What Is SEO?

What Really Is SEO?

Search engine optimization or SEO is the name given to a set of marketing strategies that are used to improve the search engine rankings of a website. Even though most of the marketing techniques rely on reaching out to your audience, SEO gives you the opportunity to reach out to potential customers at the exact time of their search for information related to your product or service. That is why search marketing is considered one of the most effective yet affordable strategies that help take your company to the next level. Whether you are a start-up, small, medium or large-scale business, you should be using this strategy to improve your brand visibility, conversions, revenue, and profits. This article answers the question - "What is Search Engine Optimization?"

The latest statistics reveal that search engine optimization leads have a 14.6% close rate compared to just 1.7% close rates from other popular marketing strategies such as print advertising and direct mail. The strategy improves your rankings on the natural or organic search results pages. This is not to be confused with paid advertising - which will cost you a fortune if you don't know what you are doing. That is why you need to invest in an effective search marketing strategy for your business without delay.

Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL, and a host of other ones use their own algorithms to help provide their customers with relevant information. Your website should rank on page one of Google or any other search engine for your business to reap the benefits of this marketing strategy. In fact, you should focus on building authority on key topics related to your business for this purpose. The authority of a particular website is determined through certain onsite and offsite factors.

Onsite Factors That Affect SEO

Onsite ranking factors include SEO factors that a webmaster has control over. The content on your page plays the most important part in this regard. Quality and relevant content are essential if you want to attract highly targeted traffic to your site. High-quality content will make your site go viral through the promotion by potential visitors. It will give you authority backlinks which are very important for a website to rank higher in the search engines. On the other hand, the title tags, description, image tags, responsive website design, and bounce rate play an important part when it comes to onsite ranking factors. Quality and engaging content can retain the visitor on your site for a longer time, thereby reducing the bounce rate of the website. Original and relevant images and videos will also help push your site through the ranking pages.

Offsite Factors That Affect SEO

Outbound links play a major part in offsite factors that affect your ranking. High-quality, relevant, and authority links are important in this regard. In the good old days, you could literally throw thousands of spammy links and rank your site on the first page of Google. But today, things have changed. Low-quality links will get your site penalized by the search engines. It is important that you build quality, relevant, and authority backlinks to your site in order to improve the rankings of it.

Search engine optimization is the name given to a set of marketing strategies that are used to improve the rankings of a website. The above article provides answers the question - "What is SEO?"