Search Engine Optimization is the practice of using various strategies to improve a website’s usability, quality and visibility and increase traffic in unpaid, algorithm-driven search engine results. Also referred to as Organic SEO, it improves the search experience of a website.
The main goal of SEO is to improve a website’s ranking on search engine results pages by fulfilling users’ search intent with relevant, high-quality, and authoritative content while providing the best possible user experience. The techniques used in SEO include on-page edits, off-page techniques, web server changes, and an understanding of Google RankBrain, E-E-A-T, and other AI systems.
SEO involves a complex series of hundreds of codependent variables that are weighted by keyword intent across a trillion webpages to determine the most appropriate answer to a query. This is not usually for the novice that wants a top-10 ranking out of millions of results for keywords that can change their lives. Highly competitive, this is a serious game best played by experts.
Effective Strategies for Improving Website Ranking with SEO – Learn proven techniques to boost your website’s visibility and climb the search engine rankings with effective SEO strategies.
Why Do SEO?
- SEO helps to increase a website’s visitor traffic from search engine organic rankings.
- SEO does that by making the site’s content more relevant and competent than the competition.
- SEO influences relevancy by improving the internal and external factors that influence experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).
- SEO involves keywords, on-page content, links and mentions, server issues such as speed, page layout and performance, with a usual focus on Google search.
- SEO is a major part of digital marketing that includes technical web programming expertise combined with business, persuasion, sales, luck, magic, and a love for competitive puzzle solving.
NOTE: I personally believe that there will soon be a boost in ranking for sites with high engagement. If a page is not engaging then that opportunity for ranking is lost. Add videos, add tools, add entertaining and learning items that engage and your site will be and rank better. Does that make it Engagement, Experience, Expertness, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness? I think so.
This section contains expert SEO information, software tools, and a tutorial guide answering how to do search engine optimization – SEO for your website for Google ranking. Answering “what is SEO” for web position results, how to optimize a website using what you have learned, and even including free tools and advice. We answer how to learn Search Engine Optimization.
SEO Techniques
On-page optimization – The modification of page content, navigation, structure and experience to enhance the ranking of a page in the search results.
SEO involves many search engine optimization elements: on-page technical issues, on-page copywriting issues, expertness (inbound, outbound, and internal links), server issues, and Siloing. In general, based upon the needs of the SEO services often include comprehensive page edits including META tags as needed, keyword research, review and advice on Silo structure implementation, creating, adding or revising content, sitemap validation (crawled and XML), Google Search Console and Analytics validation, search engine ranking reports, monthly status teleconferences with clients, analytics reporting (search statistics), accompanied by comprehensive account management. Linking within the site or page (link magnet research and development and other identified activities) will be validated.
The SEO will review the Website for key SEO elements believed to be important to facilitate organic search engine optimization. This review is conducted throughout the project to identify areas requiring repair. The SEO elements include site architecture and page construction (directory structure, layout, title, description, headings, image alts, and link tags), content (keyword frequency, density and distribution) and page speed performance. The purpose of the review is to identify SEO elements that could hinder the site from being well ranked in the search engines and will be used and adapted throughout the remainder of the SEO project. Since the search engines do not publish their ranking criteria or algorithms, a consulting project of this nature is based on professional experience, opinion and current beliefs – so to some extent it is a guess.
Off-page optimization – Gaining organic authoritative inbound links from other websites, proper placement of outbound links to other expert sites, the management of sentiment in discussions and comments about your website, and general branding activities.
The SEO will perform a link analysis review for the website to identify potential penalties, recommending opportunities and risks associated with existing or future linking opportunities and identifying strategies for opportunities to improve the expert stature of the site through linking programs. This review is conducted throughout the SEO project to identify areas requiring repair. The review will include existing inbound and outbound linking practices, and may include tasks associated with the removal of poor and generally harmful existing links (link pruning tasks).
Server Optimization – This is a technical effort to improve site speed and performance by tuning the parameters and settings on the website server and content management system including plugins, image formats, content delivery networks, javascript and css file formats and processing, ecommerce implementations, templates, international considerations, spidering and indexing issues, and other activities to comply with various laws such as ADA compliance. Much of the Core Web Vital activity will occur here.
SEO Tools – There are hundreds of tools available on the market, some free and some paid. In most cases the paid tools are very comprehensive and powerful. In many cases they are specific to a task such as focusing on spidering a website. In other cases there are free tools, commonly for the DIY SEO to economically use… although many can fail, produce inaccurate information, or just plain not match data in other tools. The tools are commonly reporting one-size-fits-all numbers and suggestions and often are not focused on a problem specific to your website.
Access to tools that are paid and address specific data points and are designed for experts are recommended.
SEO Training – Since SEO is never done, training is never done. It is easy to take one of many “once-and-done” training courses but a real SEO knows that SEO training is perpetual. Normally the needed information flows fast and freely via Twitter or LinkedIn along with newsletters and blogs… but there is a lot of information, and much is speculation. SEOs need a site that focuses on continual training such as SEOtraining.com to complement their other readings if they want to remain current in their hectic and often chaotic daily SEO life.
The components of a solid training program starts with a great SEO course, often online and occasionally classroom, plus other deeper-dive subject courses, webinars, eBooks, Q&A videos and occasionally site reviews and even coaching. This, on a regular basis, is what allows a SEO to remain current.