If you’ve heard the term “SEO” thrown around but aren’t sure what it means, don’t worry—you’re in good company. It’s a complex and nebulous topic that changes about as often as the weather.
But once you understand what SEO is, you’ll see that using it to your advantage can have a major impact on your business by increasing the number of visitors to your site, targeting the right audience for your products and services, and ultimately increasing revenue.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through exactly what SEO stands for—literally and figuratively—and give you all the basics you need to understand the concept.
More resources for your SEO journey
Before we go any further, I want to share with you a few other resources that will come in handy as you learn more about SEO.
First, download this handy checklist I’ve created to help you create really strong SEO-driven content. I recommend downloading it now, so you can refer to it as you read on.
I also recommend checking out my free 60-minute video course that walks you through the fundamentals of SEO.
My friends over at CrazyEgg also made this excellent little SEO Starter Roadmap as well, and they’ve got a list of some of the best SEO courses right here.
What does SEO stand for?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. But what does that mean? Probably not much if you haven’t explored the topic before. So let’s break it down.
First, we’re talking about search engines—more often than not, people are referring to Google when they’re talking about SEO, but a search engine can refer to anything on the internet that allows users to search. And when you sit back and think about it, there are a lot of things that fall into that category:
Google, Bing, and Yahoo are the biggest search engines out there.
Social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all have search capabilities.
Online services like AirBNB, Ticketmaster, and Trip Advisor also allow their users to search.
The more you think about it, the more you realize that the internet itself is built around the concept of searching.
Consider how often you first turn to Google when you open up your laptop or your phone—in fact, for many people, it’s the default page that appears when they open their browser.
So what does it mean to “optimize” for search engines? SEO refers to the tactics people use to make sure their websites show up near the top of a search engine results page. (A results page is known as a SERP in SEO lingo, but we’ll try to keep our acronyms to a minimum to avoid confusion).
In other words, good SEO helps you show up on the first page of Google (or as close to the top as possible) for searches related to your business or industry.
Still with me? Good. Let’s go a level deeper, and figure out why people seem to care about SEO so damned much.
Why does SEO matter?
This is a really big question, but let’s boil it down to the simplest answer:
Good SEO makes it easier for more people, and the right people, to find your website or online presence.
That’s it.
With nearly 2 billion web pages on the internet, knowing how to manipulate SEO to your benefit could mean the difference between digital success and complete failure.
To truly grasp what this means, we need to understand the power of the almighty first page.
The first page of Google is the most coveted spot on the internet. What do we mean by “the first page”? Try this: Open Google in a new tab and search for anything. Try your own name if you like, or a product you sell.
After you hit “Search Google”, everything you see there will be the front page. There are lots of different things that could show up on this front page, depending on what you searched. We’ll get into the anatomy of a search page a little later, but for now, scroll down to the very bottom of the page until you see this:
Those numbers represent the different pages of Google. The number 1 is the first page, obviously, and so on.
And now, try to think of the last time you clicked on the number 2, or “Next.” If you’re having trouble remembering, you’re not alone.
In fact, if most users can’t find what they want on the first page, they’ll just type something different into Google to get a better result.
Why? Because people inherently trust the first-page results over anything else.
And why is that? Because Google works hard to serve up the most relevant, useful content on the first page.
And that’s why it’s important to know how SEO works. With the right SEO strategy, you can change your website or online presence to give Google more of what it wants, and you can give your audience (customers, clients, whomever) more of what they want. You will drive more traffic to your website, and those visitors will be more likely to convert.
If you want to see what an SEO strategy looks like in action, check out the case study below.
What are the benefits of strong SEO?
We understand why SEO matters, but part of the answer to the question, “What does SEO stand for?” lies in the results you get if you implement SEO best practices.
Depending on where you focus your efforts on improving your SEO, you could see any of the following things happen:
- Increased revenue
- Increased organic traffic to your site
- Improved conversions
- Higher chances of reaching your target audience
- Access to new audiences that may not yet know about your brand
- Greater authority in the eyes of your customers
- Higher engagement on your site
A few important things to note about these benefits:
- You aren’t likely to experience all these benefits, at least not right away.
