What Is SEO and How Does It Work?

SEO or search engine optimization refers to the process of optimizing your web pages to rank higher on Google and other search engines for relevant and popular search queries. And, therefore, it helps you attract more clicks and website visits.

The more traffic you want to attract, the higher you should get your site ranked. Because the first five organic search results get 67.60% of all clicks.

How can you make sure that your site ranks in the top 5 results?

You’ll need to optimize your website for:

• Relevant keywords
• Technical aspects
• Content quality and relevance
• User experience
• Authority
• Links

Optimizing your website for these parameters comes under the practice of search engine optimization. It can help improve the visibility of your web pages in the search results on all major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Are you ready to rank higher in search engine results to get more organic traffic, leads, and sales?

Then, keep reading this post. Be sure to implement the best SEO practices mentioned below for your own website.

Even if you are a newbie, we’ve got you covered. In this post, we will cover everything from what is SEO to how it works and which strategies are the most effective.

Why Is SEO Important?

SEO is important because it helps you rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) and get more visibility.

When done right, search engine optimization (SEO) will help you:

• Improve search rankings. Leveraging the best SEO practices can help your web pages get more exposure on search engines. The higher you rank, the greater your chances to get found by your target audience will be.
• Increase organic search traffic. Ranking well in the SERPs will help you get more clicks and traffic.
• Gain trust and authority. When Google and other search engines recommend your content to users, it will help you gain their trust. People will start seeing you as an expert in the field and will likely look to you for advice, tips, and products/services.
• Improve user experience. While working on your SEO campaign, you’ll improve your site speed, navigation structure, and increase the overall mobile-friendliness of your site. Whenever a user visits your site, they are likely to have a better user experience.
• Increase engagement and conversion rate. Through constant site audits and website optimization, you are likely to see more engagement. This, in turn, can lead to getting more leads and conversions. If done right, it can help you boost your revenue considerably.

In all, doing SEO right will directly benefit the overall growth of your business.

SEO has helped me make it easier for search engines to discover my content and get 155K+ monthly organic search traffic to my website.

Types of SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be broadly divided into two categories: on-page SEO and off-page SEO.

Let’s take a look at the key differences between the two and the parameters that each of them covers

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to the process of optimizing elements that are available on your website, including your website content and technical aspects. The factors that affect on-page SEO include but are not limited to:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Headings
• URL structures
• Web pages copy
• Blog posts content
• Image alt tags
• Page load speed
• Mobile friendliness
• Schema markups

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to the process of optimizing elements outside of your own website to improve your search rankings. These include but are not limited to:

• Backlinks
• Social reach and mentions
• Brand mentions on authoritative websites
• Business directory listings and citations

How Do Search Engines Work?

When a user searches for any term, search engines like Google look for web pages that can provide the best answers to the user’s query.

Search engine algorithms crawl countless websites and list web pages considering their relevance and authority among other ranking factors.

For example:
When you search “grow vegetables at home,” Google shows you videos and articles related to gardening tips, types of vegetables you can grow at home, etc.

Whereas, if you search “best laptops 2021,” Google will show you laptop reviews, comparison posts, and shoppable links.

What does this suggest?

Google and major search engines try to understand user intent and deliver the most relevant results to satisfy their query.

If you want to learn how to do something, Google will show you educational videos, articles, and guides. However, if you want to buy a product, the search engine will show you product reviews and comparisons, and direct you to ecommerce sites.

All of this to make a searcher’s life easier!

What does this mean for business owners, professionals, and anyone who wants to rank in the SERPs?

You need to invest in search engine optimization to ensure that Google shows your web pages to their searchers.

How Does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Work?

When ranking web pages in search results, Google uses over 200 parameters to decide which websites offer the most relevant and satisfactory information.

SEO or search engine optimization helps you meet those parameters to tell search engines that your content is the best result for a particular topic.

Once search engines trust your website, they’ll show your web pages on their search results pages. After all, the end goal of every search algorithm is to deliver the best and most relevant results to their users.

My site is currently ranking for 3,699 keywords in the top 3 search results.

