Search Engine Basics
SEO is no easy task, with over a billion websites online vying to rank higher on search engines.
It can take weeks ormonths to increase your rankings.
That is why it is so important to implement SEO into your efforts.
It is all well and good having the best content out there for your prospects, but if they can’t find it, an opportunity has been missed.
How Does Indexation Work?
In order to understand how indexing works, we’re going to break down the 3 steps search engines use to rank content:
STEP 1 | Crawling/discovery – Search engines find your content by crawling the web. This allows them to scan your content based on their particular algorithm. Google has their version, Bing has another. Each search engine algorithm is structured differently and they are constantly updating them.
STEP 2 | Indexing/relevancy – Once a search engine has crawled and read all your website pages they can now index the information they have found on the web and determine its relevancy.
STEP 3 | Ranking/authority – And finally, the search engine ranks your content based on your authority.
Google aims to provide trustworthy and reliable information to its users.
To do this, they give websites that have proven themselves to be of value to their users through their content or from backlinks with high authority scores.
A new website will have low authority since search engine algorithms don’t have any history about them. However, a well-established website like Buffer or Hubspot is likely to have high authority and rank well on Google.
Let’s take a practical example. Do you remember that blog post by Ted Murphy that I spoke about earlier on the lifespan of a blog?
- Google crawled the web and found this blog post.
- Google indexed it based on how relevant it thought the content might be. The blog’s website convinceandconvert.com was indexed over 10 years ago.
- Google ranked this content high enough for it to become a featured snippet.
There are many factors that come into play here, and Google’s algorithm isn’t publicly shared. But what we do know is that link building is one way for Google to know that others value your content and are referring back to it on their websites.
Organic and Paid Search
Organic Search: Is the process of a user finding your website through a search engine like Google.
Paid Search: Is the process of paying for your results to show above organic search results.
For more information on their differences and where you should focus your efforts, check out this blog post.
Search engines crawl the internet and rank websites based on hundreds of different factors to provide the most relevant results to users.
When a user types in a query, the search engine looks through all the websites, it has indexed and serves up the most relevant results.
Because organic search is how most people find websites, it’s a massive part of most businesses’ website performance.
It’s also a critical component of the buyer funnel and ultimately getting users to complete a conversion or engagement.
That’s why it’s so important to make sure your website is optimized for organic search.
The diagram below depicts SEO’s hierarchy of needs. We just discussed ‘crawl accessibility’; it’s hard for your website to get discovered, indexed, and ranked without this need met.
Hubspot: SEO Basics Deck – Free SEO Certification Course
Some common ways to optimize for organic search include the keyword.
- Content Creation
- Keywords
- Backlinking
Content Creation
Content allows businesses to communicate with their customers and prospects while providing valuable information based on their needs and wants.
This helps grow organic traffic to sites through SEO optimisation efforts like keyword research and backlinking.
There are a few things to keep in mind when creating content for SEO.
- Who is your target audience?
- What kind of information are they searching for?
- What questions do they have?
- How can you help them find those answers?
Answering these questions will help you craft relevant and useful content for your audience and ensure that your content ranks.
Once you have created this content, you need to make sure it is optimised for the search engines so that your content appears as high as possible in the search results.
This process includes both on-page optimisation, such as choosing the right keywords, and off-page optimisation, such as building quality backlinks.
If you can get your content to rank highly in the search results, you will be able to drive a significant amount of traffic to your website.
Keywords
Keyword research is an essential tool for understanding what topics your audience cares about so you can create content that is relevant and useful to them.
By researching keywords that are related to your market or niche, you can find out what questions people are searching for and create content that helps to answer those questions.
In addition, keyword research can also help you identify problems that your audience is facing to create content that provides solutions.
By understanding the needs and interests of your audience, you can create content that’s more likely to rank well in search engines and be of value to your readers.
As a result, keyword research is a powerful tool that can help you create more relevant and engaging content for your audience.
Here are a few keyword tools:
Backlinking
When people visit your website, you want them to stay awhile.
You want them to scroll through your website, learn about your business, and eventually buy something, right?
But for that to happen, you need to build credibility and trustworthiness with your audience.
One of the best ways to do that is by including backlinks on your website.
Backlinks are links to other websites.
These links bring high-quality sites together with yours. The more backlinks your site has, the higher it will rank in search engine results.
Semrush’s article on What Is Bounce Rate and What Is a Good Rate? shows that they have 506 articles linking back to them.
Following best practices and gaining 506 backlinks has increased their ranking for this article to 4th place for ‘bounce rate’ searches.
Content that has backlinks behind it gets rewarded by algorithms. This is because search engines like Google value the valued.
If high-quality sites are linking back to your site this signals that there is something of value here for people searching for that information.
How do you determine whether or not you need SEO services?
It can be difficult to determine whether or not you need SEO services; however, some key factors can help you make the decision.
First, take a look at your website’s traffic levels. If you’re not getting as much traffic as you’d like, or if your traffic levels are flat, then it’s likely that you could benefit from SEO.
If you’re looking to improve your website’s ranking in search results, one of the best things you can do is to secure high-quality links from other websites.
A good agency will have a team of experienced link builders who know how to research and contact potential link partners.
They will also have established relationships with many high-quality websites.
As a result, they’ll be able to secure links that would be difficult or impossible for most people to get on their own.
Another factor to consider is your website’s conversion rate. If you’re getting plenty of traffic but not many leads or sales, then it’s possible that your site could use some optimisation.
So if you’re serious about improving your website’s search engine ranking, hiring an SEO agency is a great way to get started.
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a digital marketing strategy that helps businesses improve their visibility and ranking on search engines.
By optimising your website for specific keywords and phrases, you can attract more qualified leads to your site and improve your chances of converting them into customers.
SEO is a complex and ever-changing field, but it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re doing everything possible to optimise your website.
At KAMG, we have a team of SEO experts who can help you choose the right keywords, create quality content, and build links to your site.
Our team of experts are here to help guide you through the process and make sure your website ranks as high as possible.
Contact us to learn more about how we can help you grow your business online.