- SEO is not a quick fix in most cases. Some things you do could make a fast improvement, particularly when we get into technical SEO. But most SEO strategies should be thought of through a long-term lens.
There’s no single definition for what “long-term” means in the context of SEO. Still, this article can help give you an idea of just how much time you’ll need to set aside for major SEO improvements.
What are the most important elements of SEO?
Now that we understand the importance of SEO and how it can improve your bottom line, let’s talk about the most important elements.
Disclaimer: These are very complicated topics, and while we’ll get into each one briefly, there is a lot more to winning the SEO game than I’m able to fit into this single article.
My friends over at CrazyEgg put together a great graphic here
If you want more insights, subscribe to my email list. I’ll send you updates you can use to improve your SEO and content. No spam, I promise.
Content: The most important element of strong SEO?
Let’s start with what is arguably the most vital part of any SEO strategy: high-quality content.
What do I mean by content? Essentially, content refers to most anything that appears on your website (or social media pages, if you’re focusing more on social visibility). This includes all of the text on your site, as well as any imagery and videos you have, and even things like buttons, calls to action, and more.
I’ve made a handy downloadable checklist you can use to make sure the content you create is properly optimized. It runs through each important aspect, and you (or the content creators you employ) can use it over and over with everything you create.
If you really want to understand how to master SEO, the checklist will be your best friend. Here’s the download:
The checklist goes into everything in greater detail, but for now, let’s focus on some of the most important elements of SEO-driven content:
- Keywords in the title, headings, and subheadings (when appropriate)
- Simple and accessible language
- Headings and subheadings that make content digestible, tagged as H1s & H2s
- Bullet points and lists for ease of reading
- Keywords sprinkled through content (don’t overdo it!)
- Internal linking to other relevant pages on your site
- Videos and imagery tagged with appropriate metadata
You’ll notice keywords appear twice on this list, and that’s because they are super important. I’ll soon be writing an entire blog about the best keyword practices, including how to perform basic keyword research.
A lot of writers spend their time wondering how many keywords they should use in each blog, and how often they should use keywords. There are unfortunately no hard rules or magic equations to this. You will need to find a balance between the right number of keywords, and understand proper keyword research to know which keywords to target.
(By the way, one of my services is performing keyword research and helping spruce up content for SEO. Contact me if you’re interested in learning more.)
You can pull your hair out worrying about keywords, but here’s the most important thing:
Google rewards you for writing in a natural, human way.
In other words, don’t try to cram in awkward keywords or weird formatting just because you think Google will like it. Instead, put yourself in your readers’ shoes and think: How would they want this information presented?
If you can write for your audience, then hopefully you’ll find ways to work in relevant keywords without disrupting the quality of your content. That’s the best way to win at the SEO content game. These resources will ensure you hit the ground running.
High-quality backlinks build your authority
You may have heard the word backlinks as you’ve researched what SEO stands for. Backlinks are very important to SEO, and they’re also notorious for being the hardest part of SEO to master.
A backlink is a link that points to your website from a different website. Search engines see these links as evidence of the quality of your website, and they reward you for it—assuming the links are coming from strong websites.
In other words, it pays to get other reputable websites to link to your site.
But how do you do that? Well, you could do the basics:
- Write content that is so good, people link to it organically.
- Find business listings that will feature your website.
- Build partnerships and relationships with other sites.
- Participate in guest blogging—writing blogs for other sites. Here’s an example of one I wrote for Content Marketing Institute. You’ll see links to my own websites in my bio at the bottom of the page.
I won’t lie: These tactics are usually pretty slow, and they won’t get you the “link juice” you need to improve your SEO through backlinking overnight. But they’re good places to start, until you have some money or time to invest in a robust link-building strategy.
Local SEO: Showing up in location-based results
When you search Google for a specific business, your search results might contain a map or a list of reviews.
These results are known as local search results, a term that pretty much explains itself. By formally listing your business with Google through the Google My Business service, you too can show up in these results. And that can really help your SEO.
