If you’re a business owner, a marketer, or just someone who would like to know more about digital marketing, you’ve probably come across the word SEO at least a couple times. That’s because Search Engine Optimization has now been considered a marketing technique norm.
Having a strong digital presence is necessary for any company to thrive as customers spend a growing amount of time online and SEO a key in achieving this goal.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of growing both site traffic quality and quantity along with access to your brand through organic (non-paid) search engine results. The higher the website, the more people are using it.
So how does SEO work? It essentially comprises 3 elements, and they are the crawler (“bot,” “spider”), index (massive database) and query processor.
- Crawl: Scour the Internet for content, looking over the code/content for each URL they find.
- Index: Store and organize material that was identified during the process of crawling. Once a page is in the database, the corresponding view for related queries is in the running.
- Rank: Provide the pieces of content that will best answer a searcher’s query, which means that results are ordered by most relevant to least relevant.
So how do you get your business on the first page of Google?
Have you ever clicked on Google’s second search engine results page?
No, nobody does it.
Less than 3% of the searchers make it to the second page.
With the amount of information available on the web it would be almost impossible to find what you need without some help searching through it. Google ranking systems are designed to do just that. Sorting hundreds of billions of web pages in our Search Index to find the most important, useful results in a fraction of a second, and show them in a way that helps you find what you are looking for.
Before we move into how to get to the top of Google Search, you ought to be aware of what ranking criteria Google is searching for.
Google takes into account several variables including keywords, validity and accessibility of sites, source knowledge and outbound link consistency, in order to give us the most relevant results based on the keywords that we type in. Google will then weigh each of these variables against the complexity of our query and then return a list of results to us on the results page of the search engine.
It is therefore necessary for businesses to consider what variables Google or other search engines use to generate search results and to integrate some of them into their website, such that the company’s website is high on the results page. In addition, it is also important to know the keywords that might be used by their prospective customers when they do an online search and have their website updated regularly with new information as well as the latest outbound links.
White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO: What is the Difference?
You’ll probably see references to the “white hat” and “black hat” SEO while reading business forums and various optimization guides. To be clear these are not valid SEO subsets. Alternatively, they are more of a distinction between optimizing a platform in the right way and the wrong way.
Companies can also consider utilizing black hat or white hat techniques. White hat SEO is the process of optimizing a site in a manner compatible with the guidelines of Google and helping users find content that is important to their needs.
On the other hand, Black hat SEO focuses on finding ways of playing the game and attaining high, but often short-lived rankings. It is done with the intention of manipulating rankings, no matter how it impacts user experience. Cloaking and Keyword Stuffing are some examples of the Black Hat techniques.
The use of keywords today is much more about semance. Google’s gotten so good at reading keywords from searchers that it’s scary. It not only looks at your keyword but also synonyms of it to understand what you mean when you type in something like “five guys nyc.” Google is able to guess that you’re looking for the fast-food chain “Five Guys, Burgers & Fries” by looking at similar searches that may include the keywords “burgers” and “fries.”
Simply put, white hat SEO involves optimizing a platform in a manner that Google will approve. On the other hand, black hat SEO refers to any tactics which break the rules of Google.
In conclusion, with more technological advancements and the launch of more IoT apps, SEO will be becoming increasingly important. Although all these strategies have the same aim, they are so different and it depends on the type of approach chosen by the marketers. White Hat implies good strategies and Black indicates the total opposite. The choices that they make will result in various outcomes and consequences.
That is it! Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
XinRui's Blog 
Such an informative post. I feel that SEO is important because we utilise search engines when we need to find information online. I think SEO is an easy and economical way for your company to draw more customers while driving more sales too.
I agree with you that not many people click on Google’s second search engine results page when they search for information online. What about you? Are you more likely to visit top-ads websites or organic listing sites?
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Hi Ricky, thanks for commenting! With regard to your question, I am more of the sort of person who would visit top organic listing websites. It is because I believe organic listings are achieved by SEO, which is the method of ensuring that the website has the most appropriate correspondence to the keyword searched for. On the other hand, paid search ads (top-ads website) paid their way to the top.Therefore I believe the website may not be relevant to what I am searching for.
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Hi Xinrui, Thank you for this well-written post! I do agree that mostly I don’t visit the second page of my search result. However, I will never click on the sponsored link first too! Since it’s sponsored, I had the feeling that it’s not what I was looking for XD. So I would always click on the first or second post after the sponsored link. Do you think improving SEO is important?
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Thanks for commenting! Pertaining to your question, I certainly think that improving SEO is important! SEO is important because it keeps the results of searches equal. It eliminates the potential to manipulate these results as much as possible, so that there are places that appear for each search because they deserve to be there.
SEO is constantly evolving, it is important not to become complacent, or to presume that the site will always rank where it does, in its current state. It is necessary for businesses to keep up with their site optimization. I believe companies should never stop improving their website, no matter how successful they are.
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With google being something everyone looks to today, i think every organization should be ultilizing search engine optimizers, in order to not only promote themselves, but to also be able to target users more specifically. Many organizations are still not tapping on search engine optimizers as of yet. I think whoever that starts to gain a first mover advantage will stand to increase their profitability and improve their branding by quite a bit
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Thanks for commenting!I definitely agree with you that whoever makes the first move in utilizing SEO will be able to boost their profitability and strengthen their branding a little bit. I also agree with you that SEO enhances the user experience, leading to more clicks, more traffic, improved brand recall and higher conversion rates.
I feel that the SEO strategy is more critical than ever in today’s competitive market and its an essential part of any marketing strategy. That’s because SEO makes sure that search engine sites recognize your product easily via daily and organic search. Internet users will see more of you when you stay at the top of the list. I would therefore suggest more businesses to use SEO and take advantage of SEO.
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Hey there! Great post! Very informative! Do you have any suggestions or strategies on how companies can take advantage of SEO to boost their business?
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Thanks for commenting! SEO enables business owners build fast, reliable, and user-friendly sites that rank higher in search engines, which then in turn helps to attract more interested prospective customers to their sites and ultimately boosts conversion rates. In order to attract new customers for your company and take it to the next level, companies should use SEO to establish a strong web presence and bypass the competitions.
Below are several suggestions to follow in order to get the most out of local SEO:
– Get your company listed on Google My Business, a free platform that helps companies manage their digital presence through the ecosystem of Google.
– Add Location Pages to Your Website
– Take Advantage of Google AdWords Keyword Planner
You can also check out https://vtldesign.com/digital-marketing/search-engine-optimization/tips-improve-your-local-seo/ for more tips to improve SEO.
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