For starters I want to make a confession – this is the first article published on the SEOlium blog , but also the first article about SEO written so far. So know that we are aware of the responsibility we have. Trust us and… In a good hour! The theme I chose is the result of a brainstorming in which the winning idea is the obvious one. Yes, you guessed it – I’ll talk about what SEO is and what it means for online business . I will not talk now about how SEO principles are put into practice or what are the advantages and disadvantages of promoting on the Internet . Being a relatively complex notion – I will limit myself to exactly what the title expresses.
The notion of SEO appeared in the 90’s, being an abbreviation for S earch E ngine O ptimization, meaning: search engine optimization. At the same time, the same abbreviation refers to people who practice this “profession”. In the early days of the Internet, when there were only “a few” sites in total (actually a few million, compared to the over 20 billion currently estimated) – search engines also appeared, which, although not at all sophisticated – indexed the content of the web is quite good and they were a starting point for browsing, thus representing an important source of traffic for websites. At the same time, specialists realized the need for a conscious control in the process of increasing visibility in search engines, and this gave rise to a new science: SEO – search engine optimization, which aims to increase the quality traffic of a site.
This relatively new “industry” involves a set of operations performed by the promotion team to increase a website’s position in the search results list for certain keywords or phrases that are interesting and relevant to the business.
This is done by controlling and improving the “ranking criteria”, ie the factors that, taken together and analyzed by the search algorithm – lead to better positioning in the results pages. Depending on these criteria, SEO can be of two types:
Optimizing internal ( on-site optimization ) – promotion measures are applied directly to the site in question and depend especially can be influenced only by the SEO team. Examples are: carefully writing titles and descriptions, eliminating errors, improving upload speed, image processing, optimizing the structure of URLs and internal links, using ads in moderation, etc. Overall – improving the visitor experience .
External optimization ( off-site optimization ) – in which the promotion is not directly related to the SEO team, but rather to the collective will of the Internet. This means that starting from an objective reality regarding the quality of a website – search engines are always trying to find measurable signals regarding the relevance and importance of the page.web in relation to the analyzed search expression. These signals refer to the indicators of quality, performance and popularity, and as examples can serve: the number and quality of links to the analyzed page, the number of social interactions (Facebook like, share, comment, Tweet, +1, etc.), the context in which mentions appear, credibility and authority of sources, global and local search volume for those keywords, etc.
In the short term, these techniques may work, but practice shows that search engines are constantly fighting online spam and always eliminating potential “holes” in the system. At the same time they publish official documentswhich describes the “WebMaster’s Guide to Conduct,” that is, the moral, legal, permitted, and recommended promotion techniques that any website owner should consider. Failure to adhere to these principles, in case of detection, can lead to the penalty of a site or even its definitive exclusion from the database.
Depending on the degree of morality of the techniques used, SEO can be divided into:
White hat SEO ( white hat seo ) – corresponds precisely to promote policies suggested or insinuated by search engines. The techniques adopted are aimed at a positive experience for visitors, but not directly at increasing positions in the search results pages.
SEO black hat ( black hat SEO ) – to promote the perception is to manipulate search engines on the quality (relevance and importance) site. Examples are: excessive use of keywords in titles and page content, hiding words behind images, serving different content to human visitors and robots that index the site, buying links or social interactions, over-optimizing anchor text, adding a large number of pages without valuable content, etc.
Gray hat SEO ( gray hat SEO ) – a combination of the two above, the moral rules are observed although some practices are still doubtful and long term could be discovered and punished.
Finally, along with the evolution of the Internet, the notion of SEO has evolved, so that now includes other branches that lead to increased traffic to a site through any source, not limited to organic searches (natural and unpaid search results).
What is not SEO?
In connection with the above we can say that SEO does not just mean excellent content or just optimizing the internal elements of the site. SEO does not mean manipulation as it is not magic.
Science or magic?