Wondering what these parameters are?

I’ll cover them in the coming sections of this SEO guide.

Types of SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be broadly divided into two categories: on-page SEO and off-page SEO.

Let’s take a look at the key differences between the two and the parameters that each of them covers.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to the process of optimizing elements that are available on your website, including your website content and technical aspects. The factors that affect on-page SEO include but are not limited to:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Headings
• URL structures
• Web pages copy
• Blog posts content
• Image alt tags
• Page load speed
• Mobile friendliness
• Schema markups

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to the process of optimizing elements outside of your own website to improve your search rankings. These include but are not limited to:

• Backlinks
• Social reach and mentions
• Brand mentions on authoritative websites
• Business directory listings and citations

SEO Strategies That Can Help You Rank on Google and Other Search Engines

Let’s take a look at a few SEO strategies that can help you optimize your site for both on-page and off-page SEO parameters.

On-Page SEO Strategies

Some of the most popular and useful on-page SEO strategies include:

Optimize Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Every page on your site should have a title tag and meta description, which includes the main keyword.

Title tags are ideally 50-60 characters long while meta descriptions are 150-160 characters long (including spaces).

You can see these on search results pages.

Optimize Internal Linking

Google and other search engines use internal links to crawl all of the pages of your site. So, if you want search engines to discover your content, be sure to link to relevant posts and pages on your website.

Optimize Your Site for Page Speed

Page speed refers to how fast your site loads on desktop and mobile devices.

When searchers click on web pages that take too long to load, they are likely to get annoyed and bounce off. Google values user experience and satisfaction the most.

If you want search engines to keep ranking your web pages well, you should optimize your site for page speed.

It’s easy.

Just use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to test your page speed.

It will list site issues that might cause your site to load slower and opportunities to improve the speed further.

Leverage those suggestions to fix your website issues. You’ll be able to improve your page speed and user experience.

Add Structured Data

Adding structured data to your web pages can help search engines understand what your content is all about more easily and quickly.

It can increase your chances of getting featured in rich snippets, which give more information to the user.

For example, if you search for “italian pasta recipe,” rich snippets offer details like cooking time, ingredients, and user ratings.

Getting featured in rich snippets can help you get more clicks and search traffic. All you need to do is add structured data to every page on your website.

Off-Page SEO Strategies

Some of the most popular and useful off-page SEO strategies include:

Claim Your Business Listings

Every business that wants to attract local prospects should claim their Google My Business (GMB) listing.

Here’s the information you’ll need to provide to create your business listings:

• NAP information or the name, address, phone number of your business
• Your business hours
• Business description – I recommend that you include relevant keywords in the description
• Your business website URL
• Photos related to your business, store, products, etc.

By claiming your business listing, you’ll be able to rank your business in local business snippets on Google.

In addition to claiming your GMB listing, you should also list your business on Yelp and other online business directories and citation sites.

This practice will help you get local search engine traffic and build more links.

Don’t forget to leverage other useful local SEO strategies that can help people in your region find your business.

Guest Post

You should write guest posts for relevant, high DA (domain authority) websites and ask them to link back to relevant posts and pages on your website.

This off-page SEO practice will help you:

• Earn quality backlinks.
• Build readership.
• Drive referral traffic to your website.
• Increase trust and authority.

I frequently guest post on top publications like Forbes, Inc.com, HubSpot, CMI, Mention.com, Social Media Today, Search Engine Journal, and more.

Regularly contributing to other websites as a guest blogger and participating in expert roundups has helped me build 284K backlinks from over 8,000 domains.

Check out my list of 2100+ guest posting sites to get started.

Do Social Media Promotions

Promote your content and products/services on multiple social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Social mentions and shares also contribute to link building and, thereby, help you improve your search rankings.

Syndicate Infographics

One of the easiest and fastest ways to earn backlinks is to create shareable infographics.

Most sites readily agree to syndicate infographics with a unique introduction of 250-400 words. In exchange, you can get a backlink to your website and also increase your readership and authority in the long run.

