SEO Basics

SEO Basics

WordStream is mostly known as a PPC destination. But we also know a thing or two about SEO, and people ask about SEO basics.

So this article will be an introduction and overview of search engine optimization (SEO), a mandatory marketing tactic if you want your website to be found

by search engines like Google.

By the time you reach the end of this SEO Basics guide, you’ll have a solid understanding of what SEO is,

why it’s valuable and important, and how to get great results in an ever-changing SEO landscape.

SEO Basics: What is SEO?

You’ve probably heard of SEO, and if you haven’t already, you can get a quick Wikipedia definition of the term,

But understand that SEO is “the process of influencing the visibility of a website or web page in search engine results that are not paid

“It doesn’t really help you answer the important questions for your business and website, such as:

How can you, or your company’s website, “optimize” for search engines?

And how do you increase your site’s organic search results, so that your content is easier to find?

How do you know how much time you’re spending on SEO?

How can you tell the difference between “good” SEO tips and “bad” or harmful ones?

What’s probably most interesting to you as a business owner or employee is how you can actually leverage SEO to help drive more traffic,

and leads, and sales, and ultimately revenue and profits for your business. That’s what we’ll focus on in this guide.

Why is SEO important?

Lots and lots of people are searching for things. This traffic can be very powerful for a business, not just because there’s a lot of traffic,

but because there’s a lot of very specific, high-intent traffic.

If you sell blue widgets, would you rather buy a billboard so that anyone with a car in your area sees your ad (whether or not they have any interest in blue widgets),

or have it show up every time anyone in the world types “buy blue widgets” into a search engine? Probably the latter, because these people have commercial intent,

meaning they’re standing up and saying they want to buy something you offer.

People are searching for any type of thing that’s directly related to your business. What’s more, your prospects are also searching for all sorts of things that are closely related to your business. This represents more opportunities to connect with these people and help answer their questions, solve their problems, and become a trusted resource for them.

Are you more likely to get your widgets from a trusted vendor who has provided great information every single time you’ve turned to Google for help solving a problem,

or from someone you’ve never heard of?

SEO Tips:

First, it’s important to note that Google is responsible for most of the world’s search engine traffic (although the actual numbers always fluctuate).

This can vary from place to place, but Google is likely the dominant player in the search results that your business

or website might want to appear in, and the best practices outlined in this guide will help position your site and its content in other search engines as well.

Regardless of which search engine you use, search results are constantly changing. Google in particular has been updating a lot of things about how websites are ranked

by various different animal names lately, and many of the easiest and cheapest ways to get your pages ranked in search results have become

very risky in recent years.

So what works? How does Google determine which pages are returned in response to what people search for? How do you get all this valuable traffic to your site?

Google’s algorithm is very complex, and I’ll share some links for anyone looking to dig deeper into how Google ranks sites at the end of this section,

but at a very high level: