SEO: Search Engine Optimization Basics
Welcome back to yet another article for Digital Marketing, also known as #wwudigimark. I hope you aren't tired yet, we still have three more weeks of posts to power through!
Today we are going to cover Search Engine Optimization also known as SEO, and how it is an important factor to focus on as a digital marketer. According to Mark Staton, Ph.D. SEO is the most important tool for a digital marketer.
What is SEO?
SEO is "the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as exposure to your brand, through non-paid (also known as "organic") search engine results"(MOZ). SEO not only focuses on the search engine but also the people using that search engine. We want to be able to understand what people are looking for online, what words they are using, and the type of content they are absorbing.
What is a Search Engine?
A search engine is an answering machine. When I think of search engines I tend to think of the magic mirror in Snow White, I am the evil queen and I can ask for anything I want to know and suddenly it appears in front of me!
Now, my searches aren't quite as nefarious but you get the point. Search engines or your mirror scour billions of results for your query and pick out the best ones that fit your need. Search engines are able to do this by cataloging all available content, this process is done through indexing and crawling then it is ordered by how it best fits the query by a system of ranking. Here are some definitions to help you understand crawling, indexing, and ranking.
Crawling: A discovery process in which Google bots are sent out to search the internet for any new content or websites. They do this by hopping on links and searching the code for new content, it is then placed in a database to be later retrieved by the searcher.
Indexing: This is where content found through crawling will be stored. When a page is in the index it is in the running to pop up when a query has been set.
Ranking: Results from the index are ordered from most to least relevant to the query. The rank will provide the best answer to the searchers' query.
What is Link Building?
According to MOZ, "Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. A hyperlink (usually just called a link) is a way for users to navigate between pages on the internet. Search engines use links to crawl the web; they will crawl the links between the individual pages on your website, and they will crawl the links between entire websites."
Mastering the art of link building is extremely hard and if you can have link building in your tool belt, it will help advance you in the SEO game.
Critical SEO Issues of 2020
Queryless proactive predictive search is getting better. Have you heard of Google Discover? Personally, I didn't know about it until a few minutes ago! Its a platform Google released in 2017 that prompts a new type of search, queryless proactive predictive search. Google Discover is an AI-driven content recommendation tool with around 80 million users. Google was able to develop software that looks at the interests of the user and how it develops over time. Is this just really cool or freaking creepy?! Discover can identify relevant content for the user and pull from websites that fit their ever-changing interests.
Why does this matter for SEO? Well, for a page to show up in discover they need to meet Google guidelines and are already indexed by Google. For pages to appear they don't need any tags or structured data. Pages are ranked by the quality of content and the level of interest of the person using Discover.
According to Google, there are two main ways to boost your page in Discover.
- Make your content interesting
- Use high-quality pictures
As we learned in a previous blog post content marketing is extremely important. With Discover, it is even more pertinent to publish content that is unique and is tailored to consumers. Click-bait content will not show up in Discover (Mohanadasan, MOZ).
Ending Thoughts
SEO is an interesting subject to learn and I am excited to continue my research as I continue this class and move past college into my career as a marketer. SEO is, as stated before, the most important tool for a marketer because it helps generate awareness for your company through increased website traffic.
