By understanding what people are searching for online, you can create and optimize your content to align with those specific queries. As a result, your potential customers will be more likely to discover your web pages in search results when they enter relevant keywords. The earliest use of the phrase “search engine optimization” is still debated, although most popular claims date to the mid- to late 1990s.
To find topics that meet both criteria, you need a keyword research tool like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. Keep in mind, the above list of sub-buckets just gives a glimpse of the available ranking factors. What’s important to know when having SEO explained to you is these factors have different weights. Search engine optimization uses how search works to optimize a site for organic search results.
- Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the practice of increasing organic traffic on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
- If you’ve never heard of SEO, you may not understand what this means.
- Hence, optimizing for SEO increases your chances of appearing in generative search features like AI overviews, ChatGPT, and Claude AI.
- The goal of this type of search engine optimization is to produce the best content possible on a site that’s easy to read and navigate.
SEO Acronym: What Is SEO and How It Impacts Your Business
Google stands out as the most widely used, often serving as our first stop on the Internet. Read our SEO Tips guide to find out more about how you can optimize your website for the search engines. Title tags are one of the main ways that Google can understand what your page is about. You want to make sure that the main keyword you want to rank for is in the title tag.
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The truth is, linking to other quality resources can be good for you from an SEO point. Last but not least, you should use the focus keyword in the anchor text of your internal links. Google’s Search Algorithm is used as an umbrella term to refer to all the individual algorithms, machine learning systems and AI technologies Google uses to rank websites. If you’re serious about SEO, you shouldn’t neglect the useful data and insights SEO Anomaly provided by various SEO tools. They give you a great competitive advantage and save a lot of your time.
Video and visual content optimization for local engagement
Also, PPC data can inform your SEO strategy, and the reverse is also true. A rare but malicious practice where webspam techniques are used to harm the search rankings of another website, usually a competitor. Google will take manual action on a website after a human reviewer (i.e., a Google employee) manually reviews a website to confirm whether it has failed to comply with Google’s Webmaster guidelines.
Off-page SEO refers to optimization techniques that are done outside of your own website. The goal of off-page SEO is to get both search engines and searchers to view your website as a trustworthy source, by boosting its authority and credibility. This can be done by other reputable places on the Internet, like pages, sites, and people. This can look like link building, social media marketing, guest blogging, influencer marketing, and other promotional activities in order to help improve your website’s ranking on search engines. But, building backlinks is at the heart of off-page SEO, as search engines use backlinks as an indication of the linked content’s quality.