Learning about digital marketing practices can be confusing at first; this whole new chapter in advertising professional endeavors is similar to classic, Mad Men-style research. Still, nowadays you get more chances to engage with your audience and develop a website that works according to all parameters. How does SEO work? Let’s see.
Optimization works with the help of an SEO marketing agency or experts who can optimize the website content to ensure it’ll rank on search engines, especially Google. Search engine optimizing has three pillars – on-page, off-page, and technical, and all play a part in increasing web presence.
What Is SEO?
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” This means that the practice of optimizing includes making sure that any site is discoverable by various search engines. Google is the current lead, and this practice more or less began when it started dictating query trends and bringing companies money for advertised content.
The majority of people use Google as their default search engine, so optimizing pages for it makes the most sense. Still, if your content ranks well there, it’ll rank well on most search engines.
This practice entails experts researching current trends and the more popular competition in the same field; they use keywords and phrases to trigger Google to crawl, index, and rank content (more on that later).
How Does SEO Work?
What is SEO and how does it work? As mentioned, search engine optimization is the practice of increasing a company’s web presence, but how it works may still be a mystery. We’ll give a more practical example of optimizing.
Say you’re opening a business offering catering services. You want to make your company known to people far and wide, but also those living in your area. The professional SEO agency you hire will start keyword research with phrases relevant to your industry. Phrases like “catering,” “caterers,” “catering near me,” and “local caterers” are just some examples.
The agency will optimize your web content to match those queries and help you rank. The more competitive your keywords are, the better the chance is to rank. However, you need others who specialize in your field a lot more, so you can be the best in your branch.
Also, some local SEO wouldn’t hurt. This is similar to general optimization, except it targets more locals and helps you get spotted among the potential customers in your area. Some practices involved in local optimization include creating a Google Business Profile (GBP) and adding photos and reviews to your site.
The Three Types of Search Engine Optimization
The optimizing practice consists of three essential pillars – on-page, off-page, and technical. These can be explained in detail, but if you hear about them from an SEO agency, just know you’re dealing with folks who know their trade well.
Read more about the definitions of the three optimization pillars and their benefits.
On-Page Optimizing
This type of optimization is the process of making the content on your site relevant to user queries, providing an improved search experience. It can fix up your site and content to target relevant keywords and phrases, which could, in turn, help you rank higher on search engines.
This type of optimization is done with the help of content management programs such as WordPress, Wix, and Shopify, to name a few; they’re the ultimate tools for improving your direct communication with potential customers. Using these programs can be taught, but it often takes time to master on a full-scale level – which is why hiring experts like Made Online is a good idea.
Off-Page SEO
This is another way of optimizing your website, but more behind the scenes. There’s something called backlinks, which are links to another site. They’re often a seal of approval from other content creators, and if many sites have your website linked on them, that turns up as a backlink for you.
The more of these exist, the better you’ll rank. However, it doesn’t mean you can make just any type of site and expect Google to rank it and make it visible. Engines have a failsafe that turns on when they notice bogus links with fake traffic boosts; it removes it from relevant links and buries it.
That’s why there’s no off-page without on-page optimizing. You have to provide equal quality and quantity on all fronts to ensure search engines take notice of your site.
Technical Optimization
The technical sort of speaks for itself. It’s not exactly working on content or links but on the things that boost them, such as page speeds, URL structures, dead links, and navigation improvement.
This aspect needs to be taken care of well so that the other two pillars can function properly, too. There’s no one without the other, nor is there a hierarchy of relevance, so these function in a perfect triangle.
Are There Better Marketing Options In 2023?
SEO often goes hand in hand with PPC, which stands for “pay per click.” This practice helps businesses get noticed with paid advertising, paying for each click that brings clients to their pages.
PPC can essentially be used by any company that wants to advertise its products, but it’s rare for small-scale businesses to break through with just that. They’d need a lot of money to burn.
Compared to PPC, search engine optimization is the ideal strategy for small businesses and startups. It’s free (except for the fees you pay to the advertising agency) and it can bring organic traffic to any site. Organic results are more natural and long-lasting, as paid advertising can sometimes be misleading in terms of numbers.
