UNIT-3

SEO
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
• SEO stands for search engine optimization—the practice of increasing the
quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine
results.
• The ultimate goal of SEO for business is to generate organic traffic—
searchers clicking through to your website from a search engine
results page (SERP).
• The vast majority of online experiences begin on a search engine, making
search the most used digital tool, which is at the heart of why SEO is so
important.
• There’s been plenty of chatter about Google’s continually evolving
algorithms and how to keep up with them, but it can be much more useful to
understand their goal: providing the best experience for the searcher.
How Search Engines Work
• Before your website can show up in search results, its pages must be
correctly crawled and indexed.
• Every search engine has its own crawlers, or spiders, which scour the
internet and find new web pages. The pages they find are then added to the
search engine’s index, which is the record of all pages it has crawled.
• When you type a query into the search bar – whether it’s everyday searches
or you’re assessing the organic presence of your business – the search
engine then goes through the pages in its index, identifies the ones most
related to your query, and ranks them according to their relevance. These
links are then served to the searcher on the results page.
Importance of SEO

• SEO is important for businesses because it helps you attain visibility

for search queries organically. This helps you earn rankings rather than
having to pay for them with pay-per-click (PPC) ads.
Visibility and Rankings
• One of the most important functions of SEO is increasing visibility,
which means making it easier for prospects to find you when they
search for something you have to offer. Visibility is directly related to
your ranking.

• The higher you rank on a search engine result page (SERP), the more
likely prospects will see you and click through to your site, so it’s key
to increase your organic page ranking. The more effective your SEO
efforts, the higher your ranking and the better your visibility, which is
especially important when you consider that a quarter of web users
never click past the first SERP.
Web Traffic
• Increased web traffic is one of the main goals of SEO, and you
increase traffic when you increase visibility and rankings. Consider
this for a moment: the #1 spot on a Google search gets nearly 32% of
clicks and moving up just one spot in search results can increase CTR
by an amazing 30.8%.
• The golden grail for many marketers is the ‘Featured Snippet’ which is
often referred to as position #0 as it appears above the first ranked
URL. This is usually content that’s taken from a landing page on a
blog that answers a question people are searching for and can give
your organic click-through a huge boost.
• So, if you want more people to find your website through a search
engine, then you need to use SEO practices that will help you rank
among the top five positions, and ideally number one.
Authority
• Page Authority (PA) is increasingly important to search engines as it’s
becoming more important to web users. Essentially, authority means
that your website is trustworthy, high quality, relevant, and has
something to offer.

• Scores range from 1 to 100 and the higher your number, the more
authority your site has. You can find your PA rating by using tools
such as MOZ and while it's difficult to influence it, many SEO experts
believe it’s to do with link profile - getting external links from credible
and well visited sources.
Creating a Better Visitor Experience

• Another reason SEO is critical is because all the time you put into
generating great content and on-page SEO optimization improves the
usability of your site. This creates a seamless and positive customer
experience.
• For instance, when you take steps to make your site responsive, it will
make it usable for all your mobile visitors as well as people who visit
from a laptop or desktop. Similarly, by increasing your page load
speed, you'll reduce your bounce rate and encourage visitors to spend
longer on your site. Consumers expect a page to load as quickly as
possible with a limit on loading to not creep past three seconds! The
longer the load time, the higher the bounce rate and the lower your
conversions.
Remember, Search Engines Are Fallible
• SEO is important because search engines aren’t perfect. If you don’t
take steps to counter their failings, then your website will pay the
price.
• For example, if a site doesn’t have a proper link structure, then search
engines may not crawl and index the site properly which can lower
rankings. Coding errors can block search engines entirely, making it
impossible for your site to rank, no matter how much time you put into
other SEO efforts. Other common areas where search engines can run
into problems include:
• Duplicate pages
• Forms
• Images, flash, audio files, video, and other non-textual content
• Language and Semantics
Future of SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) marketing tool is and has always

been a very significant part of the digital marketing industry. This tool
has always played a very notable part in establishing the online presence
of countless businesses and websites.

