When you’re surfing the Internet, you often come across the abbreviation SEO. You see entire agencies that specialize in this topic. Both large companies and small bloggers use SEO to increase their reach.
But what is it all about? In this article, you will learn what SEO is and why it is so extremely important to many people.
What is SEO?
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. This term explains quite a bit. But we will explain it in more detail in this article.
Even though search engine is a very general term, when people talk about SEO, they are usually referring to Google. Most internet users use Google as their default search engine, which is why SEO professionals focus on this search engine.
Google has a market share of almost 90%. Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo are currently the only other search engines with a market share of over 1%. Search engines other than Google may have different ranking factors (more on that later) or a different weighting.
Combined with the word optimization, the aim is to optimize a website so that it appears as high as possible in the search results of Google and other search engines.
Why is Search Engine Optimization important?
53% of website traffic comes from clicks through search engines. Other sources cite significantly higher figures. When it comes to search results and rankings, the higher the better.
According to FirstPageSage, 39.8% of all clicks come from the first result, 68.7% from the top 3 results, and 94% from the top 10 results. These figures show why it is so important to rank as high as possible in the search results (ideally: 1st place, minimum goal: top 10). If your site ranks outside the top 10, you are more or less invisible to Google users.
Let’s say you open a store. The store is located in the basement of your house, there are no signs outside, and no one knows that this store even exists. Even if the products are outstanding, no one will buy from you. After all, no one knows about the products.
You have to draw attention to yourself in order to sell. People need to know that your business exists, what they can buy there, and where it is located.
It’s the same with a website. If you don’t appear in search results like Google and others, or only very far down the list, hardly anyone will find you. Your website needs to be visible to attract users. And your site becomes visible by appearing as high as possible in the search results.
Search Engine Optimization is essential for achieving the highest possible ranking in search engines such as Google. We will see later in this text which factors are important for SEO.
How do search engines work?
The algorithms behind search engines are very complex, and the exact ranking factors are not widely known. However, if we want to understand how search engines work in general, we need to look at three terms: crawling, indexing, and ranking. Let’s go through these step by step.
- Crawling:
Crawling means that a bot (crawler) follows links on a website to other pages and discovers them. So when Google has crawled a page, it does not yet appear in the search rankings. However, Google then knows that it exists. Google can also crawl a page that it already knows and see if anything has changed. - Indexing:
During indexing, Google stores information about the page in a large database. The page is now ready to appear in search results under certain circumstances. - Ranking:
This is the point that interests us most when it comes to SEO. Once Google has indexed the page, the Google algorithm uses more than 200 ranking factors to decide where the page will appear in the search results for a specific keyword. This is a very dynamic process. A page’s ranking can change constantly. -
In order for you to rank with a page for a specific keyword, Google must first know about this page (crawling) and index it. There are a few important points here that fall under technical SEO (see below), such as a sitemap or a robots.txt file. Internal linking also plays an important role here, as the crawler follows links on a page that it has discovered, as described above.
Website owners can also log into Google Search Console and link their website(s) there. Once you have written a new article, you can then ask Google to index the new page. Otherwise, it could take a long time for Google to find new pages. If you ask Google to index your page in this way, it usually only takes a few days for it to be indexed.
Google Search Console also has other advantages. Among other things, you can see how often a page has appeared in search results and how often users clicked the link in the search results. The keywords that led to the results are also listed.
If you want to check whether your page does appear in Google’s search results at all, you can do so with the keyword site:. If you search for site:yourdomain.com on Google, all pages from yourdomain.com that have been indexed by Google will be listed.
Different types of SEO
We have now seen what SEO actually is and why it is so important. Roughly speaking, it is about getting the content on your own website as high up as possible in Google (and other search engines) so that internet users can find the content.
But how do I do that? To narrow it down further, we can distinguish between three different types of SEO:
- Technical SEO
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
Technical SEO and On-Page SEO are sometimes grouped together. However, I think it is important to list them separately. In the following, we will look at how these three points differ.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers to the optimization of technical details on a website. This does not concern the content of the site, which is what we deal with in On-Page SEO. That’s why I think it’s important to keep the two separate.
These technical details include, among other things:
- Clear website structure:
It is immediately apparent to the user (and the search engine) what the website is about and how to find information here. - Responsive web design (Mobile friendliness):
The website should be optimized for different screen sizes, such as large PC screens, smaller laptop screens, tablets, and smartphones. Since many internet users today surf the internet on their smartphones, it is essential that websites display correctly on these small screens. - Page Speed:
Websites and website elements (such as images) should load quickly. Long waiting times cause users to lose patience and look for another website. This is also an important factor for Google and other search engines. - URL structure:
The individual URLs of the website should have a clear structure. For example, https://domain.com/basketball/nba/chicago_bulls.html has a clear structure. With https://domain.com/1000/w04vu9u3wcsu09ojowqsn.html, on the other hand, it is unclear what the page is about. Users should be able to tell at least roughly what the article is about from the URL. Search engines also pay attention to this. - XML sitemaps:
A clear XML sitemap serves as a guide for search engine crawlers. - SSL certificate (https:// instead of http://):
This is about whether data is transmitted in a secure way. A site with an SSL certificate will rank higher than one without, if all other factors are equal. - Internal linking:
How quickly can you navigate from one page to another within the website? Users should not have to search for long, but should be able to get from point A to point B as quickly and easily as possible.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is primarily about optimizing the content on the website. As the name suggests, it’s about the content directly on the page. Factors here include:
- Keywords:
Your text should be optimized for one or more keywords for which you want to be found on Google. However, you should avoid keyword spamming. Using the keyword as often as possible and in unnatural places can cost you places in Google’s ranking. The text should read naturally. It is better to have a meaningful sentence without the keyword than an unnatural-looking sentence in which the keyword has been forced in. - Title:
Located in the HTML code between <title> and </title>. The title should contain the main keyword. - Meta Description: This is a brief summary of the content and is displayed in Google search results. After reading the meta description, the user should know what the content is about and be motivated to click on the link.
