How Does SEO Work: States of SEO

Introduction:

In this internet-driven era, Google is the answer to all of our questions. Whether we search for a good multicuisine restaurant or want to know more about the history of Indus Valley Civilization, we first hover our fingers on the Google search on our smart device and get the results within a fraction of a second. According to statistics, 68% of the online journey begins with a search engine.

The list of the search results is long but how those are prioritized? Is there any logic to rank the contents from the ocean of options available on the internet?

The results displayed by the search engines are not random or chosen by accident. There are set of rules, algorithms, and practices that the search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo use to thoroughly analyze contents and then reflect those on your device. In this context, the word “SEO” is very common, and the digital marketers, SEO optimization agency and people related to this use this word every now and then.

But what is this SEO, what are the importance of SEO in ranking, how does it work?

Well, this article is going to articulate the exact answers to all these questions. Stay with us.

What is SEO, anyway?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is a process that helps to rank your site in the search engine when someone searches for any specific product, service, information, or whatever your site offers. It is the practice to provide relevant content to the search engine so that it can address the queries of the users and they click on the link to get the desired information. These Search Engines use algorithms to identify websites for a given keyword and prioritize from the bunch of results based on some ranking factors. But the fact is that these algorithms keep on changing and it is a never-ending battle.

Why SEO is important?

Google dominates the search engine market with a more than 90% market share. And it offers only 10 spots on the first search page- yes, only 10 spots. And how often do you jump to the second, third or fourth page? Rarely, because the results of the first page provide enough relevant information. Ahrefs data shows that only 0.78% of people go to the second page of search results for information.

And here comes the importance of SEO. It not only helps you to make your place on the first page but also increases the visibility, authenticity, and popularity of your webpage which in turn, increases the traffic. This all leads to building your brand’s awareness and hitting the maximum target audience and ultimately your revenue. Hiring an SEO agency is the best way to increase the ranking of your website.

How does SEO work?

SEO is directly related to the quality of your website and the quantity of traffic. If you have a better site on both the front and back end, it improves your ranking and attracts more traffic. Crafting killer content and waiting for Google to rank it on the first page is just a dream and the day might never come. You need to know the working philosophy of SEO to rank better or take help from the best SEO agency.

Here is how SEO works.

Crawling:

In this first step, the search engine explores the internet to find relevant and valuable content and go through the codes of every URL. Search engines have their own programming or algorithm, also known as crawler or spider which are designed for this task.

Just by scanning the webpage, the Google bot performs thorough analysis and navigate to other web pages through other hyperlinks.

Indexing:

This is the exact next step done by the search engine. This is the essential process of data storing and organizing. Indexes have a huge database of all the web pages which has a ranking capability for a certain keyword. Search engines give opportunities to the site that provides unique and valuable content to the readers, else it will not index the website. The algorithm is intelligent enough to find

• The information provided on the site is irrelevant
• The quality of the content is poor and copied from others
• There are no inbound links in the domain or subdomain

Ranking:

This is the final step where the search engine like Google, ranks the webpage based on the indexing. When somebody searches for any specific keyword, the search engine checks all the indexed data, identifies the most relevant information and reflects the results accordingly. And all this happens within a blink of an eye.

When you go through the search results, you can assume that the highest-ranking site has the most relevant content and information to your query. This ranking is dynamic and whenever the search engine discovers any other site with more valuable content, it improves the ranking.

There are three major optimization strategies to rank your webpage better.

• On-page Optimization
• Off-page optimization
• Technical optimization

Conclusion:

The ultimate goal of a webpage is to reach its maximum target audience and provide value. Therefore, ranking on the search engines is a must and SEO is the key to this. Though its criteria are ever evolving, you need to implement the best practices to rank high on the search engine and enjoy the benefits.