How Does SEO Work?
Did you know that you were not randomly sent here to this page? Absolutely not. The fact is a complex algorithm was used in deciding which page – out of over 21 million pages about SEO’s would be the best for answering your question(s).
Search engines understand that those who are consistent in delivering high-quality results for those search queries will make people come back again and again as they are gaining your trust, and the result ends up being that they are the only search engine these people will ever use or need. To learn more about SEO’s continue reading.
SEO – What it Is and The Way It Works
Let us go ahead and get your question out of the way. The abbreviation SEO is for search engine optimization. It is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on the presence of your website through search results by way of search engines, such as Google. After you learn to understand the way SEO works, you will be able to use many different tactics to help with the increase of visibility (this is how low or high your site ranks) of the search results.
Both the on-page and the off-page SEO are only looking to make your site a friendlier site and more trustworthy to users as well as the search engines. When crawlers of search engines take notice of the friendliness of your website, not just to them but also to other users, it will give your site a higher chance at ranking on different levels of searches.
For instance, let us say you represent two different websites: You have Website A and Website B.
The one that is non-responsive is going to be Website A; this one will be difficult to use on a smartphone or a tablet as users will have trouble navigating or using the site. On the other hand, the responsive site, which is Website B, is going to give users a better experience with a tablet, or a smartphone, including users of a desktop.
When it comes to search engines, it is clear which of the two sites is the friendliest: Website A.
The way search engines work is much more complicated. There are over 200 different factors use in generating search results. This is telling you that there are many elements that influence where your placement in search results is.
Why Does Search Engines Care Anything About SEO?
Search engines may not get paid from you, but they are paid by someone. This is the reason why they care if you are using them or another search engine; after all, they earn their money through advertising.
After entering a search query, you are carried to another page, which is referred to as a search engine result page (aka SERP). This presents what is referred to as “organic results,” including “pay-per-click ads” or (PPC). Organic results are the ones that are being influenced by SEO’s, but the PPC ads are the ones that are paid for.
You will not be able to pay any of the search engines like Google to hold a position inside the organic results.
Furthermore, they earn their income from the ads that run on these pages. They are going to try to deliver good results in hopes that you will return to the page to use them again. The more visitors a site gets, the more ads are viewed, and the more money they will make. It is only common sense.
What Is the Point in Caring How SEO Works?
In today’s world, when people are seeking information, products, and/or services, do not have to go any further than to their computer, and with a few clicks, you can find almost anything you want.
Do you remember the first time you thought about looking up how search engine optimization works? You went to the internet, and you searched, “How SEO works.”
What did you do next?
Chances are, you clicked on one of the first few results that popped-up. When you did not find a website that was up to your standards and clicked the back button and then scrolled down until what you were looking for finally showed up.
Unless your website has been properly optimized, it is possible you are only getting the one page on your search queries, and depending on your business’s name, even that might not be the issue.
What this means is that even if people are searching for what you have to offer them but do not know you exist, they are not going to be able to find you! There goes your opportunity to let them know why you can offer them more than your competition.
Are you getting this? If you do not have SEO, you are just giving leads to someone else.
This is good news for your competitor, as you are making their job much easier for them, and they have it easy enough with SEO. Chances are, they love you because you do not stand up and fight back.
Alright then, who cares how search engines can deliver results? Well, you should!
A Deeper Dive Into SEO
Now that you know the reason, search engines are working so hard at delivering the best results and the reason that you should care. So now, we can discuss the way SEO works in more detail.
Search engines consist of spiders; however, they are automated, and sort of like a robot, not the creepy crawlers you are thinking of.
These automated spiders stay busy collecting different kinds of information on your website, including the pages making up your site. These spiders gather information such as internal linking, page speed, social signals, backlinks, title tags, and so forth.
There are more than 200 ranking factors in Google’s algorithm. Google takes many things into consideration for website optimization. Your website rank is based on both on-page and off-page factors.
On-page factors, just as it states, will be found on the page. Which include the content, title tags, image alt tags, site speed, internal linking, and page URL’s, among others. While off-page factors are nearly all based on the links leading from other sites to your site.
It is crucial to remember that these are automated computer program bots and not real humans.
For those that are thinking the same thing I am, the answer is yes, “it does mean they have a few limitations.”
Since they literally crawl through the coding of the websites and can not actually view the site as humans do, they can not access the sites the way we do. This means to say that the bots can not see the videos or images, and neither can they be impressed by all the audio clips or flashy designs.
Furthermore, they are not capable of comprehending content as a human would!