What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility on search engines like Google, Microsoft Bing, and other search engines. In simple terms, internet has millions and billions of websites. A search engine has to have relevant information about your website in order to list it in a related query of a user. The better visibility your pages have in search result, the more likely you are to be found and clicked on. A SEO agency, like SEO Revolve,  can help your website in optimising your website for search engines.

What you’ll learn in this guide:

• How SEO differs from SEM and PPC

• Why SEO is important

• SEO types and specialisations

How is SEO different from SEM and PPC?

SEM and PPC are the most common terms you will find frequently in Digital Marketing. Read on to understand both these terms and How they differ from SEO.

SEO vs SEM

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing or most commonly know as Search Marketing. It simply refers to all the paid marketing efforts used to get online visibility and traffic on your website. It is a method of promotion and advertising to help companies' content rank higher among search engine traffic. Like search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing helps companies improve the way content is ranked by search engines.

SEO, or search engine optimisation, focuses on improving organic search rankings, while SEM, or search engine marketing, encompasses paid advertising to increase visibility on search engine results pages.

SEO vs PPC

PPC stands for pay-per-click – a type of digital marketing where advertisers are charged whenever one of their ads gets clicked on.

It is a type of internet marketing which involves advertisers paying a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Simply, you only pay for advertising if your ad is actually clicked on. It's essentially a method of 'buying' visits to your site, in addition to driving website visits organically.

If you're interested in taking a more long-term, sustainable approach, you might want to use SEO. If your goal is to increase your visibility fast, you may want to use pay-per-click marketing. Keep in mind that your digital marketing strategy can use both of these together.

Why is SEO important for a website?

SEO is a critical marketing channel. First, and foremost: organic search delivers 53% of all website traffic.

That’s one big reason why the global SEO industry is forecast to reach a staggering $122.11 billion by 2028. SEO drives real business results for brands, businesses and organisations of all sizes.

But for simple understanding lets keep the statistics aside. Imagine you have set up a shop in already crowded market where there are multiple shops which sell similar products/services as yours. And there is a guy who knows all the shops in the market.

Now in order to give him information about your new shop you will have send him some data about your shop, your products or services, your references, your ratings and your visiting customers, etc. Slowly he will collect all your data and create an profile for you. So next whenever a customer comes looking a specific product or service which matches your profile he can guide her to your shop.

A search engine also does the same thing for websites. SEO helps search engine to analyse the content, the backlinks of a website, the keywords, the traffic and then determines its' ranking.

Trillions of searches are conducted every year. Search is often the primary source of traffic for websites, which makes it essential to be “search engine friendly” on any platform where people can search for your brand or business. 

What this all means is that improving your visibility, and ranking higher in search results than your competition, can positively impact your bottom line.

SEO is extremely important because Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are very competitive and filled with search features (including PPC ads).

Another reason SEO is critical for brands and businesses: unlike other marketing channels, good SEO work is sustainable. When a paid campaign ends, so does the traffic. Traffic from social media is at best unreliable – and a fraction of what it once was.

SEO is the foundation of holistic marketing, where everything your company does matters. Once you understand what your users want, you can then implement that knowledge across your:

• Campaigns (paid and organic).

• Website content.

• Social media properties.

SEO is a channel that drives the traffic you need to achieve key business goals (e.g., conversions, visits, sales). It also builds trust – a website that ranks well is generally regarded as authoritative or trustworthy, which are key elements Google wants to reward with better rankings.

What are the different types of SEO?

There are three types of SEO:

• Technical SEO: Technical SEO refers to anything you do that makes your site easier for search engines to crawl and index. Technical SEO, content strategy, and link-building strategies all work in tandem to help your pages rank highly in search.

• On-site SEO: It is the process of optimising webpages and their content for both search engines and users. It can help rank pages higher on Google and drive more organic traffic. Common tasks associated with on-page SEO include optimising for search intent, title tags, internal links, and URLs.

• Off-site SEO: It includes activities done off of a website in an effort to increase the site's search engine rankings. Common off-page SEO actions include building backlinks, encouraging branded searches, and increasing engagement and shares on social media.

You maintain 100% control over content and technical optimisations. That’s not always true with off-site (you can’t control links from other sites or if platforms you rely on end up shutting down or making a major change), but those activities are still a key part of this SEO trinity of success.

Imagine SEO as a sports team. You need both a strong offence and defence to win – and you need fans (a.k.a., an audience). Think of technical optimisation as your defence, content optimisation as your offence, and off-site optimisation as ways to attract, engage and retain a loyal fanbase.

A detailed blog on each type of SEO will follow soon.

How can an SEO Specialist help you get desired results?

A SEO specialist like SEO Revolve, which is the best SEO agency in Surat, can help you in creating and executing a comprehensive SEO strategy for increased visibility and improving your ranking in search engine. A specialist will understand your requirements, identify your target audience and target keywords to create a solid foundation for your SEO growth journey. A specialist will also study your website, optimise its' contents, insert relevant keywords, create internal backlinks and also create relevant external backlinks. Alongs with it there are numerous technical aspects which a specialist will optimise in order to get your website the highest ranking on a search engine.