What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

By Yhordan Serpentini | August 4, 2022

One of the lesser concerns you may have as an entrepreneur, especially when dealing with the early stages and challenges of owning a small business, is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Part of your job as a business owner is to not only maintain your business but also your business growth—one of the most crucial ways of catering to that growth is through SEO.

What Is SEO?

So, what is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? SEO is the practice method by which you increase your business’ website’s traffic through the optimization of results from search engines. In other words, whether your company is service related, digital, physical, product-based, etc., most people will not ever come across your business’ website if it isn’t on the front page of whatever search engine your consumers are using.

To manipulate this, you optimize your website to better match what your consumers are searching for—most commonly through on-site optimization, or keywords—so that it is the first link, or one of the first links, to appear on the front page of the search engine(s).

How Does SEO Work?

Search Engine Optimization works in a variety of ways for you to optimize in the best ways you can. Below are some of the most important factors involved with SEO rankings.

On-site Optimization: on-site optimization or on-site SEO are the applied changes within the contents of your business website, or the changes of your website entirely, that will improve it to be more search-engine-friendly. Understand what people, especially your consumers, are looking for. Study the analytics of your website to know where most traffic is held so you know what you’re doing right, and where traffic is least held so you know where the most optimization is needed.

Internal Links: internal links are great factors for SEO because they help search engines better categorize a rank for your website. The more internal links you have for these search engines to follow, the better they will be at indicating a rank for what parts of your website are most important and most relevant to the searches of your consumers.

External Links: similar to the reasons for internal links, external links are a great SEO factor that provides search engines with assistance in indicating the usefulness of your page, as well as determining the overall quality of your business website. Contents that are of high quality will commonly provide external links, which will also make you look more trustworthy and credible (e.g. references, sources, etc.).

Mobile-Friendly: one of the most important factors of SEO is that your website and the contents of each individual page are mobile-friendly. All websites are optimized to be computer-friendly, but search engines will prioritize links that are mobile-friendly over computers because mobile devices are the most commonly used devices for searching. If your website is not mobile-friendly, and/or the contents of your site are not optimized well for mobile devices—either distorted images, disorganized contents, etc—search engines will likely rank other links above yours.

Content(s): of course, no matter how much optimization you do for your ranking on search engines, the contents of your website are what matter most. If your contents are not high-quality—that means poor wording, consistent misspelling, not user-friendly, very ordinary or plain, a lack of sources, lack of external or internal links, no images, no keywords, slow speed, etc—then you won’t make it anywhere close to the front page—and your consumers will have a very hard time discovering your website.

Keywords: As briefly mentioned, keywords are hidden gems because they let search engines know about the content(s) of your website, as well as its relevancy to what consumers are searching. Keywords are a little tricky as they require a lot of time, patience, and analytical studying to determine. You’ll likely need to thoroughly study your website’s data to indicate what keywords are most commonly associated with your content. Once you find those keywords, you’d then want to implement them to as many respective contents as possible so that search engines can rank them higher.

Understanding each of these factors can greatly increase your relevancy in search engines, allowing for your website to be one of the first links that pop up. Note that even if you master each of these, SEO is far more complex as search engines are constantly updating their algorithms. There may not be a guarantee that your website will get ranked high overnight, but with constant determination, it will eventually climb the ladder.

Sources:

“Chapter 1: Types of Search Engine SEO Factors.” Search Engine Land, 23 Mar. 2022, https://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/types-of-search-engine-ranking-factors

Crowe, Anna. “Top 8 Google Ranking Factors: What Really Matters for Seo.” Search Engine Journal, 29 Dec. 2021, https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors/top-ranking-factors/

DMI, Simon. “What Is Seo and How Does It Work?” Digital Marketing Institute, Digital Marketing Institute, 14 Dec. 2020, https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/what-is-seo

Hermanson, Tylor. “Why Keywords Are Still so Very Important for Seo.” Search Engine Journal, 25 Nov. 2021, https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/why-keywords-important-seo/