Basic Concepts Of SEO are used to gain traffic by making your website visible in search engine results via organic or paid techniques.
When you explore aspects of managing websites, in addition to web design and user experience patterns, you come across the concept of search engine optimization ( SEO): the science of improving a website’s visibility across results from various search engines. If a website is not prominently visible in search results, it defeats the purpose of having a website in the first place. Therefore, it is extremely important to ensure that your website is easy for search engines to access.
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing help users find the content they are looking for. So, it is imperative that your website is visible on the search engine results page (SERP).
For example, if you have a plumbing business offering services in Toronto, your site should rank high in the search engine rankings when users search for plumbers in Toronto on Google or any other search engine. Studies related to SEO suggest that more traffic usually results in more sales; therefore, traffic is one of the key components that determine revenue.
In addition to increasing revenue, SEO can help with other goals such as reaching out to a larger audience or helping people access crucial information for the greater good.
What Is SEO?
SEO is a methodology used to gain traffic by making your website visible in search engine results via organic or paid techniques. The term organic means using natural ways to enhance website visibility without using a pay-per-click service. There are many ways to implement SEO, such as using relevant keywords, quality content, and optimal multimedia content on your web pages.
In the past, people implemented underhand techniques (black-hat SEO) to gain website visibility. Google Search, Bing, and Yahoo! Search are the most prominent search engines used to locate information on the Web; and with these search engines getting smarter by the day, it is imperative that you use legitimate tactics to achieve natural visibility.
Therefore, Basic Concepts Of SEO can also be defined as the art or science of affecting website visibility in search results, ruling out using manipulative ways to trick the search engine. Google has laid out guidelines that must be adhered to, to ensure that site owners use appropriate tactics to implement SEO.
Benefits of SEO
SEO is not a cost but an investment that imparts results in the long term.
You cannot expect a miracle to happen overnight—it takes weeks or even months to reach the top-of-the-results chart. There is no fixed way to accomplish this; however, a combination of several methods can help you achieve higher rankings in a calculative (and not manipulative) way.
The following are several advantages of implementing SEO in your web design projects:
Catering to a massive audience
SEO is organic, and as your site goes up the rankings, you get more traffic. Studies related to various factors of SEO (link building, user-engaging content, and so on) indicate that sites visible in the first few pages of search engine results garner more traffic than the rest.
For example, if a user wants to buy sneakers online, they usually click site links that appear on the first or second SERP without bothering to scroll through the rest; they do not want to spend too much of their valuable time and are looking for a quick resolution.
Not only will traffic increase as a result of SEO, but the recommendations of users visiting your website will help you get more hits and attract new customers. The reach and scope you achieve by implementing SEO lead to a larger target audience.
Permanent results
When you use a pay-per-click approach, your site appears at the top of the SERP; however, the moment you stop paying for ads, the site will no longer be visible.
On the other hand, SEO results are not dependent on ads, and with efficient maintenance, your site will appear at the top of the charts without having to advertise. You do not pay Google or advertising vendors to achieve the top spot on the SERP.
Note that at times, you may need the services of a digital marketing agency for various reasons, such as providing quality content on a regular basis or obtaining better online advertisement and exposure.
Low cost of implementation
In earlier days, marketing consultants advocated the use of brochures, ads, and television to advertise products. The amount of money spent on advertising was huge.
Today, creating and hosting a website is not expensive. Hiring a digital marketing expert or using the services of a professional SEO organization can be a viable option, depending on your line of business or niche. In the long run, you can stabilize your site’s position among the search results with minimum upkeep, resulting in a huge return on your investment for SEO implementation.
Data and analytics
Earlier, data was used for monthly, annual, and sales reports by the top brass of an organization. However, data is used as a resourceful alternative with the advent of data science.
Data helps you gain insight into customer preferences, marketing trends, and much more. You can get detailed analytics that helps you determine game-changing factors for your business.
