SEO Basics: Understanding Search Engine Optimization

What Is SEO — SEO is An Essential Tool For Any Successful Website.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of increasing a website’s organic (nonpaid) traffic through authoritative, informative content, quality coding, targeted marketing and user-friendly interface. Effective SEO fits a website with all of the tools it needs to generate quality leads and rank highly in non-paid search results with top search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. These search engines utilize crawlers, which gather information about content on the internet. Crawlers follow links and save code (index HTML) information from websites. Each crawler then brings this information back to its particular search engine which, in turn, creates an index.

A crawler will visit a website more often depending on traffic and detection of new information. When original or revised web pages are discovered, the new version is saved and the search engine’s index is updated. In order for a website to be saved in an index, the crawler must follow a link from an already existing site in the index. Once your site has its initial crawler session, it can appear in the organic search results for Google or whichever search engine sent the crawler.

Search Engine Optimization and Link Building

Search engines use links, and backlinks, that lead users to a specific site as a way of determining how important a website is. Therefore, having more links, both external and internal, within your content can help your website’s ranking in Google and other search engines. All links are not created equal, however, as those sites which have a high number of incoming links themselves are typically considered more credible than smaller sites with fewer incoming links.

It is extremely important in this link building process to collect links that are logical, relevant, and useful because Google may punish a site if it considers the links to be irrelevant or worse, tricking the user to visit the site. At Web3MD, we adhere strictly to Google Webmaster Guidelines in our SEO strategies.

What is the Importance of Search Results, SERPS, and User-Focused Content?

SEO Helps Your Website Rank Highly in Search Engine Results Pages.

When a consumer searches a particular topic, or keyword, the search engine produces a results page which lists approximately 10 links to websites which it deems best fit the search query. In the SEO community, these search engine results pages are referred to as SERP or SERPs. Typically, a list of ads also appears at the top of the first SERP, but below these ads are what is called the organic search results. The higher your link appears on the organic SERP, the more likely visitors will find your website.

Just as Google strives to give the user results that best fit any particular keyword search, Web3MD strives to give clients quality websites that consistently rank at the top of SERPs for targeted keywords. Not only that, we are also committed to ensuring that those websites are relevant and helpful to the consumers when they visit the sites. We closely follow all Google updates regarding changes in their algorithm and continually test search engines to determine the best SEO strategy.

SEO Analytics And Predicting Google Algorithm Updates

Search engine optimization by Web3MD involves a keen awareness and understanding of how search engines such as Google utilize algorithms to match data from the indexed websites to consumer searches. The famously intelligent Google algorithm is used to decide which web pages appear in what order, and because this algorithm is constantly learning and adjusting, it frequently changes, sometimes in minor ways and sometimes in major ways. Due to the fluid nature of the algorithm, which has been known to be modified over 500 times per year, the factors that determine website ranking, and the importance of these factors, are constantly evolving.

Understanding Google Search Algorithm — Predicting and Adjusting To Changes in The Google Search Algorithms is an Essential Part of SEO Analytics.

While Google never openly reveals its secret and ever-changing algorithm, we do know certain factors which Google deems important. Through highly-advanced testing and experimentation within the search engines, Web3MD can ascertain how important specific factors are and if there is a significant change in the importance of those factors to search results. We then incorporate these findings into successful web development and digital marketing.

While many contributors are believed to be influential on SERP ranking, at Web3MD, we believe that the Google algorithm factors which are used to rank websites can be divided into 2 basic categories, on-page SEO factors and off-page SEO factors.

On-Page SEO Factors

On-page SEO factors are features of your website which you can influence, such as structure, quality of content, and loading speed. The goal of on-page SEO is to make it as easy as possible for search engines and consumers to:

Understand the purpose of your website
Identify relevant content for specific keywords
Recognize your website as a trustworthy source of information, suitable as a top ranking SERP contender

On-page search engine optimization is more than simply keyword usage. Search engines do look for keywords, but as they have become more sophisticated, other factors, such as frequency of word combinations and relevance in connection with user intent, have come into play. Understanding what the consumer is looking for in connection to a web page topic should always be considered when creating content. In other words, content needs to provide a user-friendly experience for consumers, while leaving keyword clues for search engines to find and index with ease.

Successful Web Page Content

Key Components of Successful Web Page Content

Successful web page content should be:

Unique: Not duplicated from other websites
User-friendly: Organized and easy to read
Thorough: In depth and authoritative about the topic of the search query
In line with user expectations: Content should be relevant to the search

Other on-page elements which can affect website ranking include:

On-site link usage
Mobile friendliness
Metadata
Loading speed
URL structure
Use of images

Off-Page SEO Factors

The most important off-page SEO factor is having external links that direct consumers to your website. More relevant links equals a higher ranking in Google and other search engines. The goal of off-page SEO is to have reputable sites, pages, or people link to your website in order to promote trustworthiness and relevance for your site and its content.

Links can occur naturally, such as through outside editorials mentioning your site, or be deliberately created through requests to customers or other influential sites like bloggers or social media. Self-created links are often frowned upon and can sometimes be considered as black hat SEO. Essentially, linking to your page is a referral to your company, so you want the source to be reliable.

Superior Search Engine Optimization Services From Web3MD

Simply being recognized and highly ranked by a search engine is not enough, however, for a successful SEO strategy. Once a user visits your site, web development by Web3MD helps you generate leads and reduce bounce rate by providing appropriate and easily accessible content that matches the consumer’s search query. In other words, getting visitors to your site is only the beginning. We want them to like what they see when they get there!

If you are interested in professional, user-friendly website development and design with ongoing maintenance and content generation, please submit an online request to Web3MD and we will contact you.