SEO can effectively drive valuable traffic and give you high-quality
results.
AI and Machine Learning will rule the SEO
industry
AI and Machine Learning will dominate the SEO industry just like
today. Major search engines like Google are highly dependent on these
technologies to improve their algorithms. With machine learning, search
engines will find it easy to understand user intent resulting in better
content relevance and increased accuracy.
Optimizing Voice Search

Currently, voice search is only going upwards! The main reason that it is
growing at a surprising rate is the major increase in the use of smart
speakers and virtual assistants. Predictions state that by 2023, more than
60% of searches will be by voice search. In order to survive in the
market, SEO strategies must be made accordingly.
User Experience as Ranking Factor

• User experience (UX) has been emphasized by Google as a ranking

element, and this trend will only continue to grow in 2024. Websites
that offer users a smooth and satisfying experience tend to rank higher
in search results.
Using Videos for SEO

• Video content is trending right now and no it’s not just YouTube!
There are so many social media platforms that now support short-form
video content like Instagram Reels and TikTok. These apps are very
important for your SEO strategy.
Diversify your Content

Content diversity is an essential part of SEO in 2024. Try to generate

content in the trending formats and then optimize that for ranking.
Incorporate webinars, podcasts, and even infographics that can make
your content reach a broader audience.
Planning and Implementing
Optimized Website Content
What Is Content Optimization?

Content optimization is the process of refining and enhancing digital

content to improve its visibility, engagement, and effectiveness. The
process involves ensuring content quality, including keywords, writing
compelling titles and meta descriptions, and earning authoritative
backlinks.
Target Relevant Keywords with Traffic Potential

• The fundamental building block of every piece of your content is the

topic and the target keyword(s). It's important to identify those before
preparing and writing your piece.
• Start with a bigger topic that you'd like to focus on. Google is now
paying more attention to how you are covering the topic vs a single
keyword.
• To streamline this process, you can use the Topic Research tool. First,
type in a general idea that you think might resonate with your
audience.
Include Semantically Related Keywords

• To give yourself the best chance of ranking, include semantically

related keywords that are conceptually connected with your target
keyword. It helps search engines better understand the topic you are
covering. It’s important, though, that you don’t deviate from the
original intent of your article.
• To quickly and easily find such keywords for your content piece, use
the SEO Content Template, which provides suggestions based on the
top 10 organic search rivals for your selected keyword.
Create a User-Friendly Structure

• Once you have your topic and keywords, outline the structure of your piece
and design a logical flow. The related questions you saw in the Topic
Research and Keyword Overview tools can assist you with this step. In
technical terms, it means mapping out the H tag structure of the page.

• According to our 2022 research, 47% of articles with advanced headings

(H2 + H3 + H4) belong to the group of top-performing organic content.
Include Compelling Visuals
• Visuals are proven to increase user engagement with a piece of
content, meaning visitors stay on your page longer and pay more
attention to what you have to say.
• In our global content marketing research, we found that articles with
seven or more images receive 116% more organic traffic than those
that don’t.
• We also discovered that articles with at least one video garner 83%
more traffic, and articles with three videos or more attract 55% more
backlinks.
Add Relevant Internal Links
• Internal linking is one of the most important SEO practices. It allows
search bots to find and rank your pages more easily.
• It also allows human users to navigate more efficiently around your
website, increasing engagement and user experience (UX), which
we’ll discuss later.
• For each new article, create a list of related content that you already
have, which could help you support your ideas or allow your readers
to explore further.
Include a Compelling Title, Meta Description,
and Alt Text

• Don’t ignore a big part of the optimization process: the technical

aspects of SEO. Your content could be perfectly written, but if your
page takes too long to load or it’s structured in a confusing way, then
you run into roadblocks in accomplishing your goals.
Ensure Content is Accurate & Up to Date

• Finally, don’t ignore your existing content once it’s published.

• Well, your competitors are going to be doing the same thing to your
content, which means that you need to frequently review and
update your most important pieces to keep a hold on your rankings.

• This is especially true if your article is covering a fast-moving topic

where trends often evolve.
How to optimize website for
local search,