Search Engine Optimization
Quick definition
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving a website so that it appears higher in unpaid search results for relevant queries, and so that the people who find it get what they were looking for.
The main parts of SEO
- Technical SEO: making the site easy for search engines to crawl and understand.
- On-page SEO: page content, titles, headings and internal links.
- Off-page SEO: signals from outside the site, mainly links from other sites (backlinks).
- Content and search intent: pages that answer the questions people actually search for.
How search engines work, in brief
Search engines discover pages by following links (crawling), store information about them (indexing) and then rank indexed pages for each query using many signals. SEO aims to help each stage work well for your pages.
SEO takes time
Changes can take weeks or months to show in rankings, and nobody can guarantee a position. Be wary of anyone who promises guaranteed rankings.
Measuring SEO
- Organic traffic.
- Rankings for target queries.
- Clicks and impressions in search performance reports.
- Conversions from organic visits.
Example
A bakery publishes a page for “gluten-free birthday cakes”, with a clear title and description, photos with descriptive file names and alt text, and links from its menu and blog. Over time the page begins to appear for related searches and brings visitors who order cakes.