For example, Google Analytics and Google Search Console let you gather data that can help you understand key aspects and drawbacks related to your site’s visibility. You can also see conversions and bounce rates for the users visiting your website. For example, you can better judge the number of users actually buying something on your website vs. those who visited but did not make a transaction.
Staying ahead of the competition
A plethora of free and commercial enterprise-grade SEO tools (for example, Google Analytics and Google Search Console) lets you see results and reports not only for your website but also for sites owned by your competitors.
Therefore, you can compare your results with your competition. You receive statistics about various aspects of your competitors’ business, such as the use of certain keywords, localization factors, and analytics. Thus, you can gain a better understanding of important competitive factors and steer clear of your competition.
Usability
SEO and user experience go hand-in-hand. The future of SEO leans toward creating an enhanced user experience.
For example, internal links on your website that point to relevant pages and content not only help search engines crawl your site but also result in easy navigation. Ultimately, SEO implementation should focus not on search engines but on the user’s requirements and intent.
Keeping this broad picture in mind, attracting users with engaging content and design is a recommended SEO trait that, in turn, aims at creating an awesome user experience. For example, Google advocates for mobile-friendly sites and ranks those sites higher, because mobile has become the de-facto platform for business compared to desktop- or laptop-based sites.
Content marketing and branding
Users tend to surf websites that are found among higher-ranked search results. Google encourages adherence to semantics and clean planning as opposed to underhanded techniques used by spammy websites.
Therefore, if your page is among the top-ranked search results, it reflects a certain trust and credibility. In addition, the “content is king” paradigm encourages fresh content and engaging users, resulting in conversion optimization.
As traffic increases, so will the credibility of your website. Therefore, you can ensure that the branding of the products on your site is apt, leading to better sales. This is why small- and medium-sized enterprises are more focused on SEO implementation (compared to large-scale organizations, which have the funds to advertise through several channels) using localization and other techniques that result in brand awareness.
Challenges in SEO
The world of SEO has its hurdles. The following are various challenges you may come across when you implement SEO in your design projects:
Time constraints
As mentioned earlier, people expect an SEO implementation to deliver quick results. In reality, it takes weeks or even months to see a positive result. A true SEO consultant always adheres to legitimate tactics and does not try to fool the search engines.
Using devious tactics can help you gain results, but it will not be long before you are caught, resulting in penalties. Violations can cost you dearly. Some penalties are relatively lenient: your site is not featured in the top results as a result of being downgraded. But there are also severe penalties, including delisting your site from the search results (it depends on the severity of the violation).
Avoiding irrelevant, spammy content
Content is king, as you will hear often in SEO training and tutorials. Well, content-driven websites usually fare well with SEO implementation, provided the content is engaging and relevant.
Simply stuffing your content with keywords may not lead to good results. You need to understand user intent via their queries instead of focusing on what search engines like. For example, if your site advertises plumbing services in Toronto, then using irrelevant content such as smartphone reviews or vacations in Ibiza would be misleading.
The focus of the content must not distract users. Users must receive the information they expect when they surf your website. Moreover, factors such as manipulating content, aggressive link building, and poor content may eventually prove detrimental.
Search engines like fresh content. Therefore, if your content has not changed for a long time, or if you have used duplicate content from another website, your site will not appear in the top results.
Not including SEO while designing your website
As mentioned earlier in the article, SEO and user experience (UX) go hand in hand. Implementing Basic Concepts Of SEO in a project after the website has been designed may lead to discouraging results. While building the website, you need to consider factors important for SEO and UX design.
For example, on an e-commerce website, it is imperative that the checkout facility is clearly visible because some users just select an item and then want to check out. If the user cannot locate the checkout facility easily, it results in inefficient navigation, leading to a poor UX. Users will not visit a website again if they have difficulty navigating it.
Heavy-duty sites
Cramming your website with as many features as possible or too much content can affect the UX significantly. Heavy-duty sites lead to excessive page-load times, and studies have suggested that users abandon searches if page-load times are not optimal. Less is more.
