Search Engine Optimization
INTRODUCTION TO SEO George Mwangi
PART ONE
Today, the internet has become a global source of information and a fundamental part of livelihood for millions. This is because millions use the internet for various purpose which includes; banking, trading, shopping, social networking, digital marketing, gaming, online booking, education, etc. With the development of modern technology, the internet has become accessible on most mobile devices in every corner of the world; a thing that has made millions of people are competing for space on the internet on various digital platforms.
Recent research by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) has shown that over 73% of the world's population use the internet for various reasons; a thing that has made many companies maximize online advertisement and e-commerce to expand their business. Many websites such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo earn great revenues from online advertisements. This is a result of millions of websites uploaded on the internet. This has made many businesses compete to promote and advertise their products and services via digital platforms. This has further led to the introduction of search engines where companies and individuals compete for online advertisements and optimizations of their website's search engines.
Many people may be asking; what are search engines and how can they be used to propel the business to another level? Search engines are software working in the back-end search process. A search engine is composed of two main things: a database of information, and algorithms that compute which results to return and rank for a given question. Most people use search engines to find a reliable business during the search process; therefore, a search engine is a key resource to boost online businesses. Online businesses pay millions of dollars to make their websites search engine friendly. Search engines use special programs called Crawlers or Spiders that crawl and index websites.
The crawler is a computer program that downloads web pages. Search engines discover new content by regularly re-crawling known pages where new links often get added over time. For instance, every time we publish a new blog post, it gets pushed to the top of our blog homepage, where there's a link. The Crawlers continuously explore the internet and include new websites in search engine databases, indexes, or re-index websites. Search engines rank websites on basis of their content's quality and display those websites in search results. They crawl and index websites thus collecting necessary data in form of keywords and phrases from the websites.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important and leading Search Engine Marketing (SEM) activities. SEM is an online marketing that increases websites' visibility in search engines to promote them. A search engine is considered a source that is used to promote a website and its associated business over the internet. Search engines explore websites' contents to gather information about a website. The search engines are classified into two general categories: Crawler-based search engines and Human-powered directories in a different manner. The crawler-based search engines typically work in three steps. First, they crawl through the website; then they analyze the webpage information for a targeted URL or keywords, evaluate the correspondence between the webpage and search criteria, then write this information in a specific format in its index database; Finally, they extract the webpage(s) in response of search query, containing most relevant information, from index database. The final result is presented in the form of hyperlinks and precise summaries of corresponding websites.
Websites are classified into two categories: Static and Dynamic. A Static website is written using HTML with some basic scripting languages such as JavaScript. Static webpage(s) are not drawn from a database; instead, each webpage is considered a separate document. On the contrary, dynamic websites are created on the fly according to preferences that users specify in a form or on the bases of value(s) that user selects from menus. A dynamic webpage is created by extracting data from the affiliated databases however, modifying the contents of a dynamic web page; might only require updating its database records rather than changing the contents of the webpage. Dynamic webpage(s) do not physically exist like HTML webpage(s). Static websites are easier to develop and cheaper to host than dynamic websites. Static websites are preferred over dynamic websites when a website is small and its contents do not need to update frequently. Someone with basic knowledge of website development skills can easily modify the contents of a static website. Small businesses prefer using static websites to get have a web presence. On the contrary, dynamic websites are preferred by large businesses; or when there is a need to change or upgrade the contents of the website frequently. It's important to understand that, dynamic websites have some advantages over static websites. For instance, it is possible to update the contents of a dynamic website by a person with little or even no knowledge of web development and scripting languages. The URL of a static webpage may look like this: http://passmarkmarketing.com/products/fashion-clothes.htm angle or upgrade the contents of the website frequently.
The URL of a dynamic webpage may look similar to this: http://www.passmarkeducators.com/products/ref=menu_4?ie=UTF8&node=1769
The next question that many people may be asking is what is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to techniques that help your website rank higher in organic (or "natural") search results, thus making your website more visible to people who are looking for your product or service via search engines. It is important to understand that SEO is part of the broader topic of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). This is a term used to describe all marketing strategies for search. SEM entails both organic and paid searches. With paid search, you can pay to list your website on a search engine so that your website shows up when someone types in a specific keyword or phrase. Organic and paid listings both appear on the search engine, but they are displayed in different locations on the page. Another fundamental question that one might be asking is, what is the importance of being listed on search engines? How will your business benefit from the listing in the search engines? It is important to understand that in Google alone, there are around 700,000 searches conducted every second. This shows how a business that is not listed in the search engine loses a lot of business opportunities. That is, people are not able to read your content and they are also not able to see your products in the search engine. Practising SEO basics, as well as more advanced techniques after those, can drastically improve your website's ability to rank in the search engines and get potential customers.
