Welcome to the next part of our SEO discussion. Now that you have learned the basic key terms and concepts of SEO, we will have a more in-depth discussion of how SEO works. In this article, we will dive deeper into understanding SEO. Additionally, we will also give you a quick guide on how to create search engine friendly website structures.

Understanding SEO

In our previous article, we discussed that there are millions of people who use search engines to create billions of searches on a daily basis. Now, it is a search engine’s job to help its users find exactly what it is they are searching for.

Search engines use their spiders to go through each web page submitted to the world wide web to determine which ones deserve to be in the top spot. Typically, when you do a search on Google, Bing, Firefox or any other search engines, you will see a list of the best pages that have the answers. 

Web Signals keywords

What a search engine’s algorithm does is to ensure that they list the best results first. How do they do this? Well, they look for signals of which web pages are the most:

  • Popular – this means ranking the websites or web pages based on the visits they received for a period of time.
  • Authority – a web page’s authority is a metric used in SEO to predict its ability to rank in a search engine. This metric uses a 0 to 100 logarithmic scale. The higher the page authority score, the better results you get from search engines. For instance, if your web page scores an 86 in the page authority, your page has the potential to rank in the first pages of the search engines.  
  • Relevance – this pertains to the contents of a web page. If your web page has the answers to the search query, you have better chances of appearing at the top of search engines. For instance, if a person searches for “The best places to visit in England” and your web page provides a list for that specific topic, you will get better results. 
  • Trust – This is another crucial metric evaluated by search engines. A web page’s trust flow plays a huge role in SEO. The goal is to have the best trust flow possible. Similar to the authority metric, a trust flow score is between 0 to 100. It is usually based on your website’s quality. 
  • Importance – this refers to the importance of your web page based on the search query.

Authority, Relevance and Trust

A website’s authority, relevance and trust is important to SEO. They are the three most important pillars of SEO. If you are looking to improve your scores on these metrics, here’s a deeper look.

Search engines evaluate a website’s authority and relevance based on their content. In able to deem your website relevant, a search engine will go through and dissect the actual web page’s content and features. The relevant topics on each web page will be associated. 

Once the search engine finishes the evaluation, they will add the web page to their index. The search engine will also gauge the relevance of a web page to a given topic. For instance, if you have a web page about the best clothing lines in today’s market, and you have links on your web page that leads to the said clothing lines, you will score a higher relevance. These links will only help you rank better if they are relevant to the topic on your web page. This is where TrustFlow metrics come in. Search engines evaluate the trustworthiness of the links you use. 

How Search Engines Work

Search engine optimisation is done by optimising websites. The goal is to achieve the highest ranking possible on search engines. You want to select certain key phrases in which you want your website to rank. For instance, you are a travel company who’s promoting travel destinations and gear. You want to choose phrases such as “traveling”, “travel gear” and etc.

Google and other search engines then interpret a link from a certain web page to another as a vote by the first page for the second page. This is why links are crucial. However, Google doesn’t only look at the number of votes or links that a single page receives. There are more factors that they consider. Search engines also consider the page from which the vote was cast.

SEO Strategies

Basically, SEO can be divided into two main strategies. First, there’s the on-page optimization. This strategy is done by making changes to the HTML code, content, and structure of a website. It makes the website more accessible by search engines and in return, it makes it easier for users to find. 

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On the other hand, there is what’s called as off-page optimization. This strategy is generally focused on building links to the website. It covers different activities such as social media and digital PR.

Why is SEO Important?

SEO strategies are used to generate new business to your website. A great SEO strategy is effective in expanding a business.It helps bring new people in. The more people you can get to your website, the better the results for your business. 

SEO is an ongoing operation,not one thing and finished. The job is to constantly come up with new ways to use SEO. This way, your website has a better visibility for search engines and users alike. To put it simply, it is like search psychology.

Search engine optimization may seem like a complicated and highly technical practice. However, it can be easily broken into five main areas that are listed below:

In the next series of articles, we will discuss these five main areas one by one. Each article will provide an in-depth look at how each area works, and how you can apply these to your own website. We hope that this article has helped you understand SEO better and that you can use this knowledge into creating the best website with great SEO practices to help you rank better on search engines. 

© Image credits to Steve Johnson

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