What is SEO and How Does It Work

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website to obtain targeted, organic traffic. In a nutshell, SEO is all about increasing a website’s rankings in the organic section of the search results. Whenever any search is done using certain keywords, you will see that there are often over a million results.

Out of all of these, one needs to stand out and get to the first page of the search results if you are to get a steady flow of organic traffic. To achieve this, search engine optimization is required.

How Search Engines Work

To get a deeper understanding of SEO, you first have to understand how search engines work. Today, we have a variety of search engines that help people get to the content they are searching.

When you perform a search on an engine, the algorithm takes over and looks through billions of webpages that have already been indexed to bring you the most relevant results. These results are based on an algorithm that is based on several criteria such as relevancy, authority, usefulness, presentation, among others.

Organic SEO services

For those who do not have the relevant SEO expertise, learning is both time consuming and can be a bit technical at times. To ensure that you aren’t left behind, you can engage a professional who can handle the organic SEO services on your behalf and consequently gain better rankings in an organic search. Some prefer to pay for Google ads so that their pages can be on the top of a search.

Organic vs. Paid listings

The differences between organic listings and the paid ones go far beyond their positioning in results. These are some of the most significant differences between the two and why organic listings are better than their PPC (pay-per-click) counterparts.

Paid listings are indicated as Ads

Paid listings are marked as advertisements so that the searcher can differentiate between them and the organic ones. Google, for instance, always lets the searcher know that the link is a paid one by highlighting it in a different color. While these results are often at the top of the page, many users do not trust them.

Most people are skeptical about them and prefer the organic ones since they are deemed to be more authentic.

Paid listings only last as long as the budget

Although paid listings have their advantages such as getting traffic to a new site, their effectiveness only lasts as long as your budget. When your ads budget dries up, the listings also stop appearing.

While the well written and targeted ones pay off immediately, organic results do not require any money and can be a source of traffic all year round.

Organic SEO services work on several aspects, such as:

  • Improving Website crawlability

Although the different search engines provide us with a similar service, it’s important to note that not all are created equal. Google takes the cake in terms of the number of users and searches per second.

Simply put, crawling is the process where Google uses the links to pages they already have on file to get to the ones they haven’t. For instance, if you have a backlink on your homepage that’s already on Google’s index, the next time the bots crawl, they’ll discover your homepage and the corresponding pages on your website and index them as well.

To ensure the bots get to your pages, you must ensure that your internal linking is working as it should. “Broken links can cause your website to be deemed as untrustworthy, which will damage your rankings,” states a SEO Jacksonville Company.

  • Enhancing Mobile-friendliness

Statics show that about 63% of all searches on Google are done from a mobile device. More importantly, figures from Adobe also show that 8 out of 10 consumers terminate engagement if the content isn’t being displayed right on their devices. Therefore, it falls on the site owner to ensure that their websites render correctly on multiple devices.

Back in 2016, Google announced a slight bump in rankings for websites that are mobile-friendly.

  • Improving Content

As they say, content is king. The nature and quality of your content have a huge role to play when it comes to improving your organic results. This means the body texts, alternate texts, title tags, and the heading. Organic SEO services ensure that aspects such as URL structures, internal links, and keyword research are all taken care of.

  • Off-page optimization

Organic SEO services handle much more than modifications on the site itself. They also handle matters such as link building, link-balancing, and managing social media signals. Since backlinks are essential for growth, your website must have the most relevant links to your niche. Organic SEO providers will ensure that your portfolio is diversified, which in turn makes a website rank better and quicker. This is done by having niche edits and guest blog posts to raise your domain authority.

Conclusion

When you engage organic SEO services, you free up your time to other more important things, such as growing your business. By leaving SEO to the professionals, you get better results in a shorter amount of time.