If you know your way around redirects, optimizing page speed, crawlability, security and structured data, make those your first priority. If not, let your site builder help you out or hire someone with a background in technical SEO. When that’s done, you can start looking at site structure and the content on your pages. In 1998, two graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed “Backrub”, a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random web surfer.

SEO meaning and definition

seo meaning

This is helpful from a UX perspective as it helps BHS Links visitors to move from one relevant page to another and keeps them browsing your site for longer. This is a page summary that appears under the title tag in SERPs and expands on what the content of your page is. It’s typically limited to 160 characters to fit within the preview on search engines, but can sometimes be calculated in megapixels depending on your preferred search engine. Use this space to highlight the key points of your page and encourage searchers to click through to your page. Before you start looking for ways to improve your search engine optimization and boost your SERP ranking.

seo meaning

Social media

As it turns out, high-quality backlinks tend to share the same key traits. Enhanced search listings can bring you more traffic by standing out on SERPs, or by adding your store to local search results and in Google Maps. As you can see, there are a lot of things you can do to make your content search engine-friendly. You’ll find these and many other actionable tips in our checklist on how to optimize your blog posts for SEO like a pro. Finally, you might be interested to learn that there is a growing number of excellent AI SEO tools that you can use to optimize your website.

seo meaning

That’s where indirect competitors can help as most owe their high ranking in search results to SEO. Whether your business partners with an agency or manages your strategy in-house, it’s essential to understand what SEO management includes. That way, you can build a foundation for a competitive strategy that actually drives revenue for your company. A list of all the pages on a website that search engines need to know. The overall feeling users are left with after interacting with a brand, its online presence, and its product/services. Any form of content – videos, blog posts, comments, reviews, etc. – that is created by users or customers.

Trends like AI integration, video optimisation, and local search have gained prominence. Staying informed and adaptable ensures businesses can keep up with the demands of evolving SEO and maintain their online visibility. SEO has significantly changed over the years, adapting to technological advancements and search engine updates. Understanding what is SEO today involves recognising how its strategies have shifted from keyword stuffing to prioritising user experience and content relevance.

Look for keywords with featured snippets

  • You have additional responsibilities to manage, though some companies solve this problem by taking advantage of website SEO copywriting services.
  • Just as you perform a competitive analysis to identify market gaps and differentiate your products and marketing efforts, you’ll need to investigate and analyse competitors’ SEO.
  • Websites are ranked primarily based upon the competition between your web pages and other web pages for a particular keyword.
  • Historically websites have copied content from one another and benefited in search engine rankings by engaging in this practice.
  • This can make it seem like SEO is being left out, but that’s not the case.

The essential objective of SEO is to upgrade a website’s natural (non-paid) look motor rankings, driving focus on activity and expanding its online nearness. In today’s computerised age, where online permeability and biological activity are vital for businesses, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays an essential part. Understanding SEO and its effect on site rankings and permeability is fundamental for anybody looking to establish a solid online presence. In this chapter, we’ll dig into the basics of SEO, investigating what it is and why it is critical for businesses of all sizes. This is where you optimize your pages to help search engines understand them. This beginner’s guide, consisting of seven chapters, has everything you need to understand the basics of SEO and start ranking higher.

Links are how search engines discover new pages and judge their “authority.” It’s hard to rank for competitive terms without links. PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, is a type of digital marketing where advertisers bid on specific keywords they want their ads to show up for in search results. When someone searches for those keywords, the ads appear at the top of the results page and if clicked on the advertisers pay-per-click. In Google and other search engines, the results page often features paid ads at the top of the page, followed by the regular results or what search marketers call the “organic search results”. Traffic that comes via SEO is often referred to as “organic search traffic” to differentiate it from traffic that comes through paid search. These listings are prime real estate for local businesses, often leading to higher click-through rates and conversions.

seo meaning

For most organizations, an effective marketing strategy focuses on both SEO and SEM because the two processes complement each other. For instance, SEO can help marketers create effective landing pages for their SEM campaigns. Similarly, new sites can use SEM campaigns to generate traffic, which can help them gain backlinks and improve SEO.

It doesn’t matter whether you sell a product or service, write a blog, or anything else, search engine optimization is a must for every website owner. The search engines are used by internet users when they are searching for something. SEO focuses on organic rankings, while SEM involves paid advertising. SEO builds long-term growth, whereas SEM delivers immediate but short-term results. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced professional, this course will help you learn what is SEO as it is an important part of digital marketing. Now, you’re ready to start practicing SEO on your site — and SEO.com can help.

Google introduced a filter in 2012 that reduces the visibility of sites reported for numerous DMCA-related takedown requests. This content isn’t used in ranking algorithms, but is often displayed as the “snippet that appears in the search results. Accurate and engaging descriptions can increase organic click-through rate. A major Google algorithm that launched in April 2012, it was followed by a series of updates and refreshes. The goal of Penguin was to reduce the visibility of overly-optimized sites, or sites that excessively abused certain spammy tactics (e.g., building low-quality links, keyword stuffing). In 2016, Penguin started running in real-time as a part of Google’s core algorithm.