Today, when we talk about search engine ranking, we mean the activity of “search engine optimization,” derived from the acronym SEO: Search Engine Optimization, whose purpose is the creation of web pages that respect search engine rules while at the same time improving their position in search results.
SEO therefore optimizes relevant and authoritative content of a website in a way that visitors (and search engine crawlers) can find answers to their key questions about products and services. Search is often the main source of digital traffic for brands and integrates with other marketing channels. Greater visibility and higher ranking in search results compared to competitors can have a material impact on a brand’s profits.
Let’s discover together how SEO works and what it means to optimize a website to rank among the top search results.
How does SEO work?
The goal of performing SEO on a specific web page is to improve the quality of the content, and thus lead search engines to select and list the content in search results.
Search engine crawlers (also called bots) examine all the content they can find on the Internet, following internal links within websites and links between different websites. Bots examine the content of each page (including URLs, title tags, headers, links, and more) to understand what each page is about. The search engine provider takes all this information and builds what is called an index.
Search engine rankings are influenced by many factors, but content is king. Authoritative and high-quality content will satisfy visitors and attract links from other websites. Secondly, inbound links are added to content. The more websites link to the content, the more Google and other search engines will trust and appreciate the website.
Alongside content and links, other important SEO factors are: the use of the keyword phrase, page loading speed, user experience, HTML and schema markup, domain authority, and key usage metrics.
All these elements, combined with the search engine’s understanding of the content, are used to transform an index into a ranking for the different searches (also known as queries) performed within search engines.
What does optimization mean?
We all know that web content is for people. Offering great content to customers is an excellent starting point. At the same time, there are other things that can be done to optimize content for search engines. Each search engine prioritizes different features of websites and web content; writing with an SEO perspective, strategically identifying and using keyword phrases, and setting up technical implementation can improve search engine optimization regardless of the provider.
To improve a website’s ranking at the top of search engine results, the following methods can be considered.
1. Publish relevant and authoritative content
Quality and authoritative content created specifically for the user increases site traffic, improving relevance and search engine ranking.
To create influential content, it is important to identify and choose a specific keyword phrase for each content page on the website, thinking about how the reader might search for that specific page with search terms. The chosen keyword phrase for a given page, used in the URL, title, headers, and subheadings, can improve a site’s ranking. Ranking can also be boosted by repeating the phrase several times throughout the page and creating links to relevant sources and additional external information.
2. Update content regularly
Search engines value content highly, and if it is updated regularly, it is seen as one of the best indicators of a site’s relevance.
3. Insert metadata
In website design, each page contains a space between the <head> tags to insert metadata (title, description, and keywords) or information about the page’s content essential for SEO optimization.
Title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of the browser window and as the title within search engine results. They are the most important metadata on web pages.
Description metadata is the textual description that a browser can use in the page’s search return. A concise and engaging description of what is contained within, aimed at encouraging people to enter. A good meta description typically contains two complete sentences.
Keyword metadata is rarely, if ever, used to tabulate search engine rankings. However, it is always good to add them and include a variety of phrases.
4. Have a site suitable for other links
A web page rich in content, authoritative, impartial, and that helps visitors learn more about what they are interested in is more likely to attract links from other websites, which improves search engine optimization.
Relevant links within the text of a web page, especially descriptive ones linked to keywords, not only improve site credibility and search engine optimization but also add value to readers, including those with disabilities or who use screen readers.
5. Use alt tags
Always describe images and video media using alt tags or alternative text descriptions, allowing search engines to identify a web page, which is essential, especially for those using text-only browsers or screen readers.
In conclusion, SEO is a fundamental part of digital marketing because people perform trillions of searches every year, often with commercial intent to find information about products and services.
We have listed a series of steps and methods to improve a website for visitors and search engines, but of course, there are other SEO marketing ideas and strategies that can increase a website’s ranking.
It is important to understand the fundamentals of search engine optimization in order to develop a solid strategy to drive organic traffic to a site and improve the user experience.