What is SEO and what is it for what search engines search results in Googles?
March 14, 2023Do you know what SEO is and what it's for? Much is said about it, but few people really understand what it is about.
Just to give you an idea, more than 100 billion searches are done every month on Google alone. In other words: optimal search engine positioning can make the difference between triumph and defeat for your Digital Marketing tactics.
However, how well does it rank in search results? Do not freak out! In this article, you'll understand the term keyword and find out what SEO is and how it works.
What is SEO?
In everyday life, as soon as a doubt arises, it is quite common for our first action to be an immediate query on Google. It is not?
The same happens with millions of individuals internationally, who use this search engine even to find products and services, which makes Google a gold mine for organizations that know how to take advantage of this possibility.
However, you may have already noticed that most of the time, you (and all other Google users) tend to only pay attention to the first few results of a query. So how do you get your brand to demand the top positions?
You need to rely on SEO, an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, which in Portuguese means Improvement for search engines. It is a set of techniques whose objective is to position one or several landing pages among the main results of search engines.
In practical terms, it's like ordering an Uber! Suppose with me: you need to turn on your cell phone's GPS for the driver to find you. With SEO, it works the same way. You should make improvements to your page's content so that people who do a Google search can find it more easily. He understand?
Through SEO techniques, then, it is feasible to optimize the portal so that it stands out from the rest and is on the first page of Google results, attracting the attention of users with the most relevant content for their searches.
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Difference between SEO and SEM
As one of my main purposes here is to demystify SEO, first of all, we need to clarify a small confusion that arises when we start to learn about the subject and we are with another very similar acronym: SEM.
Query engine marketing encompasses all marketing techniques that target query engines, including sponsored links such as Google Ads. The big difference between them is that where SEO caters to user reach organically way, that is, free, SEM is based on paid media.
Download our guide and learn how to reconcile Paid Media and Organic Media so that your Digital Marketing tactic achieves superior results!
How query mechanisms work
It's not news to anyone that the Internet has become a huge conglomerate of websites, which keeps growing with the integration of tons of information. New markets, participants and content emerge every day for the most diverse interests and requests.
And to make it easier for individuals to connect with this huge mass of information, query engines have emerged. They are tools based on search automation, which are sweeping the Internet and
order the topics so that they are accessible to users in the best way.
For this, these search engines use algorithms that classify Internet pages according to a defined subject or keyword, indicating the relevance of each page in a query.
Google's algorithm, the main search engine at the time, uses 3 processes to carry out this survey and provide information to users. Check:
follow
The first is crawling, the process by which Googlebot identifies new pages to submit to the search engine results list. To do this, robots use algorithms to define the frequency of indexing and prioritization.
Googlebot visits every page, checks for new links or changes, and sends it to the index, updating its information.
indexing
This is where the magic happens. Indexing is the next process, in which the Googlebot also does the searching and processing of each of the new and modified pages, including each of them in its index.
It indexes data about the site's content, its publication date, title, specification, performance, zone, and structured data.
Taking the opportunity, I also want to show you the Masterclass I did on indexing techniques to improve the positioning of your content on Google:
To search for
Finally, we have the third process, the investigation itself. As you may have noticed, it is not done directly on the Internet, but on Google's own index. It is possible that the pages currently listed do not exist or have changed as it takes time for updates to be made.
Google algorithm update
With increasing competition for good positioning in search engines, Google needs to keep updating its algorithms and, in recent years, has further improved its indexing strategies to expose the best results to users.
More recent updates have focused on mobile devices, such as cell phones, and have begun to consider the responsiveness of websites as a key element of categorization.
The last update was related to the relevance of the sites and their contents: the quality of the page also became a categorization element. Later I will talk about all of the above in more detail!
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What are SEO ranking components?
While Google doesn't state which components are most important to their crawling and indexing algorithms, we do know that there are over 400. That means there are a lot of things to consider, and the details can make a difference in rankings.
However, while each component is relevant, we also understand that the algorithm prioritizes some when ranking them for a defined query. A good SEO tactic should take all of them into account, working together. Therefore, I have separated some of the main resources that you should take into account to improve the ranking of your pages:
Content quality
When building an SEO plan, this should be your main concern, even if Google doesn't officially talk about it: the first and most relevant element of all is the quality of the content, that is, the relevance it has for your page to a given survey.