I usually create infographics on topics related to digital marketing, social media, SEO, content marketing, and influencer marketing. And, let other sites embed them on relevant posts on their sites.

Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO

White hat SEO refers to the practice of using the correct, ethical way to optimize your site. It refers to using SEO strategies that:

• Follow search engine guidelines.
• Focus on providing users the best possible results.
• Focus on a long-term approach to generate lasting results.

On the other hand, black hat SEO refers to using the easy but unethical way to improve your search rankings. It includes using strategies that:

• Violate search engine guidelines.
• Rely on manipulative tactics to improve rankings.
• Focus on quick wins.

How to Do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) the Right Way

Let me guide you through the process of optimizing your website for search engine algorithms.

Conduct an SEO Audit

First things first, it is important to understand the current positioning of your website on search engine results pages.

You should use a platform like Semrush or Ahrefs to conduct a thorough website audit to test the overall site health.

Semrush’s site audit feature makes it easier to identify and fix issues that can be preventing your site from ranking well in search results.

You just need to resolve the issues one by one to improve your search engine marketing results.

Do Extensive Keyword Research

Performing keyword research will help you understand how your target audience looks for information and products/services. You can then create content targeting the most relevant and popular keywords for your business.

You can use free tools like Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest to do basic keyword research. However, for advanced searches, I recommend using tools like Semrush or Serpstat.

Semrush has a database of over 21 billion keywords to search from. You can get details related to any particular keyword, which include:

• Search volume
• Keyword difficulty score – how difficult it would be to rank for it
• Keyword variations
• Related keywords
• SERP results

Follow my extensive guide on how to do keyword research to find the right keywords to target. You should also research competitive keywords to identify keywords that your competitors are targeting and ranking for.

Also, check out:

• Keyword suggestion tools
• Google Keyword tool alternatives
• Semrush alternatives

Publish High-Quality Content

When creating content for SEO, you should:

• Understand search intent by checking out the top-ranking posts on a particular keyword.
• Figure out what type of content will satisfy the user – blog posts, product pages, landing pages, or something else.
• When writing on informational topics, analyze what type of posts are ranking on Google – how-to guides, listicles, or something else.

You should use tools such as Surfer to analyze the key terms included in top-ranking posts on the topic and their frequency. This content optimization tool can also help you identify the right word count for your article.

The content you write should be:

• Unique
• Well researched
• Easily readable
• Structured properly with headings and subheadings
• Visually rich with screenshots, examples, graphs, etc.
• Plagiarism free
• Optimized for the target keyword and its variations

Optimize Your Site for Technical SEO Parameters

Optimizing your content is not enough. You also need to ensure that your site’s technical aspects are up to the mark if you want to improve your search engine rankings.

Title Tags

This HTML element shows the main title of any web page. You can also see title tags displayed in search snippets in the SERPs. When you see a clickable headline, the text that it displays is the title tag.

Here is where you can see it on Google:

Image via Google

These title tags are important for social sharing, SEO, and the overall user experience. It gives readers an idea of the kind of content they can expect on the web page.

That brings us to the question: How long should your title tags be?

Google doesn’t provide a recommended character length. However, it is generally believed that you should keep the character length between 50-60 characters. Anything that goes beyond this limit might not be visible properly in the SERPs.

Ideally, your title tag should be concise and must be written keeping human readability as well as web crawlers in mind. Google’s spiders look at the title tag for each post to get some context about the post content. It is recommended that you include your keyword in it.

Meta Description

This HTML element shows a quick summary of the content on your webpage. You can see the meta description tag in the search snippets, right below the title tag. Comparatively, they provide more context than title tags for a webpage.

Here is where you can find them on Google:

Image via Google

You can write meta descriptions of any character length. However, Google tends to truncate these snippets at around 155-160 characters. That’s why you should think of 160 characters as your upper limit.

While writing meta descriptions, your goal should be to provide value to your readers. You want to highlight why your post would interest them. Well-written meta descriptions can help you boost your click-through rate.

This, in turn, can have a huge positive impact on your web page’s ability to rank higher on the SERPs.

