What Is SEO?

SEO Explained

It is likely that you have heard of SEO, but what exactly is SEO? The literal meaning of SEO is Search Engine Optimization. Search engine optimization is basically everything you do to make sure that your website is displayed as high as possible in the organic search results (also called free) of the search engines. In the US we are talking about Google in about 95% of cases, but there are also search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo. These organic search results are found on the search results pages (in jargon SERP: Search Engine Result Page) under the paid search results (eg Google AdWords or Bing Ads).

Why is SEO so important?

For 95% of the US, the search for a product or company starts in a search engine. To get the attention of your target audience and generate leads you simply have to be at the top of the search engines. Even if people ultimately make the purchase offline. Search engine optimization/SEO marketing is therefore essential for lead generation.

So what does SEO mean in practice?

According to our industry, there are about 200 ranking factors, but let's face it, only a few people at Google itself know exactly how many there are. What we do know is that all these factors can be divided into 3 main categories.

Three Main Areas of SEO

  • Technical

  • Content

  • Authority

Where technique and content should actually be geared primarily to the visitor to your website. If your visitor is satisfied and finds what he or she is looking for, then in theory the authority should increase over time.

Technical SEO

Your website needs to be technically sound. Things to consider here include:

  • The structure of your website

  • The correct use of headers

  • User-friendly urls

  • Fast loading time

  • Use of an SSL certificate

  • Use of sitemaps

Unfortunately, not every web builder yet knows how to take into account this technical SEO foundation for a well findable website.

Content

Your potential customers look on the web for answers and solutions. This could be contact information, a product, information, content. The better your website meets that content need, the better visitors will appreciate it and give signals to Google that your website is brilliant.

When considering these signals, think of:

  • Visiting multiple pages on your website

  • Not immediately dropping out of your website and returning to Google ( bounce rate and pogosticking)

  • Sharing your content on social media - or the for SEO's holy grail' of appreciation: posting a link to your content / website

Despite the fact that there are people who claim that Google is so smart these days that they can map your content to the information needs of your target audience, you absolutely cannot ignore keywords.

So there are 3 steps to getting to the ideal content:

  • Analyzing the content needs of your target audience. You do this in the content strategy

  • Linking that content need to a keyword research

  • Incorporating those keywords into a web text that is enticing to the reader

Website Authority

Where Google used to have its own indicator for authority (namely PageRank), nowadays we assume Domain and Page Authority or Domain Rating.

This authority is for the most part determined by external incoming links. Ideally, visitors to your website will find the content so good and so user-friendly that they will voluntarily link to your website.

In practice, everyone knows how important links are for your ranking in Google and almost everyone asks money for them nowadays.

Something that Google struggles with enormously, because for the time being they cannot determine the authority of a website in any other way than through links, but this is of course relatively easy to manipulate.

In our view, nothing wrong with that, as all media is manipulated and PR agencies have long provided paid exposure for their clients. That is why link building is still an important part of search engine optimization. Because any organization knows how to find a web builder who can deliver a technically excellent website and content optimization is not rocket science anymore either, so how does Google know which website best matches the search query?

Make sure you have everything in order

Don't look at technology, content or authority as something that stands alone. Make sure that you always serve your target audience as best you can through your website and also make sure that your website is mentioned on as many other relevant websites as possible. Call it link earning, content marketing, link building or PR, but you need those links. Also, don't have the illusion that SEO is a one-time project or easy. SEO is something you need to work on continuously just like you do with your target audience.

SEO starts with keywords

Google is still focused on search terms. After mapping out the information needs of your target audience, you match them with the right keywords. Then you write good web texts around that information and those keywords, so that your information is actually found and appreciated.

A concrete SEO plan

Of course, the SEO strategy must lead to a concrete SEO plan. So that all stakeholders know what needs to be done to beat the competition in Google. The SEO plan should include which search terms to focus on and how this will be achieved. For example, is a landing page with good content needed, does content need to be created or optimized, or does the link profile need to be improved? And of course no SEO plan is complete without Social Marketing.

SEO marketing in practice

In practice, the technical aspect of SEO is usually tackled first. Is everything correct in terms of indexing, speed and coding? Then we look at whether there is (enough) good content on the website around the keywords. And then through internal and external links the domain and the underlying pages are strengthened in terms of authority.