What is SEO?: Search Engine Optimization for 2020

Let’s get back to the basics for a second. What, exactly, is SEO? And why is it so important?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the ongoing process of tweaking online content so that it is delivered to the most searchers, by search engines such as Google. Search engines utilize complex algorithms to determine what pieces of content appear on the search engine results page (SERP) for different queries. SEO refers to the array of tactics that can be used to make these algorithms work in your favor.

Have you ever wondered how Google decides which article appears at the top of the list when you search for specific terms? It all comes back to a (mind-bogglingly complex) algorithm that is constantly being updated and tweaked. It’s impossible to keep track of every single update to these search algorithms, but there are some overarching metrics that always influence SERP rankings.

How Search Engines Work

Search engines are engineered to deliver the most useful content to their searchers. They take into account a massive amount of information to decide which articles are the most relevant and authoritative. If a search engine can’t weed out weak or off-topic content, people will stop using that search engine. So the only way to rank your site, is to create strong, on-topic content.

At this point, search engines like Google have gotten really good at discarding the articles and web pages that are trying to sneak their way up the rankings. The only way to rank near the top of Google’s first page, is to be a high quality, reputable source, in that specific niche.

High Quality Content

The most important part of SEO is creating high-quality, useful content, that people are searching for. There are tricks to help boost your SERP positioning, but if you aren’t creating valuable content, that serves a specific purpose, no amount of tweaking is going to push you to the first page of the search results.

There are countless factors that affect search engine rankings, but most of them are used to determine a few main metrics. Relevance, authority, traffic, and backlinks are long-standing hallmarks of nearly every search engine algorithm. Now, there are a number of sub-factors that determine how any piece of content is evaluated on these parameters, but they serve as a good starting point.

If you want your content to rank, it needs to be relevant to the keywords; your site needs to have authority in that niche; your post needs to be generating traffic; and other sites should be linking to it.

Relevance

In order for your site to be perceived as having high relevance, you need to post multiple articles and pages around related topics. A site that has posts about a number of related topics will have a much higher relevance score than a site that jumps between unrelated topics for its posts.

Ideally, your site will focus on certain “pillar” content, that is then backed up with supporting content around the same keywords. The more you focus on providing value in a specific niche, the better relevance score you will have—and the better SERP rankings you’ll experience.

Authority

Authority is related to relevance. Just posting more and more articles around the same topic isn’t going to grow your authority, though. Authority relates to your relevance, your traffic, and the number of people referencing your posts online. Backlinks, social shares, comments, and traffic can all increase your authority score.

For the most part, in order to have high authority, you are going to have to focus on relevance first. Once you’ve created a valuable set of content around your niche, you can focus on boosting your authority by engaging your audiences, and drumming up more engaged traffic.

Traffic and Backlinks

Getting a little more technical with our metrics here—traffic and backlinks are two of the main factors when it comes to determining authority and relevance. Traffic is pretty straightforward. It references the total number of people who view your content. Viewers who stay on your page, scroll to the bottom, or click through to other pages on your site are the most valuable traffic with regards to SEO and to lead generation. You want to find good traffic—traffic that will engage with your content, and perhaps become a customer—both for your business in general, and for SEO.

Backlinks are a bit more difficult to drum up. The term refers to the instances of other sites linking to your content. Search engines love to see that other sites find value in your content. It’s one of the most sincere forms of social proof on the internet. Even content that may look outdated or low-quality can rank at the top of the first page of Google, if it has backlinks from a number of reputable sites.

It all Comes Together

All of these factors play into each other. If your content has backlinks on a bunch of great, relevant sites, you can bet that your traffic is going to increase. In order to get those backlinks, and generate that traffic, though, you’re going to have to create some high quality content that people want to link to. So you need to keep pumping out high quality content related to your niche, so that you can drum up traffic, authority, relevance, and backlinks, all together.

If you can produce kick-butt content in your niche, that answers the questions people are searching for, you are going to be well on your way to an effective SEO strategy. Once you get started, you can start to focus on things like on-page SEO (how you highlight your keywords on your webpages) and keyword research (how you determine which keywords to focus on). And that’s just the beginning!

If you’re interested in taking a deep dive into your site’s SEO, shoot us an email and we’d be happy to help.