This article will explain you SEO (Search Engine Optimization), How Search Engine works to rank websites. What is SEO ? | Search Engine Optimization | Black Hat SEO vs White Hat SEO | Rank Websites
What is SEO?
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SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, it is the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to attract attention, prospective, and customers to your business.
You can say, it is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
How SEO works?
Search engines such as Google and Bing use bots to crawl pages on the web, going from site to site, collecting information about those pages, and putting them in an index.
Next, algorithms analyze pages in the index, taking into account hundreds of ranking factors or signals, to determine the order pages should appear in the search results for a given query.
Our SEO success factors can be considered proxies for aspects of the user experience. It’s how search bots estimate exactly how well a website or web page can give the searcher what they’re searching for.
The key difference between SEO and paid advertising is that SEO involves “organic” ranking, which means you don’t pay to be in that space. To make it a bit simpler, search engine optimization means taking a piece of online content and optimizing it so search engines like Google show it towards the top of the page when someone searches for something.
The search algorithms are designed to surface relevant, authoritative pages and provide users with an efficient search experience. Optimizing your site and content with these factors in mind can help your pages rank higher in the search results.
Why is SEO important?
Google looks at a variety of different factors when determining the ranking of websites that show up on their SERPs. They want to find content that is relevant to the user’s query, but that can also be trusted to provide value for the reader. When content ranks highly on the SERP, it has a much greater chance of attracting clicks and attention than the content ranked lower. An estimated 30% of clicks will go to the search results in Position One on the SERP, falling to 12% by Position Three. At the bottom of the page, sites in position in nine and ten only receive about 2% of the clicks. (Smart Insights 9/2016)
Users trust search engines, and achieving a top spot in search engine rankings signals to searchers that your site is a credible source. The higher you rank in results pages, the more clicks and traffic your site will generate. SEO also improves user experience, making it more likely for customers to become repeat buyers.
SEO can help you build better relationships with your audience, improve the customer experience, increase your authority, drive more people to your site, give you an edge over the competition, and increase conversions, which means more sales, more loyal customers, and more growth for your business.
What Search Would Be Like Without SEO
Without SEO, it’s hard to say how we would ever find websites, businesses, or the information we seek daily. The search engine results would be too easy to manipulate, and as users, we would have to look much longer and harder to find valuable sites instead of the ones simply manipulating the results to get to the first page. SEO is important because it ensures that typical people don’t have to search for more than a few seconds to find the information or products they want. It establishes a sort of “natural order” online that would be missing without it.
How to improve SEO
This section of our site is here to help you learn anything you want about SEO. Here’s a general overview:
1. Publish Relevant Content
Quality content is the number one driver of your search engine rankings and there is no substitute for great content. Quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance. Fine-tune your web writing skills.
Keywords
Identify and target a specific keyword phrase for each page on your website. Think about how your reader might search for that specific page with search terms like:
- masters in engineering management
- what is biomedical engineering?
- title IX resources
- northern lights
- how to apply for scholarships?
- application deadline
Multiple Keyword Phrases
It is very difficult for a webpage to achieve search engine rankings for multiple keyword phrases—unless those phrases are very similar. A single page may be able to rank for both “biomedical engineering jobs” and “biomedical engineering careers”. Ranking for “student affairs” and “dean of students” or “gender discrimination” and “violence reporting procedures” with a single page is unlikely.
If you want to rank for multiple keywords phrases with your website, you will need to make a separate webpage for each keyword phrase you are targeting.
2. Update Your Content Regularly
You’ve probably noticed that we feel pretty strongly about content. Search engines do, too. Regularly updated content is viewed as one of the best indicators of a site’s relevancy, so be sure to keep it fresh. Audit your content on a set schedule and make updates as needed.
3. Metadata
When designing your website, each page contains a space between the <head> tags to insert metadata, or information about the contents of your page. If you have a CMS site originally produced by the UMC web team will have pre-populated this data for you. However, it is you need to review and update Metadata as your site changes over time.
- Title – It will be displayed at the top of the browser window as well as the headline on the SERP. Include your keywords close to the beginning of the title.
- Description – The description is important because it shows up on the SERP and tells users what the page is about. Create a clear and accurate description of the page that’s brief while still emphasizing chosen keywords.
Always describe your visual and video media using alt tags, or alternative text descriptions. They allow search engines to locate your page, which is crucial—especially for those who use text-only browsers or screen readers.
5. Fix duplicate content.
Duplicate content issues can negatively impact your search engine optimization efforts. Google wants to reward those sites that have unique site content. So they penalize sites with duplicates. That’s why it’s important to regularly check your website for duplicate site content and fix these issues before they start to bring down your SERP rankings.
6. Optimize your website for mobile.
Mobile site optimization is no longer optional for businesses. As of 2015, Google now penalizes sites that are not optimized for mobile devices. Why? Because over 55% of all searches come from mobile devices.
7. Optimize your site for speed.
Site speed is yet another factor that the Google algorithm takes into consideration when ranking your site on its SERP. The longer it takes for the page to load, the more frustrated the consumer becomes. This may cause them to leave your site and go to a competitor’s.
8. Make sure your content is easy to read.
We’ve already talked about the importance of creating high-quality content consistently. However, if this content isn’t easy for visitors to read, they may not take the time to read it.
Ensuring that your content is formatted in a way that’s easy to navigate and read is an important part of keeping visitors on your site longer. Which impacts both SEO and conversion rates.
One of the best ways to format your content so that it’s easier to digest is by using headings and subheadings. These titles help break up the content into different topics. Making it easier for readers to identify what types of information will be contained within each section. This is especially important for long-form blogs as readers can easily get lost in the content.
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