A well-filled-out Google Business listing is better for customers who are trying to find your physical location, but beyond that, Google rewards businesses and websites that are set up on the platform.
Even if you don’t have a physical local store or office location, a Google My Business account can improve your SEO. You have control over how much information is shown on your listing, which means you can list just a phone number if you don’t want to put an address out before the public.
Remember that location-specific searches are very common, especially among people who are looking to convert. For example, people who want to visit a new doctor are much more likely to search for doctors in [city name] than just doctors. You won’t have a chance to rank for these important local search results if you haven’t taken steps to improve your local SEO.
Core web vitals: Maintaining healthy site functionality
Have you ever gone on a website and left before it even loaded, just because it was taking too long?
Google knows that slow websites frustrate internet users. If your website is taking too long to load, you could be penalized for it.
You may ultimately need to call in an SEO specialist or web developer to deal with a slow-loading site. But before then, you can at least start to investigate whether site speed is an issue for you. I recommend visiting PageSpeed Insights, a free tool from Google that tests your site speed.
But the speed is just one of many core web vitals that can make-or-break your SEO performance and user experience. A few others are:
- Largest contentful paint: The amount of loading time required for the largest content elements “above the fold”— the stuff your visitors can see without scrolling.
- First input delay: Have you ever clicked on a hyperlink only for nothing to happen? No new tabs open up, or you’re stuck with the eternally rotating loading circle on your screen. That’s the first input delay, meaning the time it takes for an action to occur after the user clicks for said action.
- Cumulative layout shift: This refers to the page’s “visual stability,” or how well your elements stay put. For example, it’s great when websites load really fast—but not so quickly that thumbnails jump out of frame before you get the chance to click! These shifts come from a large cumulative layout shift, which can drag your site’s performance down.
So, how do you keep all these elements in top shape? There are numerous methods for maintaining these core web vitals, most of which are best approached with an SEO specialist or web developer. Contact me to learn how I can help improve your site performance.
Otherwise, using tools like Web Vitals Google Chrome extension, optimizing your images, and reducing the use of JavaScript (it’s known for slowing websites down!).
The technical side of SEO
You may occasionally hear people talk about technical SEO—a blanket term that refers to more complicated technical things you can do to your website to improve SEO.
What kind of complicated technical things? Well, it depends on your content management system or CMS. With the right plugins and a bit of research, many of the most common CMS platforms, such as WordPress, are easy to tweak and can help you improve SEO.
Certain complicated CMSs, however, may have features that work against your SEO efforts and will require a specialist’s touch.
Technical SEO can mean many things—far more than I have time to get into here. But if you’re curious whether technical SEO issues are holding you back, the best thing to do is have a specialist conduct an SEO audit of your website.
Once again, if this is something you’d like done on your website, you can get in touch with me for an audit.
Different types of SEO
We’ve covered the most important elements of SEO, but there are still some terms you may come across that weren’t touched on above. Let’s demystify those terms now by exploring different types of SEO.
On-Page SEO vs. Off-Page SEO
This one comes up a lot. What is the difference between on-page SEO and off-page SEO?
Essentially, on-page SEO refers to all the things you can do to your own website to improve its visibility. This includes writing better content, adjusting your CMS, improving site speed, listing your business, and more.
Off-page SEO is a different beast. It refers to the aspects of SEO that are outside of your control. In particular, we’re talking about backlinks—those links to your site that other websites use in their content. It may also refer to third-party reviews of your products or services, as well as other mentions of your business on websites you don’t own.
White-Hat SEO vs. Black-Hat SEO
This terminology is a little easier to understand.
White-hat SEO means using approved or sanctioned tactics to improve your SEO. This would include all the things I’ve mentioned so far in this article—strategies we know work well and don’t directly harm competitors, the consumer, or your own brand’s integrity.
Black-hat SEO, on the other hand, is the villainous side of the SEO world. It refers to the dirty tricks nefarious SEO agencies or individuals might use to improve a site’s ranking or drag down a competitor’s site. In the past, this has meant anything from stuffing keywords on a landing page and then coloring the text white so the user can’t see them, or releasing malware to spam and slow down a competitor site.
