SEO means Search Engine Optimization and is the process used to optimize a website’s technical configuration, content relevance and link popularity so its pages can become easily findable, more relevant and popular towards user search queries, and as a consequence, search engines rank them better.

 

Search engines recommend SEO efforts that benefit both the user search experience and page’s ranking, by featuring content that fulfills user search needs. This includes the use of relevant keywords in titles, meta descriptions, and headlines (H1), featuring descriptive URLs with keywords rather than strings of numbers, and schema markup to specify the page’s content meaning, among other SEO best practices.

 

Search engines help people find what they’re looking for online. Whether researching a product, looking for a restaurant, or booking a vacation, search engines are a common starting point when you need information. For business owners, they offer a valuable opportunity to direct relevant traffic to your website.

 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of orienting your website to rank higher on a search engine results page (SERP) so that you receive more traffic. The aim is typically to rank on the first page of Google results for search terms that mean the most to your target audience. So, SEO is as much about understanding the wants and needs of your audience as it is about the technical nature of how to configure your website.

 

Here are the basics.

 

How do search engines work?

Search engines provide results for any search query a user enters. To do so, they survey and “understand” the vast network of websites that make up the web. They run a sophisticated algorithm that determines what results to display for each search query.

 

Why SEO focuses on Google

To many people, the term “search engine” is synonymous with Google, which has about 83% of the global search engine market. Because Google is the dominant search engine, SEO typically revolves around what works best for Google. It’s useful to have a clear understanding of how Google works and why.

 

What Google wants

Google is designed to deliver the best search experience to its users, or searchers. That means providing the most relevant results, as quickly as possible.

 

The 2 core elements of the search experience are the search term (the user input) and the search results (the output).

 

Let’s say you search “Mailchimp guides and tutorials.” This is a clear, unambiguous search. Google understands what you’re asking for, and it delivers a useful page as the top organic result—Mailchimp’s own page.

 

From Google’s perspective, this is a very good search result and a positive user experience, because it’s likely that the user will click the top result and be happy with the outcome.

 

What is SEO and how does it work?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO practitioners optimize websites, web pages and content for the purposes of ranking higher in search engines, like Google. SEO is a set of practices designed to improve the appearance, positioning, and usefulness of multiple types of content in the organic search results. This content can include web pages, video media, images, local business listings, and other assets. Because organic search is the top method via which people discover and access online content, utilizing SEO best practices is essential for ensuring that the digital content you publish can be found and chosen by the public, increasing your website’s organic traffic.