When producing the content, for example, it is necessary to provide effective information that really meets the customer's requests and resolves their doubts. That simple!
Remembering that the ideal content serves not only to guarantee an ideal positioning on Google, but also to produce authority and give more confidence to users, who are attentive to what your brand publishes.
A very common mistake here is hiding existing content, which can be penalized by Google. The engine identifies the replica and indexes the page way below the top positions, even with a good SEO tactic. Content marketing is a powerful tool, but you must know how to use it. Mountain range?
Learn the secrets to creating important content, capable of turning your audience into customers!
sensitivity
An important part of browsing the Internet today is done through mobile devices, and Google is continually concerned with the experience of its users.
In fact, our Google has already stated that it prioritizes the positioning of sites that are mobile or that contain responsiveness. That meaning is born out of the knowledge you need to provide the best experience possible, so never forget that!
It's important that your organization has responsive websites or fully mobile variants so that Google can better rank your pages.
On the page
On Page are all the changes made to the pages and that Google's algorithms understand as good SEO practices, as they allow the robots to understand what your content is about.
There are several features that need to be checked, however, I will only list the main ones:
Domain authority
There is a fundamental point to understand when working with an SEO plan: it is effective, but the results are obtained in the medium and long term, that is, you must have patience and perseverance so that you can achieve the desired positioning.
This is because another criterion that is widely considered when we talk about page ranking in searches is Domain Authority. There is a mix between the age of the site and the relevance of its content to users.
Each evaluated page inherits the authority of the domain where it is hosted, so it is essential to work not only on any content considered more precious, but also on affirming the SEO of the entire site.
The authority score ranges from 1 to 100. The higher a domain's score is, the higher the domain authority, which causes the site to rank higher against other lower authority pages.
Therefore, if you are in the process of idealizing your portal, don't waste time putting it together, even if it doesn't have much content yet. When the pages are on the Internet, they will already start to produce authority.
Page performance
Another very fundamental point for the categorization of a page in a search is related to its performance. If your site takes much longer than 2 seconds to load in a browser under classic internet conditions, Google will penalize you for degrading the customer experience.
That is, the design of a page is important, but loading it with information, heavy images and various GIFs may not be a good initiative in terms of performance. This must be kept in mind when building your website!
There are several ways to get around this case, for example: minimize images and GIFs, reduce their quality, upload them later... in addition to other simple and interesting techniques.
Architecture of the place
Googlebot reads all information on a website. He expects there to be a certain logical order of content, and the lack of this organization can make it difficult for the algorithm to understand the available content, which has a direct effect on categorization.
The composition of page information is necessary for navigability, understanding and customer experience, so it is natural for Google to keep this point in mind when ranking results.
It is necessary to continue a logical order of header, body of writing, footer and title and intertitle tags (H1, H2 and others). Featured sources are also relevant to teaching the core ideas of the content.
As soon as the customer enters the page, the titles and subtitles already give an indication of how the information is divided and where the customer can look for what he is looking for. We call this scannability, an easy organization that helps the reader understand the architecture of the content and enables a more dynamic reading.
The title tag is also essential and helps search engines understand the central subject of the page, improving its indexing according to the topics it relates to. This is the first optimization point in an SEO plan.
Another point to check is the meta explanation. It's an easy, short paragraph that briefly tells search engines, as well as blog visitors, what the content of a page is. Since you don't create a meta spec, Google does that on indexing, but it's not ideal.
The meta explanation is displayed below the title in the query results bar and can directly influence the customer's choice of which link to click after executing a query.
After all, another important feature for On Page SEO and an ideal architecture is the use of keywords in strategic locations on the page, as search engines identify when indexing a website's content.
They are essential, but you should know that you should pay attention to the proportion of keywords used, as an excess can affect the quality of the content and cause your page to drop in position, due to the fact that it loses relevance.
Off page
An SEO plan is not only done on your portal, it is feasible to carry out activities outside the domain to create more authority and draw attention to your pages, giving relevance and improving the ranking as a result.