Though black-hat SEO is getting harder and harder to pull off thanks to regular Google updates designed to prevent it, it’s still out there. Google also routinely punishes businesses that are caught using black-hat techniques—and once Google puts the mark on you, it’s very hard to recover.
That’s why it’s so important to make sure any SEO small business services you enlist know the importance of sticking to white-hat methodology.
Social Media SEO
Let’s not forget the all-too-important social media SEO, which is exactly what it sounds like: optimizing your social media pages to improve engagement and visibility on sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest.
Social SEO is a worthwhile practice for many businesses who leverage social media. Every social media platform you can think of has its own search AI that works in a unique way. For example, putting keywords related to your industry on your LinkedIn profile will help you show up in the right searches—perhaps those run by a future employer or business partner.
Monitoring and tracking your SEO
Here’s something everyone should know about SEO: it is not a set-it-and-forget-it marketing strategy.
SEO needs to be frequently monitored by someone—ideally, more than one person—who understands how it works and can use the right tools to monitor it.
Your SEO will fluctuate frequently for different reasons, including:
- Changes to Google’s algorithm
- Changes in your competitors’ behavior
- Unexpected technical issues with your website
- New backlinks you weren’t aware of
- Content you post on social media
But regularly monitoring your SEO isn’t just about finding snags. It’s also about using your discoveries to adjust how you work with your audience.
I can’t teach you how to monitor and track SEO in this article—it’s definitely worthy of its own post (or maybe its own library).
But if you’re focused on optimizing your site for Google and understanding what SEO stands for, there are some tools out there you should know about to truly understand what SEO stands for.
Google Analytics: This is Google’s custom tool for monitoring how your site performs. (There are other analytics software options, but Google Analytics is the most often used—and it’s free). Setting up Google Analytics, and then understanding the data, is something that takes time. You can enlist the help of a specialist to get set up and understand how to find the most important data for your business.
Google Search Console: This tool, also free and also created by Google, helps you understand how your website appears in search. You can see what search queries people are using to find your site, and you’ll be able to make sure all your individual landing pages are being indexed.
Third-Party Tools: There are many, many other SEO tools out there that can be very useful to perfecting your SEO strategy. But these typically come with a price tag—another reason to hire an SEO specialist who has licenses with tools like SEM Rush, AHREFS, or Screaming Frog.
Keeping up with Google search algorithm updates
The Google search algorithm is the king of all things SEO. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration—but since Google has more than a 92 percent share of the global search engine market as of June 2021, there’s almost no way around the need to optimize for it.
That said, the search engine has the final say on your optimization strength. It’s the mechanism that ranks webpages according to their relevance to user queries.
Back in the day, Google and other search engines relied on a text-based ranking system, which filtered and arranged pages based on keyword frequency within the on-page content. But this didn’t last long, given the wide-open door it provides for spam.
Nowadays, there are numerous algorithms monitoring hundreds of factors that determine a webpage’s quality and search relevance.
For example, PageRank is probably the most well-known part of the Google algorithm. This system analyzes the relationships between webpages and all their content aspects, counting internal links as “votes” that signal quality.
Hint: This is why backlinks are so important! If you need help developing quality content that has high backlink value and is informed by the ever-changing search engine algorithms, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Other algorithms work a bit differently, though. Take one of the few ranking algorithm updates, for example: In December 2021, the Google Search Central YouTube channel announced a “product reviews update” that aims to promote high-quality content in this genre.
This and the November “core update” that preceded it will undoubtedly demand changes to content development and publishing, meaning web professionals must stay on their toes to maintain strong SERP performances.
Conclusion: Getting your SEO back on track
Hopefully, by this point, you understand not only what SEO stands for but how important it is to a marketing strategy.
You probably also understand how complicated and multifaceted SEO really is. You’re not alone, and you’re on the right track—the first step to winning the SEO game is research.
You can receive more tips and explanations about SEO and content by subscribing to my mailing list, or get in touch with me however you prefer.
