Wait a Minute... What Actually Is SEO?

You may have heard that SEO is important for business. But maybe you’re thinking, wait… what actually is SEO? And why do they keep saying you need it?

We’re here to help. Let’s go over, in a simple way, what SEO actually is.

Google, Bing, and search algorithms

First, let’s start with search engines like Google or Bing. Their goal is to provide the best search results for us humans, who now more than ever rely on searching the internet to find the information, products, and services we need. To bring about the best results for people, they’ve created search engine algorithms to categorize, collect, and rank every website out there.

This algorithm takes various aspects into account when configuring how to rank each site. And by rank we mean how high up in the search results list your website appears. Is it the 4th option on the first page? Or further down on the third page? The website on the third page is much less likely to get traffic than the website on the first page.

So you want to get to the first page, and this is where search engine optimization, or SEO, comes into play. SEO is a marketing process that involves websites, where various techniques and methods are used to improve a website’s visibility (rank) within a search engine’s results.

It’s important because when you increase your website’s visibility, more people searching for your services will click into your website. And with more people visiting your website, the higher your chances of making more sales or gaining more clients.

SEO vs. PPC

It’s important not to get SEO confused with PPC, or pay-per-click. SEO only affects what we call unpaid, or organic, results. In contrast, PPC is a different internet marketing method where websites bid for a designated advertising space on Google or Bing and then pay every time their ad is clicked. Each method is striving for the same goal, increased traffic, but we argue that SEO is more sustainable, since many searchers skip over and ignore ads, and there have also been cases of competitors click-bombing ads to drive up costs.

So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get into the grit of what SEO actually is. We like to divide our SEO process into three parts: on-page optimization, content marketing, and link building. Here’s what each part is.

1. On-page optimization

This, as you could guess, happens on a page within a website. Each page is optimized to make a good impression, not only for the search engines but for the human visitors who come to the web page too.

For the search engines, this is the process of ensuring that a site is readable so it’s apparent what your site is about. This means you want the search engine to pick up on the right keywords that are relevant to your website, and these keywords are found throughout the written content on each page, and also through title tags, headings, URL structures, alt text on images, and excellent internal navigation, all part of the technical side of SEO. Find out more in our guide to on-page SEO versus off-page SEO.

On-page optimization therefore includes excellent keyword research, great content creation (more on that next), and knowledge of the technical side of things: all within your (or your SEO’s) control and able to change on your site.

2. Content marketing

Content marketing is another essential part of SEO. Some may believe that content marketing is completely separate from SEO. But content marketing doesn’t flourish without SEO, and SEO doesn’t even exist without content marketing. SEO needs content, and content marketing is content. So they need each other.

For example, remember keywords? These are pretty essential to SEO, and their practical application is found in content marketing, because content marketing is all about using your keywords strategically throughout your web content.

Content marketing is also about creating and distributing content relevant to your industry that is consistent and valuable to your audience, your potential customers. A useful and consistent outpouring of valuable information on your website is what makes people more likely to come back, and it’s more reason to visit in the first place.

Providing useful information for those who visit your website is the number one reason for content marketing. And it’s not only beneficial for potential customers who visit your website, it’s great for SEO too, which in turn brings even more potential customers. Content (including keywords) tells the search engine what your website is all about as it crawls through. Search engines also notice when your site is putting out fresh and unique content on a frequent basis, and are more likely to reward you with a higher ranking. It’s as if they say, “hey, this website is active and alive, so we should give it more credit in the search results.”

3. Link building

Link building, or off-page SEO, is the third part of the SEO puzzle. It can be simply defined as building up links that lead to your website. Search engines don’t only care about your on-page reputation, but also about your reputation outside of your website. What do other websites say about you? Do other websites know about you? A way that a website shows it knows about another website, or a page knows about another page (even within the same website), is through links. Search engines use links as a way to travel through the internet and see how you’re connected to other websites. This shows what kind of reputation a website has throughout the internet and how popular it is. The more links a website has going to it, the more reputable it is. Links also help search engines crawl throughout your website, so it’s important to have links between the pages of a website too.

Oh, so that’s what SEO is

We hope this has given you a little more understanding of what SEO is, as described through three parts: on-page SEO, content marketing, and link building. Increasing your website’s visibility brings more potential customers to your website, and the best way to do this is through SEO.