What's in SEO? A simple guide to help you understand search engine optimization (SEO)

Introduction

Are a business owner and you just heard about SEO but don't know where to start? Or if you're obsessed about marketing like me and want to learn SEO but you're overwhelmed but all the info out there?

In most cases, you NEED to learn SEO if you’re serious about growing your business (no matter what niche)

SEO is probably the most profitable long-term marketing strategy out there.

So, if you’re serious about it, this article is for you.

Stay till the end for a surprise!

What is SEO?

So, you spent a lot of time trying to learn SEO, and you still think you don't know anything about it?

Believe me, when I tell you, I've been there.

The problem is not that you don't know, but you focus on secondary things.

The truth is SEO is an enormous topic, and yeah, it's complex to understand, but the problem is when you focus on things that you don't necessarily need to understand or use in your case, it overwhelms you.

The bucket is half full, but your mind always tells you that it's half-empty.

But don’t worry, I’m here to explain to you what SEO is so you can use it to jumpstart your business, and how you can overcome that mind trick.

Let’s start with some history first.

It all started in 1991, that’s when SEO was born, the internet was new to the market, nobody knew back then how much it will impact our lives today.

When the first website was launched, a lot of websites followed the trend and the internet got full of websites. So, it became harder and harder to find a website you’re looking for.

That’s when Larry Page and Sergey Brin had their multibillion-dollar idea, building a search engine in which it’ll show websites based on people’s search query.

After a long time, it became one of the biggest companies in the world.

But what made Google dominate the search engine industry back then is, it rewarded people based on how well they are following algorithm updates and instructions.

That's the first-gen SEO when all you needed to do is load your page with keywords related to what your webpage is about, and therefore, you'll rank better in Google.

But Google was smart (Like always).

The next algorithm update changed the whole industry of SEO.

As time goes by, Google made so many algorithm updates. Now SEO is what it is today.

Now that you know some historical facts, let's move on to the definition.

SEO or search engine optimization is the practice of optimizing a website so that it ranks higher in search engines like Google (The famous one), Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGoo…

Let me tell you my definition now:

For me, SEO is sliced into three parts, technical, on-page and off-page

Now you’re probably wondering what in the world is Technical SEO?!

In a nutshell, Technical SEO is a set of actions related to the development and web creation, including HTML, Java, CSS, etc. (Web development languages)

For example, robot.txt is a file that lets crawlers crawl your website (lets robots created by Google to check your website), this file is part of Technical SEO.

Now I can't explain everything about SEO because like I said it's a very big concept, but I'll try to explain the basics so when the next time you research on your own, you'll understand more quickly.

Now, on-page is the next one.

On-page SEO is a set of actions that you do related to your webpage, like the title of your page, the design, the user experience…

For example, when you’re creating an article, let’s say an article about Facebook advertising, you can optimize your background image or your post image, or you can add some infographics, or you can try a new animation.

There are endless ways on how you can use it. That's what I think the best part of SEO where you can create and set your own rules (While respecting Google's of course).

This one is easier than Technical SEO because it's something that you can practice more often and be very good at without being an expert in Development.

The last one is Off-page SEO, and it’s the background of SEO, that's what you do outside the website.

For example, when you have a blog post and you’re mentioning an influencer in your industry. You can reach out to him and say ‘Hey I just mentioned you here can you share it? ‘(that’s just an example, don’t use this in your emails)

If you are lucky and they share it, then when they're he's going to mention you or share a link to your page, that's a signal that Google takes into consideration.

The more links your website has the more you’ll rank higher in the SERP (search engine results page).

Of course, there are endless things you can try on SEO, but that's everything you need to know if you're just starting.

I’ll leave some resources at the end of this post where you can dive deeper into SEO and learn more advanced tactics and tips.

Why do you need SEO?

Let’s answer the most important question you need to know.

‘Why do I need SEO’

To answer this, I'll start by explaining the common WHY, and then I'll move on to my understanding of the WHY.

As you may already know, Google is one of the biggest companies in the world, its first product is a search engine (followed with ads later)

So, it’s obvious that Google is improving its search engine so that more worthy sites will rank higher.

But Why is the brand doing this?

Because Google knows that if you rank high more people will come to your site, and your page will have more traffic, and that’s what every business wants.

More Traffic!!

Now that’s the common WHY.

But let me explain to you my WHY.

First of all, I think there's a lot of reasons why you should use SEO.

Some of them are:

• To Gain More Traffic (The most obvious reason): As I said earlier, if your website is ranking on the first page of the SERP, then it probably means that you're getting some traffic and that traffic can be converted into leads, and leads can be converted into clients.

• To Build Your Brand: Sometimes SEO can be more than a traffic source, it can be a brand-building tool, because like you all know Google is optimizing its search engine for answer mechanisms.

It means when you ask to google a question it shows you the answers without entering the webpage.

And that's tricky because if you answer more questions for your audience, you'll become the brand that your audience will go to when they need the answer to something.

• To Be the Authority in your niche: Besides building traffic, you can aim to be the best in your industry by ranking higher than your competitors, and that can open you a lot of doors like partnerships and collaborations with other companies (We all love collaborations right)

There’s plenty of other reasons why you need SEO, but I’ll let you discover them on your own in your SEO journey.

How to do SEO?

So, now that we know what is SEO and why we need it, let’s move on to practical things.

Here's a quick step-by-step guide to building your SEO strategy:

Step 1: Know Your Audience

If you want your SEO campaign to work, you need to understand your audience, and by that I mean know your data.

What types of keywords your audience search for? What are the biggest concerns in your industry and how you can answer that for your audience? What’s your audience person? How old are they? …

You can set your data and your questions to answer.

And when you’re done move to step 2

Step 2: Know Your resources

Do you have a developer? Do you have a budget for the tools you need to use?

These types of questions are necessary before any SEO work.

Because If you don't know your SEO resources, you're going to fall into the trap of being exposed to burnout or overwhelm.

That’s why knowing what you can do and what you cannot do is important.

Step 3: Know Who You’re Competing With

Even if I don’t love competition, but when it comes to SEO, you need to know who’s in your field.

Who's ranking on the first page? Who's ranking first? What strategies are they using? …

When you take the time to research your competitors, it'll help you see what's in your market, and what types of strategies you can learn from.

Step 4: Build your strategy

Now it’s finally time to build your SEO strategy, here you can be creative as much as you want, there are no rules.

You can try to focus on the On-page for the first week of work, you can A/B test.

Or you can focus on Technical SEO and fix all the issues that your website might have accumulated.

There are no limits, so shape your strategy as you wish.

Step 5: Be consistent to scale

SEO is a long-term game, results might not be seen in a very long time, so be ready for consistency because that's what SEO is.

The more you are consistent in your work, the sooner the results will come.

Pro Tip:

As a marketer, I recommend you build your SEO strategy and create a visual document because visuals are more efficient when it comes to strategizing. It helps see how the work is achieved and what aspects to tackle.

What's Next?

You’re all set to start your SEO journey, but a quick fact before you jump into it.

Take the time to study SEO, don't rush into it, don't focus on secondary things like technical SEO if you're not a developer.

Also, don't forget to be creative along the way and try new things out.

Because that’s the beauty of SEO, there are no boundaries to what you can try.