If you're an online business owner, one of your top priorities is to grow your website's visibility and traffic. To do this, you need to optimize your website for search engines. But what does “SEO” actually mean? And how do you do it? In this blog post, you'll learn everything you need to know about the basics of SEO and how to make your site visible in search results. 

What is SEO, and why is it important? 

Search engine optimization, or "SEO" for short, is the process of optimizing a website so that it ranks higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords. The higher a website ranks for a keyword, the more visitors it will get from that keyword. And if that visitor turns into a customer, it will generate sales for your business. So SEO is a crucial part of running an online business. 

Why is SEO important? 

Most people search online before they buy a product or service, so it's important that your website appears at the top of search results when people are looking for the types of products or services you offer. You'll lose customers to your competitors if your website isn't on the first page of results when they search for what you offer. 

What are the key aspects related to SEO? 

There are many different aspects of SEO that you need to understand to optimize your strategy. Here are a few examples: 

• Keywords: Keyword research is an essential part of SEO. Keywords are the words and phrases people search for when they enter their queries into search engines like Google. So, keyword research is about understanding users' search behaviors and intent. 
• Search intent: Understanding user intent is essential when it comes to ranking higher in search results. How users phrase their search queries can affect how you optimize for them. For example, if a user searches for a vacuum cleaner online (and maybe, the query is "the best vacuum cleaner in the market"), they obviously want to find the best one on the market. In this case, the user uses "intent to buy" as their primary motivation. But if that same user were searching for a vacuum cleaner for a home remodeling project, they would likely have a less purchase-oriented mindset (in this case, the intent is more informational). So you should tailor the content on your website to fit the different search intents your audience may have. 

• Website architecture: The way you structure your site can have a significant impact on how well it performs in search results. The website needs to be designed around the most important topics relevant to your business and your target audiences (personas).

   

Differences between On-site optimization and Off-site optimization

Now that we have introduced the concept of SEO let's deep-dive into the different types of on-site and off-site optimization techniques that you can use to improve your rankings in search results. 

On-site optimization

The content of your page is undoubtedly the most essential factor in obtaining visibility on search engines. Therefore, on-site optimization refers mainly to the actual content that you have on your site and includes things like your titles, headings, tags, images, and videos. 

...and the meta content? 

Meta content refers to all the descriptive information you can provide about a particular page of your website that will be displayed alongside your page when someone searches in Google or other search engines. As you may have noticed, when you conduct a Google search, there's a brief description below the header of each page in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Page) that tries to sum up the content of that particular page and give an idea of what the page is. This text is called "meta content" or "meta data", and it informs Google and other search engines about the content on your page, so they'll know how to categorize it and display it in search results. You can see an example of meta data in the image below.

The meta title tag is one of the most important elements of your website’s on-site optimization strategy. In our example, On Shoes immediately clarifies that their running shoes are performant and Swiss (what else?). 

The meta description is not seen by the users but rather is used by search engines to decide what to display for the relevant keyword/keyphrase typed into a search query. In our example, it is clear what is the uniqueness of On Shoes: they are Swiss with unique technology. 

But how do title tags affect your ranking? 

The meta title or title tag is the most important on-page factor when it comes to SEO because it's what will appear in search listings when your pages are clicked. Therefore, it's crucial that you use relevant keywords in the title of your pages and avoid stuffing them unnecessarily to increase your chances of showing up for your target keywords. Your title tag should clearly describe what the page is about, so choose your words carefully to make them as compelling as possible to get users to click over to your website when they search for it. 

Below is an example of a well-optimized title tag.

And formatting strategies? Are they important? Yes, they are!

Search engines tend to prefer web pages that are more visually appealing because people tend to trust websites that look professional and well-designed. A good design is user-centered; therefore, we need to consider including an effective formatting strategy (Heading 1, Heading 2, bolded keywords, bullets, etc.). A well-done formatting strategy can help visitors navigate through your page and understand the topics immediately. The readability of your text impacts positively or negatively on the cognitive effort of the reader. So, please, write for them and format your text carefully. The users will be happy, and Google will be too... maybe 😉

Off-site optimization

Off-site optimization is essentially link-building. Building high-quality links is essential to any SEO campaign because it helps improve your domain authority, which is one of the main factors search engines use to rank websites. You should focus on getting links from high-authority and relevant websites instead of low-quality sites because this will improve your site's overall authority and help boost your rankings in the search results. Besides this, you should also try to avoid getting links from sites that appear to be spammy because they are unlikely to provide much value to your SEO efforts. 

Conclusions 

SEO still represents one of the most effective ways to drive targeted traffic to your website and convert them into leads and, hopefully, sales. However, to be effective, you must put in the time and effort needed to build a solid strategy and stick to it. The starting point is always the user, his/her search intent, and the keywords s/he uses. Once you have identified these key elements, you can build a solid SEO strategy. 

Do you want to know more? Happy to chat with you at any time.