A Brief Introduction to the Concept of Search Engine Optimization

Last decade or so has seen tremendous growth in the internet worldwide. The Internet has become a necessary commodity. Nothing today is out of reach from the confines of the World Wide Web. Practically everything is online. The Internet has become an inseparable part of anyone’s daily routine.

Everything that we find on the internet runs on a business model. Even the things that you get for no charge are being put there to earn money (the author is not earning any money from this blog). In this digital era, the internet, directly or indirectly, has become one of the main sources of income for many. Businesses are being run online.

For a new venture you just opened, you would advertise, give ads, distribute pamphlets, etc. to make sure that you get more customers. These strategies to increase footfall in the online markets fall under the umbrella of SEO.

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. The term is self-explanatory. Optimization refers to the method of formulating the best possible treatment of a resource. So, search engine optimization refers to the techniques of increasing the traffic to websites by taking caring of its visibility in the web search engines. SEO techniques are free of charge.  

Unlike the paid schemes in which the search engines charge some fee from the business (website) owner to display their name on top in the search results, unpaid methods show those results which the search engine believes are most significant to the users on the basis of ranks.

Every search engine uses its own algorithm to rank a webpage that is why no two search engines show the exact same results. The process of ranking is the culminating step in a multi-stage process that starts with indexing. Indexing refers to the ways of cataloging the material available on the internet. Software applications known as web crawlers are used to create web indexes by systematically browsing the World Wide Web. After crawlers create an index, search engines further employ it to collect metadata to perform matching of the user queries with the keywords. Using the data from this matching process a search engine ranks the webpages in accordance with its algorithm.

The SEO specialist is concerned with the working methodology of search engines, it understands how the algorithms affect the behavior of the search engines. He observes what people search for, and what they type into search engines to get what they want. These words are termed as keywords. Based on all this data, the SEO professional devises an advertising approach.

The SEO expert basically incorporates the concepts of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and SEO practices to publicize the product (website) of its client and make sure that when someone searches a product similar to their clients', the client is shown on the top. Nobody wants to go to a 4^th search result page!

The first and foremost step in this regard is to develop a website that conforms to the SEO standards. But if he has to handle an already built website then its optimization might require addition or deletion of some matter, editing its code to remove obstacles to the indexing activities of search engines and enhance its prominence to particular keywords. An optimized website is handled more efficiently by crawlers which increases the probability of getting higher ranks in the search results.

So, what are the factors that optimize a website and affect its ranking? These are basically of two types:

1.       On-Page Factors

2.       Off-Page Factors

On-Page Factors

These factors are under the role of the developer. These include issues technical such as alt tags, clean site links, headline tags, keyword density, Meta tags, proper CSS and HTML validation, proper site structure, title tags, URL structure, XML sitemap, etc.

It is vital to design a site that has a well-defined structure and makes use of proper identifiers. And the last and the most important aspect is the content of the website. When a search for some specific content is made, the content presented by the webpage must be related. Search Engines punish websites that are not updated consistently with the latest info.   

Off-Page Factors

These factors are not concerned with the way the website is designed or structured. These factors chiefly include the way you publicize your site. These may include link building using article directories, blog directories, or other link exchange schemes. Blogging, forum posting, social networking also fall under the category of off-page factors.

As stated earlier, keywords are those words in your web content that make it feasible for the netizens to find your website via search engines. In addition to the above two factors, keywords play a crucial role in determining the reach of your website. So, one ought to know how the keywords work behind the scenes.  Basically, there are four fundamental keyword matching techniques.

Consider the keyword “strawberry shake” for purpose of explanation:

1.   Exact Match: The page will only be seen if someone searches for the exact phrase “strawberry shake” with the words in that order – “strawberry shake” is not same as “shake strawberry”. Also, the search query must not contain any other words, for example, “how to make strawberry shake” won’t give the same results as just “strawberry shake”.

2.   Broad Match: The page will be visible even if the query is “shake strawberry” or “how to make strawberry shake”. Even synonyms are considered in this approach, so “strawberry blend” or “strawberry mix” might also yield your result.

3.   Phrase Match:  The page will be visible even if the query is “shake strawberry” with the words in that order. Unlike the exact match which does not support the use of any other words, the phrase match is flexible, “how to make strawberry shake” would also yield your result. But as ordering matters, “how to make shake strawberry” won’t produce your page.

4.   Negative Match: If the search is “Strawberry shake - sugarfree”, only those results would be produced which do not contain the word “sugarfree”.

Since keywords are critical to your website’s online visibility, people often find themselves being committing the misdeed of keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing refers to the practice of inserting into a webpage’s Meta tags and content, a large number of keywords to influence the website's ranking in search results. It is regarded as an immoral SEO procedure and is often used to push traffic to deceitful or malevolent webpages. Though with the new sophisticated algorithms in place search engines are able to bypass such websites as Meta tags are no longer the only criteria that are being used to rank websites.

Keyword stuffing depreciates the user experience (UX) too. Consider the following example of strawberry shakes again:

“We sell strawberry shakes. If you love strawberry shakes come to our shop of strawberry shakes where we sell delicious strawberry shakes. You won’t find better strawberry shakes anywhere else”. 

This is called spamdexing.

Let alone being unpleasant to the eye and grueling to the brain such content does not even meet the standards of routine English grammar!  This is not responsible keyword optimization. Instead of shoving up words like this, a 2-5% keyword density must be put in place. Instead of using the same keyword multiple times, long-tail keyword variations must be employed which are longer and more particular phrases that the user is more likely to use while making a search. Synonyms should be used, for instance, “strawberry shakes”, “strawberry mix”, “strawberry juices”, “strawberry blend” etc.

Through methods such as site linking patterns, user engagement metrics, and modern machine learning among others, search engines are able to make a guess about the quality of a given website. Malpractices such as keyword stuffing and spamdexing result in poor user experience which in turn only hurts the ranking of the webpages. SEO and UX must be worked in coherence to benefit the search engines, users, and most importantly the business (website) owners.