If your website is not indexed and optimized to show keywords and phrases that are relevant to what you have to offer, all of that potential traffic is going to your competitors. For a search engine to be able to display results when a user types in a query, they need to have an archive of available information to choose from. Every search engine has proprietary methods for gathering and prioritizing website content. Regardless of the specific tactics or methods used, this process is called indexing.
Search engines attempt to scan the entire online universe and index all the information so they can show it to you when you enter a search query. This is done through crawlers or bots which constantly scan the web, indexing websites for content and following links on each webpage to other web pages. If your website has not been indexed, your website can't appear in the search results. It is important to understand that big search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo are constantly indexing hundreds of millions, of WebPages. How do they know what to show on the SERP when you enter a search query? One might be asking. The search engines consider two main areas when determining what your website is about and how to prioritize it.
A. Content on your website: When indexing pages, the search engine bots scan each page of your website, looking for clues about what topics your website covers and scanning your website's back-end code for certain tags, descriptions, and instructions.
B. Who's linking to you: As the search engine bots scan WebPages for indexing, they also look for links from other websites. The more inbound links a website has, the more influence or authority it has. Essentially, every inbound link counts as a vote for that website's content. Also, each inbound link holds a different weight. For instance, a link from a highly authoritative website like The Fivver will give a website a bigger boost than a link from a small blog site. This boost is sometimes referred to as link juice.
When a search query is entered, the search engine looks in its index for the most relevant information and displays the results on the SERP. The results are then listed in order of most relevant and authoritative. If you conduct the same search on different search engines, chances are you will see different results on the SERP. This is because each search engine uses a proprietary algorithm that considers multiple factors to determine what results to show in the SERP when a search query is entered.
Many people may ask, what does it take to get your website to index or rank on the search engines? It is vital to understand that it is not difficult to get your website to index and even rank on the search engines. However, getting your website to rank for specific keywords can be tricky. There are 3 major elements that a search engine considers when determining where to list a website on the SERP: rank, authority, and relevance.
Relevance
Relevance is one of the most critical factors of SEO. The search engines are not only looking to see that you are using certain keywords, but they are also looking for clues to determine how relevant your content is to a specific search query. Besides actual text on your WebPages, the search engines will review your website's structure, use of keywords in your URLs, page formatting (such as bolded text), and what keywords are in the headline of the webpage versus those in the body text. While there is no way to track how relevant your website is, there are some SEO basics you can practise to cover your bases and make sure you are giving the search engines every possible opportunity to consider your website.
Authority
Search engines determine how authoritative and credible websites content is by calculating how many inbound links (links from other websites) it has. However, the number of inbound links does not necessarily correlate with higher rankings. The search engines also look at how authoritative the websites that link to you are, what anchor text is used to link to your website, and other factors such as the age of your domain. You can track over time how authoritative your website is by monitoring a few different metrics. There are a variety of tools to help you keep track. Hub Spot offers a free tool called Website Grader that will show you how many domains are linking to your website.
It is impossible to predict how people will search for content and exactly what keywords they are going to use. The only way to combat this is to generate credible content and lots of it. The more content and Web Pages you publish, the more chances you get to grow your webpage, and the higher your chances are of ranking in the search engine. If you create multiple web pages about the same topic, you are wasting your time. You need to create lots of content that covers lots of topics.
Rank
Rank is the position that your website physically falls in on the SERP when a specific search query is entered. If you are the first website in the organic section of the SERP. Your rank is an indicator of how relevant and authoritative your website is in the eyes of the search engine, as it relates to the search query entered. Tracking how your website ranks for a specific keyword over time is a good way to determine if your SEO techniques are having an impact. However, since there are so many other factors beyond your control when it comes to ranking, do not obsess over it. The content that you write on your website is very important in SEO ranking. Without rich content, you will find it difficult to rank for specific keywords and drive traffic to your website. In addition, if your content does not provide value or engage users, you will be far less likely to drive leads and customers.
Below are ways that you can use content to expand your online presence and increase your chances of ranking.
Homepage: Use your homepage to cover your overall value proposition and high-level messaging. If there was ever a place to optimize for more generic keywords, it is your homepage.
Product/Service Pages: If you offer products or services, create a unique webpage for each one of them.
Resource Center: Provide a webpage that offers links to other places on your website that cover education, advice, and tips.
Blog: Blogging is an incredible way to stay current and fresh while making it easy to generate tons of content. Blogging regularly (once per week is ideal) can have a dramatic impact on SEO because every blog post is a new webpage.
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