So where does science end and where does magic begin? Google officials have repeatedly said that the best approach in SEO is “abstinence”, meaning no SEO, but is that true? It does not seem in harmony with the famous words “ Doing business without advertising is like catching a girl’s eye in the dark. You know you’re doing this, but someone else – not… ”. Another rule recommended by search engines is: ” advertising, promotion and optimization should be designed and executed as if search engines did not exist”. The latter is an absolute truth, but the temptation is sometimes too great. Because you always think you are the smartest and you underestimate the hundreds of brilliant “brains” in the service of search engines. But most of all – you think you may be lucky, even before you – hundreds have tried and fried. Who knows the measure and can control it – wins. Who doesn’t – no. It’s so simple and it’s the line between science and magic in SEO. The moment of balance.
Returning to extremes, science involves performing repeatable and documentable operations such as:
Keyword analysis , prioritizing them by search volume and modeling content according to them.
Competition analysis and taking over the strengths in improved variants.
Solving technical issues such as Flash sites, those with non-indexable or hard-to-index content, those with sophisticated Javascript effects, sites hidden behind authentication, etc.
In turn, magic and poetry refer to the creative (and often risky 🙂) part in which the techniques adopted come from ingenious and original ideas, excellently adapted to the situation of the optimized site. Here are some examples:
Sacrificing some positioning factors in favor of others, with the risk of going down in the pages with search results, but also the possibility to climb a lot.
Skillful handling of “numbers”. The approach is not only mathematical, but also “visionary”. Obtaining conclusions and making decisions based on public or private data collected from several sources.
Attention to detail, perfectionism and dignity – perhaps the most important aspects of daily work. It refers to the provision of excellent services, based on passion and the idea of building something better, in the spirit of fair competition.
Most often in SEO it is a balance and a compromise between instinctive and acquired starts. It is about managing resources well and prioritizing efforts. It’s about added value. It’s about luck.
At the opposite extreme are illegal manipulation techniques. I ask you – than a site with an uncertain future, full of risks and negative feelings – it is better to channel your efforts in a creative and moral sense, to develop a really good site, which should be in the first place in Google that it’s worth it?
Who needs SEO?
Now that we’ve determined what SEO means and what it’s for – let’s see who needs SEO services . Basically – everyone! But here’s a problem – it’s clear that two different sites can’t rank first in Google at the same time. Just as there can be neither two nor three. Not at the same time. And then – what to do? Who should start SEO and who shouldn’t? The answer is: those who can afford to invest in it. Those who are ready to make an effort now and wait for the long-term results. Those for whom it makes economic sense. Those who love sports, competition and music!
But what does SEO actually bring? Apart from visits… And where does it end? When you stop and say, “ready, I’ve optimized it!”?
As with anything else in life – the ultimate goal is satisfaction . If this means as much traffic as possible – then as much traffic as possible. If it all comes down to profit – then SEO must be designed specifically for this purpose, and the end of the road will be the profit obtained. If you are looking to grow your customer base – then SEO can deliver that too. And the list can go on, but it is not limited to: popularity, notoriety, number of fans, social involvement, etc. In short – any word means nirvana to each of you.
At the same time one of the most interesting aspects of website promotionIn search engines, you have to be on the alert – the competition isn’t sleeping. This means that SEO efforts never end . You can’t say that “I did this, this and that and, ready, the site is optimized.” Optimization never ends. There are always things that can be done better. You always have to calibrate the promotion strategies according to the evolution of the competitors, always alive with new ideas. And even when you’re already in first place in Google, Bing or Yahoo! – You can expand your keywords to cover other markets. You can work on optimizing your customer conversion conversions, or you can simply try to rank first in Google for the search term “Google.”
Conclusion: SEO increases the quality of a site
Despite all the existing statistics and optimization models, you are the owner of your site and the leader of the business – so you decide what is best for its progress in search engines. If your site has become more than a passion, but also a source of income, it has increased in volume and complexity, we advise you to move to the next level, reduce amateurish actions and see what advice an SEO agency comes up with . Know that you could discover interesting things, which you did not suspect, and original solutions to improve the results. Good luck and dare to be stronger than your competitors. We believe that everything in life is about SEO, except SEO. SEO holds power!
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