- Heading:
The main heading (<h1></h1>). Sometimes corresponds to the title. The main keyword should also be included here. - Subheadings:
For longer texts, it is advisable to use subheadings (<h2> to <h6>) for a better overview. You can include additional keywords here. - High Quality Content:
Reading the text should be a satisfying experience for the user. The most important questions should be answered clearly. In general, it can be said that if website visitors are satisfied, Google is satisfied too. - Image Optimization:
File names and alt text can contain the main keyword or other keywords. Images and other visual elements can generally help to improve the text. They serve not only to rank highly in “normal” search results, but also in Google Image Search.
The meta description is displayed in Google search results.
Off-Page SEO
Unlike On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO is about optimization outside of your own website. What I mean by this is backlinks.
A backlink is a link that leads from another website to your own website. For example, I linked to Google Search Console earlier in the text. This gave Google a backlink from me. This huge company won’t care much about getting a link from a small blog like this one. But if a page with high authority (more on that below) links to your page, it will help you.
It is important that a backlink is a dofollow link and not a nofollow link. Nofollow links are also important because they can increase traffic to your site, but they do not play a role in search engine rankings.
Backlinks are considered a recommendation by search engines, so to speak. If another site links to my site, then my site may be quite informative. If many important sites link to my site, this is a great sign of trust in the eyes of Google.
Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to backlinks
Does that mean the more backlinks, the better? It’s not that simple. In the past, Google did indeed primarily evaluate the number of backlinks. This led to some website owners flooding the internet with links to their site. The more, the better.
After several updates to the Google algorithm, Google is now much smarter in this regard. Backlinks still play a major role in ranking, and the number is also important. However, Google now pays particular attention to the quality of backlinks. Websites with lots of spam backlinks, which used to be successful, can now even be penalized for this and lose a lot of ground in the rankings.
A high-quality backlink is, for example, a link from a website with high authority that is also relevant to the topic. A low-quality backlink would be a link that was simply placed somewhere in a guestbook without any relevance, although these hardly exist anymore.
We would rather have five high-quality backlinks than a hundred low-quality backlinks. The number is still important, but other factors are more important today.
The authority of a domain is difficult to define. There are several tools on the internet that show an estimate of domain authority (e.g., Ahrefs or MOZ). The number here ranges from 0 to 100. The higher the value, the higher the authority.
Who should learn about SEO?
Anyone who wants to be found by other people on the internet should be concerned with SEO. That sounds simple, but it is the main goal of search engine optimization. Of course, there are different groups for whom a good ranking is particularly important. These include
- Owners of online shops
- Owners of other shops who want to attract attention on the internet
- Companies, agencies, etc.
- Bloggers who provide valuable information
If I only have a small, private blog that is only read by a few friends, SEO is obviously not that important to me.
However, almost everyone who provides content on the internet wants that content to be found. SEO is therefore important for almost all website owners.
What difficulties does SEO bring with it?
One difficulty is that the ranking algorithms are quite opaque. Large SEO agencies know pretty much exactly what Google is looking for. But no one knows the exact algorithm.
In addition, there are constant updates to the algorithm. After such an update, rankings can change significantly. So it can happen that yesterday I ranked very well for a keyword, but today I am significantly further down the list and thus lose a lot of traffic. That can be pretty frustrating.
Artificial intelligence also brings new challenges for SEO. When you perform a Google search today, the AI usually displays an answer first. Some users then don’t even scroll down to the actual search results. SEO agencies are currently concerned with what AI means for the future of SEO and how it can potentially be used to their advantage.
Search results often show AI responses today.
Perhaps the most important trait for SEO beginners is patience. Especially if you have a new website or blog, it often takes weeks or months, sometimes even longer, for them to rank well in search results. You need a lot of patience to not give up during this time and to continue working on the website.
Of course, it’s also difficult for new websites to get good backlinks. If you rank poorly, you’re unlikely to be found. And if you’re unlikely to be found, you won’t get any links. On the other hand, it’s also difficult to get a good ranking without high-quality backlinks. It can feel like a hopeless situation.
At the beginning, focus primarily on high-quality content, On-Page SEO, and make sure that the technical details are in place: SSL certificate, good page speed, simple website structure, etc. For On-Page SEO, WordPress plugins such as Yoast SEO can provide a good guideline.
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