Although search engine optimization is a slow practice, there’s nothing better than it in 2023.
How Organic Traffic Works Together With Paid Advertising
Many would argue that organic traffic isn’t as good for their business as pay-per-click options, since they want fast and tangible results. However, it’s all about how you use these strategies for visibility and ranking.
You can engage in PPC and still do keyword research to improve your website visibility; one doesn’t have to function without the other. Most agencies you hire would do it this way, provided you give them a big enough budget for it.
Here is how PPC and optimizing a website work hand in hand:
- They increase Search Engine Results Page (SERP) coverage; SERPs are pages that engines return after users submit a query. In combination, paid and organic traffic can boost one particular keyword on your website and get you more views,
- They use keyword optimization to match query results. This means PPC can boost a phrase or word that helps you rank higher,
- PPC attracts people to your landing pages, making the products or services you sell more visible and your business more known; paid advertising increases awareness of your company and web presence.
How Google Works With Optimized Content
Searching engines only see text when searching and indexing websites. That’s why the way your website looks matters to users but not to Google’s algorithm. That is also why keywords are crucial to ranking.
This algorithm has three stages when digging for web content: crawling, indexing, and ranking. Read the explanations for each below.
A Search Method Called Crawling
Crawling is the first step in looking for optimized web content. Google’s algorithm sends so-called “crawlers” to find new pages and record any information there is about them.
Crawlers check for new websites that could be relevant to specific keywords and results and look at previously checked content to see if it’s been updated. This is the reason backlinks are crucial to optimizing your content.
Google Also Indexes Articles and Sites
Indexing happens when the crawler decides whether or not to consider the content it discovers. It’s a process of elimination, and poorly optimized content usually doesn’t rank. An example of badly optimized content includes duplicated content, pages that are deemed spammy or useless, and sites with a lack of inbound links. Additionally, if a crawler can’t scan pages, indexing doesn’t happen.
Ranking Is the Most Important Step
When a crawler gives the green light to the indexing algorithm, the engine is ready to rank your content. This is a three-step process, and although crawling seems like the most important, ranking actually is. How come? There’s something called ranking signals, and there are over two hundred of them; search engines use them to sort and rank content. Most importantly, the signals depend on how well the pages are optimized and if they use the three optimizing pillars to rank.
Why Building a Digital Strategy Makes Sense for Your Business
There’s nothing worse than working hard on a business strategy and ensuring you have the best product visually and practically and not having customers enjoy it or the fruits of your labor. That’s awful, but at the same time, slightly delusional.
Sorry if that sounds mean, but it’s kind of the truth. Just because you created it, it doesn’t mean it’ll become the next best thing – there needs to be some proof of its success and a good digital campaign to make it more trustworthy and less, well, scammy.
Here are some things you can do to improve your online presence:
- Set objectives – objectives can help you get more precise optimizing results and align your product with your advertising; additionally, set objectives simply make goals happen and encourage buy-ins from key stakeholders in your company,
- Work on brand awareness – here’s a good way to increase your traffic and attract the ideal audience,
- Affirm your reputation – you can do this with local optimizing, like creating a Google Business Profile, including images and reviews, and answering people’s questions,
- Work on your traffic – this is just another way of saying hire a digital marketing agency to create a campaign for your company.
Hire a Content Marketing Agency Like Made Online to Improve Your Ranking Chances
Manifesting success isn’t the same as working for it – although there’s no reason you shouldn’t help yourself to both methods. Still, the latter is more efficient. One way you could be working on your success is by hiring a digital marketing agency to help you improve in the ranks.
Those darn algorithm crawlers need to notice you, now and today! But they only will if you invest in creating a superb digital marketing campaign. You can hire an agency like Made Online to help you with that since that’s much quicker and more efficient than learning everything alone.
Our services include all types of optimizing – general, local, and YouTube based – as well as content writing, web design and development, social media engagement, and PPC. With us, you’ll get everything and more – and you’ll be noticed sooner than you ever imagined.