This process is called Off Page SEO and is based on building links on other pages. This activity can be done by participating in forums or through comments on social networks, blogs and other sites, stating your brand.
Backlinks
Something common in addition to doing this activity are alliances with other authority domains for the publication of articles that contain links to your place.
The proportion of links pointing to your pages has a huge effect on your Google rankings. The engine sees citations of your content on other sites as votes of confidence, which shows that other people believe what you display and consider your content important.
This directly influences the domain authority, showing that your location is identified as an influencer in a certain type of subject, according to the links built.
And just like receiving links, linking is also of greater relevance. Once in your content you say other domains located by your authority on the Internet, Google understands that your page uses reliable sources and assigns more views to your domain.
However, you must be very careful, as a common mistake is to fill pages with random links, which can be penalized by Google. The use of external links must be done intelligently, inserting only content relevant to the subject on the page.
Furthermore, as per Google standards, many pages also do not provide authority as many sites just randomly cite them for more aspects of categorization and to improve their rankings.
Social tips
Google still does not consider 100% activities on social networks for its ranking. That is, it doesn't matter if you gained a huge fan of followers, likes or shares, this will not affect the positioning of your content in searches.
However, social networks have the possibility of indirectly favoring an SEO plan:
increase brand awareness and visibility on the Internet;
improve company exposure and brand recognition;
allow you to generate an audience and direct directions to the location, giving visibility to the content.
Good social media profiles and solid tactics can drive good traffic to your website, helping you to present yourself as a domain authority on the web and showing search engines that your content matters to users.
Understand the value of social media for your company's image with our guide:
Say brand
We've already discussed backlinks and how they are relevant to your business. However, the brand's basic words are also interesting to create authority and generate relevance. For this, just a quote, instead of a link, already has a cost.
Google algorithms are increasingly advanced and are able to read and understand when a quote is related to a certain brand, identifying the environment of this quote and analyzing whether it is positive or negative.
For example: if there is a dispute on a forum or blog about your brand, Googlebot can detect those citations involving your domain and this will influence your authority positively or negatively.
Therefore, acting on these tags should also be a fundamental activity in an SEO plan, to avoid having many negative opinions that impact the management of your page in the rankings.
What is a keyword?
One of the most relevant components to optimal search engine placement is optimal keyword choice. In short, it is the query concept that the customer seeks to reach a page. For example, someone who needs to buy running shoes might search on the term "best running shoes".
Therefore, it is essential to do keyword research to discover terms that are important to your target audience.
keyword types tail head
Most of the time, we call head and tail keywords those that are shorter, with one or 2 words, and that represent the segment as a whole, something generic, that could be decomposed into different contents and with different directions.
Initially, as we still don't have much knowledge about SEO, it might seem like a good idea to invest in this type of words, after all, once we do searches, we can see that they have a huge proportion of searches.
However, in addition to high volume, competition is also a component. This can hurt your rankings, as the controversy happens with domain pages with high internet authority. This is a common mistake made by some people who are still at the beginning of their SEO journey.
Long tail
As very short search terms, such as “cell phone” or “refrigerator”, have a huge competition for positioning, the long tail term was developed, which aims to use longer and more specific keywords to rank in search engines. Example: "waterproof cell phone" or "minibar".
Still using the example of running shoes, we can see in the image below that the concept “supine tennis” gives a good chance. In conclusion, it is a shoe designed for a specific type of stride.
So if you want to sell a shoe made for someone with a supine foot, it's simpler and cheaper to reach potential customers by tagging your page with the keyword "supine shoe". In conclusion, it is much better to compete with a specific term, with 720 monthly searches, than with a general term, with 2,900 monthly searches. It's not the same?
Incidentally, the long tail is highly advisable for small and medium-sized organizations that are unable to invest in paid media, as it opens up countless possibilities through less competitive keywords.
keyword tools
A good way to do this is to use SEMrush or Google's keyword planner.
Returning to the example of sports shoes, I used the two tools mentioned above to understand the questioning behavior related to the concept. Analysis:
Using SEMrush to discover keywords
By discovering the concept of "running shoes", we were able to create some variations. You can sort by monthly query volume, keyword complexity ratio (KD), price per click (CPC), degree of competition among advertisers (Con), and SERP (Related Query Engine Results Page) properties.
