September 30, 2025

What Is SEO? Learn the Basics of Search Engine Optimization

One final aspect that you shouldn’t forget about is your business listings. Make sure these are accurate on your Google Business Profile and other websites that are relevant to your business. SEO is all about optimizing your website to increase your online visibility.

seo meaning

The main types of SEO are on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO, each focusing on different optimisation aspects. Because we know how tough marketing can get, we’ve created this handy guide for you based on our 25++ years of experience in the industry. Then, put your knowledge to use on your website and measure your performance with the above tools! If you’re looking for more guidance, check out our SEO podcasts and SEO FAQs for answers to the most common SEO questions. Remember to use other SEO content best practices, like using headings, short paragraphs, lists, and tables to improve content skimming, as well as inserting targeted words or phrases throughout the copy.

SEO (search engine optimisation) marketing is the process of optimising your website and its content for visibility. In other words, optimizing your site for SEO makes it easier for internet searchers to find your content, products, and services. Another SEO strategy that SEO experts utilize is optimizing a website’s semantic markup. Using semantic markup can help with getting rich snippets displayed in the search results page, such as extra text, review stars and even images. Rich snippets in the SERPs doesn’t have an impact on search rankings, but can improve CTR from search, resulting in an increase in organic traffic. Identifying the terms that searchers use in Google search and other search engines provide direction on what existing content can be optimized and what new content can be created.

  • For instance, “Search Engine Journal”, “SEJ”, “SearchEnginejournal.com”, and “Search Engine Journal SEO 101 Guide” are a few examples of branded keywords.
  • Well, there’s a lot you can do and it can be divided up into three main areas.
  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of making a website more visible in search results, also termed improving search rankings.
  • From building your strategy to tracking your performance, the best SEO firms work to keep you ahead of the market.
  • If you’ve never heard of SEO, you may not understand what this means.

#1 Know What Your Users Are Really Looking For

seo meaning

Review the final layout of your webpage and ensure your content is accessible across mobile and web browsers. We recommend creating a checklist of items to review on each web page before publishing for consistency. Where possible, your target keyword should be present across the following elements of your page. Check any internal links to this page for bounce backs or other errors. Are there links to pages you could add to help visitors find information they need?

seo meaning

What Is the Meta Description Character Limit on Mobile in SEO?

To ensure that your website stands out in the sea of millions of others move past the what is SEO stage and get moving on your SEO strategy. Simplilearn’s  Digital Marketing Post Graduate Program will help you turn into an industry-ready SEO professional from day one. An SEO company helps businesses grow rankings, traffic, and revenue from organic search.

seo meaning

Search engine optimization focuses on improving a website and its content, while pay-per-click advertising focuses on improving an ad campaign and its ads. You’ve learned a lot, from SEO’s meaning to SEO’s functionalities, and now you’re ready to bring search engine optimization to your organization’s digital marketing strategy. By doing keyword research, you will be able to create content that aligns with your business and gets people to your website.

seo meaning

Technical SEO is about improving the technical aspects of your website so that search engines can easily find, crawl, understand, and index your pages. Off-page SEO primarily revolves around link building — the process of getting other websites to link back to your website. Additionally, achieving a high ranking in Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) automatically enhances the credibility and authority of your brand. This is because people trust that Google makes significant efforts to display only the best, most relevant, and high-quality search results. We studied almost one billion web pages and found a clear correlation between referring domains (links from unique websites) and organic search traffic.

seo meaning

Content length

Add structured data to relevant URLs BHS Links to provide search engines greater context. Use Google’s free Structured Data Markup Helper tool, plus its Rich Results Test tool, to create and verify your markup before installation. Help search engines and users navigate your site with internal links. Add your most important URLs to your navigation and footer, and ensure every page on your website receives at least three internal links (with descriptive anchor text) from other internal URLs. Create informational meta descriptions for your content by following similar best practices. For example, answer your target keyword’s search intent and incorporate your target keyword.

Today, I never create blogs below 2,000 words, if my goal is to rank for a focus keyword. If it contains the focus keyword, you let Google know what the page you’re linking to is about. Long-tail keywords tend to have lower difficulty and higher conversion rates. It’s because the query is more specific, so there’s a higher chance the user is further down the buyer’s journey. Your goal is to find relevant keywords with high search volumes and low keyword difficulty – an ideal combination of the three most important factors of keyword research. Besides keyword suggestions, it calculates the difficulty of ranking for the keywords and helps you to analyze the SERP.

Typically, SEO companies will use on-page, off-page, and technical optimizations to improve a site’s visibility, traffic, and revenue from organic search results. On the other hand, some confirmed ranking factors only have a very small impact on the rankings. AI SEO is important because AI usage is growing, with 1 in 10 U.S. users using AI first for online searches. While traditional search engines like Google still dominate search experiences, the growth of tools like ChatGPT is unprecedented.

Ravina
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Ravina Pandya,  Content Writer, has a strong foothold in the market research industry. She specializes in writing well-researched articles from different industries, including food and beverages, information and technology, healthcare, chemical and materials, etc. With an MBA in E-commerce, she has an expertise in SEO-optimized content that resonates with industry professionals.

Ravina Pandya

Ravina Pandya,  Content Writer, has a strong foothold in the market research industry. She specializes in writing well-researched articles from different industries, including food and beverages, information and technology, healthcare, chemical and materials, etc. With an MBA in E-commerce, she has an expertise in SEO-optimized content that resonates with industry professionals.

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