small enterprises
- B2B SEO: Business-to-business (B2B) brand strategies
- Develop crucial SEO abilities.
SEO is interdisciplinary and demands several practical abilities. The following are the most essential SEO skills:
Keyword Research
Discovering search terms (i.e., keywords) that relevant audiences enter into search engines is known as keyword research. Concentrating on the keywords with the most significant potential benefits for your company.
A helpreliable keyword research instrument will assist you in examining the following:
The table displays the monthly average number of queries about a particular keyword.
The difficulty of achieving a high ranking in search engine results is significant.
“Search intent” refers to the purpose of a user’s inquiry, also known as keyword intent.
SERP Analysis
SERP analysis evaluates the search engine results page (SERP) and its contents for a specified keyword.
It enables the identification of opportunities for SEO rankings and the determination of what steps are necessary to secure them.
For instance, recipes from frequently visited websites, deemed credible by search engines, dominate the search engine results page (SERP) for the term “chocolate cake”. This could make it difficult for lesser-known sites and other types of content to rank highly on this page.
Diverse SERP features (non-standard search results) will also be apparent. For instance, you will notice lengthy excerpts that include star ratings.
When creating a chocolate cake recipe, one might optimize for these components. This is done to enhance visibility and foster interactions.
Content Creation
Content creation is critical to search engine optimization (SEO), providing search engines with valuable material for evaluation and ranking purposes.
To achieve optimal results, you must:
- Generate pertinent content concepts or blog ideas.
- Utilize instruments for content creation.
- Develop informative, high-quality content for your target audience.
- Disseminate your content through a multitude of channels.
In general, Google strives to prioritize distinctive content that showcases the following qualities: expertise, experience, credibility, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). This is because it aims to provide users with valuable and reliable results.
This necessitates that your content be precise, exhaustive, and pertinent to your brand.
On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization enhances a website’s technical and content components. They become more relevant to target keywords and improve the user experience.
Additionally, it improves your search engine rankings and increases organic traffic to your website.
Critical components of on-page optimization include the following:
Title tags are clickable headings that can appear in search results. They should contain a compelling value proposition that encourages users to click through to your page and your primary keyword.
Search engine results may display meta descriptions as brief textual excerpts beneath headings. They must include a summary of the page’s content and a compelling call to action that motivates visitors to proceed by clicking.
Headers are subheadings that structure the content, facilitating scanning and reading. Incorporating pertinent keywords and adhering to a logical hierarchy (H1, H2, H3, etc.) is advisable.
Content: This is the primary portion of a webpage that provides the audience with informative and captivating material. It should give an in-depth subject analysis, address searchers’ inquiries, and employ natural language and keyword variations.
Images are the visual components that add substance to your webpage and captivate visitors. They should have descriptive alt text that, when applicable, includes your keywords and describes the image’s content.
Internal links are hyperlinks that connect pages and facilitate site navigation. They should employ descriptive anchor text that conveys the subject matter of the linked page.
For on-page optimization, utilize a tool capable of performing large-scale page analyses.
The On-Page SEO Checker, for example, identifies vulnerabilities and provides recommendations on improving each page throughout the website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the process of improving various technical aspects of a website. The primary objective is to ensure that search engines can effectively crawl and index your website.
This consists of the following:
- Possessing an XML sitemap (a file containing a list of every page that you desire search engines to index)
- Creating a robots.txt file, which instructs search engines about which pages of a website to crawl
- Meta robot elements (HTML directives that instruct search engines to crawl, index, and display a specific page)
Implementing structured data, which involves coding to aid search engines in understanding your content, is crucial.
Technical SEO focuses heavily on enhancing the user experience and website efficacy.
Such things as:
- Conformity with mobile devices
- Core Web Vitals (a collection of metrics that assign user experience scores to your pages)
- HTTPS (which pertains to the security of websites)
You can perform a technical SEO audit to find and rank issues on a website.
Immediately evaluate it using Semrush’s site audit tool. After addressing the “errors” (the most critical problems), you may proceed to the “warnings” and “notices.”
Link Building
Link building is a collection of strategies designed to increase the number of inbound links from high-quality, pertinent websites.
It is crucial because search engines may interpret these links (backlinks) as quality and credibility indicators for your website.
The concept is straightforward:
A page is considered authoritative when it receives links from numerous authoritative pages. As a result, link building has always been an essential component of SEO.