Proper utilization of whitespace, efficient site architecture, and user-friendly design, along with relevant content, will streamline the UX, prompting users to return.
Defective products
Customers are the most important thing for businesses, and their feedback and recommendations are vital. If the quality of your products is not up to the mark, it is likely that users will not return, regardless of your website content.
Apologies do not matter in the case of a flawed product or bad customer experience. Hence, the quality of your showcased products as well as efficient issue resolution are essential in generating user traffic to your website.
Black-Hat SEO vs. White-Hat SEO
Black-hat SEO in Basic Concepts Of SEO can be defined as deceptive and underhand techniques used to scale up to higher rankings in search results. Most people tend to underestimate the potency of search engines in determining whether the techniques used are appropriate or deceitful. However, search engines are getting smarter by the day and can figure out whether you use improper tactics and strategies to fool them.
Black-hat SEO may get results in the short term, but eventually, you will be penalized by the search engines. The following are a few ways these techniques are implemented:
Stuffing keywords into content
Using massive numbers of keywords in your content may achieve short-term gains. However, if the keywords are not relevant to your content and are placed there just to fool the search engines, then eventually your site may be penalized.
Remember, SEO is all about quality, not quantity; if your content is not good enough and is packed with keywords, your site may not be visible in the top search results because you are being penalized by the search engines.
Link farming
Buying links is never fruitful because the search engines will know you are manipulating them. Using inappropriate links pointing to your website is detrimental because the search engines will realize that the links have no relevance and are not authentic.
For example, suppose your site offers plumbing services to people in Florida. If several links on a travel website in Toronto point to your site, it doesn’t make sense: travel services are in no way connected to plumbing services. Using such deceptive techniques can have long-term consequences and may even result in your site being delisted from search results.
Doorway pages and cloaking
Doorway pages are used to gain high rankings in search results in a deceitful manner. These pages contain keywords and phrases that are picked up by search engine bots and crawlers.
Once you click to access the page, you are redirected to the actual page that the site owner wants you to visit. Cloaking is a mechanism that renders a page visible to search engines but not website users. This short-sighted technique can prove detrimental in the long run. Google has announced penalties for using doorways, deceptive redirects, and cloaking.
White-hat SEO
White-hat SEO in Basic Concepts Of SEO is the opposite of black-hat SEO and is focused on using optimal, organic tactics to help your site rank higher in search results. Usually, it means adhering to the guidelines provided by the search engines and playing by the rules.
Factors such as quality link building, user-engaging content, and optimal performance are some of the white-hat SEO strategies used by SEO consultants to streamline accessibility and visibility in search rankings. In short, you need to focus on user intent rather than try to fool the search engines.
On-Page and Off-Page SEO
Basic Concepts Of SEO involves many factors, and no site can claim to use all of them at the same time.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO in Basic Concepts Of SEO consists of factors that are in your area of control, including your code. It includes meta-tags and meta-descriptions, headings, title tags, internal links within the site, site maps, page-load time, semantics, and ease of navigation.
On-page SEO generally focuses on the efficient presentation of content to website users. Adhering to semantics and optimal web page structure is imperative for a site’s success: they result in a site that is systematic and organized and that provides better readability not only for users but also for indexing by search engine crawlers.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO in Basic Concepts Of SEO factors include things that are not dependent on the code or are not under your control. These include forum postings, social media marketing, social bookmarking, blogs, and RSS feeds.
Off-page SEO is essential in the long term as you create a community for your content. Social networking is a key factor for creating a positive online reputation, and off-page SEO lend significant trust and credibility if you play by the rules.
Basic Concepts Of SEO Summary
This article looked at the Basic Concepts Of SEO and the advantages associated with incorporating SEO in your design project. You now understand the challenges involved in SEO implementation and the constraints associated with it.
You learned about the types of SEO—black-hat SEO vs. white-hat SEO—as well as on-page and off-page SEO factors.