On the left side, we have the possibility to filter the keywords by specifying, for example, a certain brand or type of sole:
Using the Google Ads Keyword Planner
Now, when searching for the term "running shoes" in the Google Ads Keyword Planner, we see a slightly different dashboard.
Visuals aside, the commands are basically the same as SEMrush. You can sort by average monthly searches, competition, and bid quotas for ads linked to your searched keyword:
Considering the two tools used for querying terms, the main difference was related to the proportion of keywords in relation: the Google Ads keyword planner had a higher proportion of keywords in relation and also with searches larger monthly.
Whichever tool you use, just have the capabilities to filter and sort until you find the ideal keyword term to use.
But what is the ideal keyword for my business?
It depends on the purpose of your organization. You can decide to compete for positions with a view to competition (easier to win positions) or by consultation volume (larger potential audience to reach).
What to do after choosing the key term?
With the right concept in hand, you can choose between different tactics to exploit it. Check out several possibilities below!
product page: you can optimize the content of a product page by implementing the selected keyword term;
advertising on sponsored links: you can produce ads that will be displayed when users search for the key term you have chosen;
Produce content: Another viable tactic is to invest in content that addresses a relevant subject with the key term. Continuing with the tennis example, you could create a blog post called "Everything You Need to Know About Table Tennis" to pique reader interest in your products.
Why adopt SEO?
The Internet is a field full of opportunities and meets the most diverse business requests. However, to stand out, you need visibility. A good SEO tactic can take your pages to the top positions in search engines. Check out some advantages of this:
Traffic Increase
Using SEO techniques has a direct effect on your website traffic. A growth in the number of visitors means more business opportunities. This is due to adapting your content to what Google considers important.
Boss generation
It is worth mentioning that this increase in traffic does not occur in a generalized way: the increase is in the number of people who are right for your business, due to the fact that the investigation of a defined subject and the interest come from them, and not from an advertisement that they are shown . Only qualified leads are attracted.
Since we use other tactics, such as advertisements in classic media, we end up attracting the attention of individuals who are not our target audience, which can lead to a poor experience and negative comments on the Internet.
Learn all about prospects and start generating superior results right now!
Higher return on investment
SEO is a plan famous for ensuring a higher ROI once well implemented. Using its techniques, we have a significant optimization in conversion rates, as we begin to attract many more people who are part of the brand's target audience: customers with a real interest in selling their products.
This means that each of the investments made for the application of SEO techniques results in productivity for the organization, since the greater the authority of its pages on the Internet, the better ranking, visibility and number of visitors to its site.
Don't forget that SEO tactics must be thought of in the medium and long term. Results may take a while to appear, but if everything is done correctly, they will arrive.
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Website or blog authority growth
In the end, we have an increase in the authority of your website, one of the most important consequences of the proper use of an SEO plan, as it makes your website overcome the barriers of the Internet and become part of people's lives. .
Once a buyer is with a friend or family member who is experiencing a certain problem for which your brand has the solution, he remembers to suggest your organization and content, as he trusts your authority on the subject, it is proof that the buyer Content is important and quality makes your brand an example in your niche market.
However, attention: do not think that performing one or another isolated tactic will work. Organization is fundamental for each of the occupations to be interconnected and for the results to be certain!
Now that you know the term irreplaceable keyword and what SEO is, are you ready to implement it in your digital tactics?
If you're still not sure or want more tips on how to do this, click on the banner below and talk to an expert from our SEO agency.
Recurring problems, What is SEO?
It is a set of techniques whose objective is to position one or several landing pages among the main results of search engines.
What are the components of SEO positioning?
Content quality, domain authority, page performance, site architecture, backlinks, social signals and branding, among others.
What is a keyword?
In short, it is the query concept that the customer seeks to reach a page. For example, someone who needs to buy running shoes might search on the term "best running shoes".
Why adopt SEO?
The Internet is a field full of opportunities and meets the most diverse business requests. However, to stand out, you need visibility. A good SEO tactic can take your pages to the top positions in search engines.
Be sure to read our article on, How to Monetize a Blog: The Complete Monetization Guide to Increase Your Blog's Audience
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