Schema

You can add schema to your HTML so that your web pages are represented better in the SERPs.

Think of them as consisting of a vocabulary of microdata or tags. Schema is considered to be the final result of a joint effort between search engines like Yandex, Google, Bing, and Yahoo! To understand your content in detail.

When you add schema markup to your web pages, you improve the way your listing is displayed in the SERPs. In a nutshell, it is a quick way to enhance your rich snippets.

Subheadings

Subheadings are extremely important for your SEO strategy as they make your text content look more structured.

This, in turn, makes it easier for web crawlers to understand your page content. And for readers, it becomes easier to skim through your content and absorb all the main points.

To optimize your content, your headings and subheadings should always have information about the content in a specific section. Avoid adding vague phrases that might be inaccurate or misleading. If you do that, you avoid the whole purpose of making your content easier to read.

What’s more, you can naturally insert your main and secondary keywords into your content while writing headings and subheadings.

Alt Text 

Alt text or alt descriptions are added in an HTML code to describe what an image is about. It is a useful feature that can help visually impaired readers get more context about what is in your post.

Another advantage of alt text is that it is displayed when an on-page image cannot be loaded properly. If your reader has connection issues or is facing a hard time loading your web page correctly, alt text is useful. Even when search engine crawlers check a web page, alt text helps them index the image correctly.

That brings us to the question: What kind of alt text should you add?

Ideally, your alt text should be descriptive and should contain the main keyword. However, don’t try to force it.

A quick way to figure out the best alt text for an image is to close your eyes and think of a word that describes the image. Any word or phrase that accurately describes the image is a good choice. The trick is to avoid generic terms and be as specific as possible in your description.

Let’s look at an example of an alt text for a photo of a pair of daisies.

Here’s the sample picture:

Image via Fine Art America

For this image, an appropriate alt text would look something like this:

<img src=”flower.png” alt=”purple daisy flowers blooming in grass”>

OR

<img src=”flower.png” alt=”purple daisy flowers closeup”>

URL Slug

URL slugs are how you can let users know what your page is about with a quick glance. Plus, your URL structure can make or break your overall user experience.

A logical URL structure indicates a clear hierarchy of web pages within a website. This can make it easy for users to navigate through your site and easily find what they are looking for.

But what’s that got to do with SEO?

Better user experience equals more brownie points. But that’s not all. Within your URL, you can add your keywords that provide a full understanding of what your webpage is about.

URLs are one of the important ranking factors on Google. While assessing the PageRank of any webpage, Google checks the URL to measure its value.

Optimizing your URLs is a quick way to ensure that you’re delivering relevant results to your visitors and making it easy for crawlers to track your content.

Other Tips to Improve Your Technical SEO

We’ve already covered all the main elements of technical SEO that you need to pay attention to. In this section, let’s discuss some more related tips that will help you improve your overall SEO strategy:

• Install the Yoast plugin to add the title tag and meta description easily on your WordPress site.
• Verify your site with the Google Search Console.
• Eliminate broken page links and fix all 404 eros. Set up 301 redirects for pages that have broken links.
• Optimize your site for page speed using a free tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
• Get an SSL certificate for your site security. 98.5% of top-ranking sites are secured with HTTPS encryption.
• Set up an organized site structure using categories, subcategories, single product/blog post pages, etc.
• Add internal links on keyword-rich anchor text.
• Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly. You can test it using Google’s free tool – Mobile-Friendly Test.
• Use SEMrush’s Audit tool to find out if you have any duplicate content on your website. If you do, remove it immediately as it can negatively impact your rankings. 

Build Site Trust and Authority

If you want to rank higher in the SERPs, the long-term goal of your SEO strategy should be to build site trust and authority. Of course, this process takes a lot of time and effort. But if you have eyes set on the prize (first page of Google), you need to persist.

But why is site trust and authority so important for SEO?

Google has a special framework to assess if the content on a web page is accurate or not. It is called the E-A-T paradigm. Here is what it means:

• E= Expertise
• A=Authoritativeness
• T=Trustworthiness

Essentially, the E-A-T paradigm is a way that tries to maintain the quality of content that it puts out. This framework assesses how accurate and useful the information is on a web page.

