How does search engine optimization work

The page you are delivered to after you enter a search query is called the search engine results page aka SERP. However, the ads on the page are how they make their money. So, the better the results they deliver you, the more likely you and others are use that search engine again. The more people using the search engine, the more ads they can show and the more money they can make. Make sense? The Internet has really put the world at our fingertips. We are usually not more than a few clicks away from almost any information we could be looking for.

When people are looking for information, services, products, and so on, they go online. Odds are you clicked on one of the first few results, at least initially.

Odds are, they are loving you for not putting up a fight. So now you know why search engines work so hard to provide you with great results and why you should care, we can talk about how SEO works in a little more detail. Search engines have spiders — not the creepy kind, but the automated robot kind. These spiders collect all kinds of information about your website and the pages that make up your site.

This allows them to easily determine when to serve a searcher a page on your site. They collect things like page speed , title tags , social signals , internal linking , backlinks , and so on.

With over ranking factors used by Google in their algorithm, there are a lot of things to consider, and actions that can be taken to try to optimize a website. There are both on-page and off-page ranking factors that determine how well your site is optimized, and therefore how well it ranks. The on-page factors are exactly what they sound like: Things that are actually on the page. This includes title tags, content, site speed, page URLs, image alt tags, internal linking, and more.

Off-page factors , meanwhile, are almost entirely based on links to your site from other sites. You need to make your content consistent across desktop and mobile devices and ensure your site loads fast on both mobile and desktop. In short, you need to up your mobile game or your site to languish at the bottom of Google search results. Today, over a quarter of all Americans own a smart speaker. Voice search has been growing in popularity and will likely continue to do so. Most of the voice search optimization strategies make sense for semantic search, as well.

Voice search optimization is not a must-have right now, but voice search optimizations make sense for Google in general and may give you a leg up in the future. The technical stuff will change, but these SEO tips stand the test of time. Like building 10 sites and interlinking them to make Google think your crappy bitcoin sites are legit. This is where that acronym PBN comes into play. White hat is above the board, totally legit SEO. SEO is all about figuring out what works for your site in your industry based on your unique landscape.

There are rules and best practices, but the core of SEO is about figuring out what works for your site or client and then changing it when it stops working. These are just a few industry terms SEO professionals use every day.

And, it can seem intimidating to ask. Optimizing your site and content with these factors in mind can help your pages rank higher in the search results. SEO is a fundamental part of digital marketing because people conduct trillions of searches every year, often with commercial intent to find information about products and services. Search is often the primary source of digital traffic for brands and complements other marketing channels.

Greater visibility and ranking higher in search results than your competition can have a material impact on your bottom line. However, the search results have been evolving over the past few years to give users more direct answers and information that is more likely to keep users on the results page instead of driving them to other websites.

Also note, features like rich results and Knowledge Panels in the search results can increase visibility and provide users more information about your company directly in the results. In sum, SEO is the foundation of a holistic marketing ecosystem. When you understand what your website users want, you can then implement that knowledge across your campaigns paid and organic , across your website, across your social media properties, and more.