After all, anyone can create a new website online and add whatever information they want to it. You might not be a doctor, but you can create blog posts that contain medical information.

But is that information reliable? Is it coming from a source that can be trusted? Google wants to know that for sure. For Google, an article on medicine written by a doctor on a site like Mayo Clinic is better than a post coming from a random blog.

Does that mean that you have to be an expert to have your site ranked on Google? No. Google does recognize that you can have expertise in a domain where you aren’t formally educated.

Here is what Google mentions on their Quality Rater guidelines:

“Some topics require less formal expertise. Many people write extremely detailed, helpful reviews of products or restaurants. Many people share tips and life experiences on forums, blogs, etc. These ordinary people may be considered experts in topics where they have life experience.

If it seems as if the person creating the content has the type and amount of life experience to make him or her an “expert” on the topic, we will value this “everyday expertise” and not penalize the person/webpage/website for not having “formal” education or training in the field.”

However, you should note that there is a specific category that Google pays extra attention to: Your Money or Your Life. (YMYL)

So what are these YMYL websites? According to Google, it includes websites in the following categories:

Image via Google User Content

Any website that falls under this category is assessed very carefully. In their guidelines, Google mentions that YMYL websites have the potential to negatively impact people’s financial stability, health, safety, and happiness. So they have very high standards for YMYL web pages.

So, why should you pay attention to E-A-T for SEO?

In most of the algorithm updates on Google, the core focus has been on improved user experience. In fact, Google has been penalizing webmasters for keyword stuffing for a while now. That is because it disrupts the overall reading experience.

Furthermore, mobile responsiveness is an important ranking factor now. Not just that, Google also prioritizes websites that have HTTPS because they want to give importance to site security. Even the development of Core Web Vitals indicates how important user experience is for Google.

The E-A-T paradigm is an extension of the same. It’s Google’s way of determining a site’s credibility. Through their evaluation, they want to make sure that each web page that they display provides value to the readers.

Google’s aim is to show pages that have the most value in relation to a search query. That’s because if they find accurate and reliable information, they are likely to come back.

But how do you build your trust and increase your site authority? Here are some quick ways to win over Google’s trust:

Get Mentions From Trustworthy Sources

Invest some time into finding out high-authority sites in your niche. Reach out to them to get backlinks. When a trustworthy site backs you, you automatically become more reliable for Google.

Other ways to get mentions from authoritative sources include:

• Appear in interviews
• Collaborate with influencers
• Appear on niche podcasts
• Write guest posts
• Speak at industry events
• Sponsor events

Get More Reviews

One of the best ways to promote your business and win over potential customers is via positive reviews. A good review can convert a lead into a customer.

What’s more, online reviews can also help you build your reputation in the eyes of Google. Overall, it is a win-win for your SEO strategy.

Aim to get as many reviews as possible across multiple sites, including Google, Yelp, Trustpilot, Facebook, and others. On Instagram and other social media channels, don’t shy away from showcasing these reviews in the form of Stories or Highlights.

But just getting reviews isn’t enough. You need to take time to respond to each and every comment that you receive. Of course, not all of them will be positive.

If you receive some criticism, ask your customers how you can improve the situation. This shows that you care about them and are committed to improving their experience. As a brand, it also boosts your trustworthiness.

Hire Experts

As we discussed before, Google loves credible content from experts. To increase the overall E-A-T of your website, you should hire contributors who bring real-life experience.

For instance, if you run a beauty blog, get makeup artists and hairstylists to create content for you.

Show Your Credentials

When you do call in the experts to contribute, make sure you verify their credentials first. Once that is done, don’t be afraid to showcase it on your website, social media handles, and elsewhere.

Also, provide a link to the website of the author. This way, Google can understand who is a related entity.

On your website, have a special page that displays a short bio of all the contributors. Showcase their bonafide right there. If they have special degrees related to the niche they are writing on, let Google know about it.

To get more credibility, you could also include the following credentials for all writers:

• Books that they have written
• Awards they have won
• Speaking engagements they have participated in
• Conferences that they have participated in
• Certifications that they have

Showcase Your Contact Details

It may seem obvious but adding your contact information on your website as well as your Google My Business listing can make your brand seem more credible. Having a contact number and address associated with your brand tells users that you’re a real company.

Get High-Quality Links

This point is like an extension of the E-A-T paradigm that we discussed above.

Backlinks help Google understand the reliability, trustworthiness, and authoritativeness of your website in your niche. This will increase your chances of ranking well in search results.

But is any type of backlinks good for your SEO campaign? No, Google considers the following factors while evaluating if your backlink is high-quality or not:

• Quality: To judge the quality of a website that you get backlinks from, Google looks at that website’s Domain Authority (DA).
• Anchor Text: Google checks if your links have anchor text that includes your keyword.
• DoFollow Link: Google completely ignores links that come with a “nofollow” tag. Make sure you get a “dofollow” link from a trusted website.

For link building, here are some best practices that you should follow:

• Identify relevant, high DA websites that are likely to link back to your website.
• Once you’ve selected a few sites, reach out to publishers or site editors for guest posting topic ideas.
• Write high-quality content for the site owners who show interest in collaboration.
• Include a link back to a relevant blog post or resource on your site.
• Submit the article for publishing.
• Earn backlinks.

From time to time, you should also audit your link profile.

Here’s my backlink analysis report by Semrush:

Semrush’s link building tool also enables you to identify the best link building opportunities. You can get a list of domains that will most likely link back to your web pages.

FAQs

1. What is SEO and how does it work?
SEO (search engine optimization) refers to the process of optimizing your web pages to rank higher on search engine results pages.

When a user searches for any keyword, Google and other search engines look for web pages that provide the most relevant information about the topic. And, it lists those pages on search results pages, ranking them based on their relevance and authority.

By using SEO tactics, you can help search engines trust your content for its reliability and, thereby, increase your chances of ranking well in search results.

That’s how SEO works.

2. How do you properly do SEO?
You can properly do SEO by:

• Conducting site audits.
• Researching the most relevant keywords for your niche.
• Publishing high-quality content.
• Optimizing your title tags, meta descriptions, URL structures, page speed, and other technical aspects.
• Building backlinks from relevant, high DA sites.

3. How long does it take for SEO to work?
SEO is a long-term marketing tactic. So, you shouldn’t look for a quick win. It can take up to 6 months before you can start seeing the results of your SEO efforts.

However, you’ll get many long-term benefits in the form of increased authority, brand awareness, website traffic, and popularity.

4. How do I know if SEO is working for me?
You should use tools such as Google Analytics and Semrush to track metrics like:

• Organic search traffic
• Number of pages ranking on Google
• Domain authority (DA)
• Number of backlinks
• Number of referring domains
• Page authority (PA)
• Number of brand mentions

5. Can I do SEO on my own?
Yes, you can do SEO on your own by following the practices and processes discussed above. However, it’s always better to have an expert do it for you.

Conclusion

Now that we’ve discussed what SEO is, why it is important, and how to do it, it’s time to take action. Are you ready to start working on your SEO campaign now?

Let me give you an incentive to get started: Sign up for a 14-day FREE Semrush PRO trial here. After you’re done, follow these steps:

• Conduct a thorough website audit to understand the current positioning of your site and identify major SEO issues that might be pulling you down.
• Start fixing SEO issues using the strategies, tools, and processes we’ve discussed in this post.
• Check out other powerful SEO tools that might help.

Here’s what you should do next:

• Sign up for a 14-day FREE Semrush PRO trial.
• Conduct a thorough website audit to understand the current positioning of your site and identify major SEO issues that might be pulling you down.
• Start fixing SEO issues using the strategies, tools, and processes we’ve discussed in this post.
• Check out other powerful SEO tools that might help.

Need help?

Do you have questions about search engine optimization? Or, do you want to hire experts to do SEO for you? Reach out to my team of SEO experts here to get started.