How does SEO work?

You may have heard that SEO is essential when you want to increase traffic to your website.

When you are looking to increase the volume of customers coming into your store, incoming calls, and online orders, you need to be visible in Google Search.

Optimizing your web pages will help you rank higher and convert more searchers to customers.

In this article, you will learn about the process used by marketers to optimize your website for search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and many others.

Let’s start by learning what SEO is.

What Is SEO, Anyway?

SEO refers to search engine optimization.

At its core, SEO is the process of getting your site to rank as high as possible in Google when someone types in [burrito blanket] (or whatever you sell, promote, or talk about).

The higher your site is, the more visible your business is, and the more traffic and sales your business is likely to generate.

You may be a little lost if you are just starting out in SEO.

There are many sites, books, and guides (we even wrote one here at Search Engine Journal) to help you get started. But you may find that many resources offer conflicting information.

Part of the reason SEO frustrates so many people is that it changes constantly.

Why? Because when traders get their teeth into a new “strategy”, they like to run it into the ground.

Essentially, we are why we cannot have nice things.

In addition, there is the fact that Google is constantly updating its algorithm.

SEO is a never-ending battle to get more eyes on your website and convince Google that your site is worth sending to searchers.

How Does SEO Work? Your Top SEO Questions, Answered

So, what is important when it comes to SEO?

Before I dive into the more technical aspects of SEO, I will answer the most frequently asked questions about SEO.

Is SEO Dead?

Our jobs are gone. You should just stop now.

I would argue that SEO is constantly dying over and over again. Think of it like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

Strategies that we have come to know and love are replaced by new and effective ones. SEO best practices die, and new ones are reborn.

So while it’s not dead, SEO is always changing. If you want to succeed in SEO, you have to be willing to roll with the punches.

What Is The Most Important SEO Factor?

There is no golden SEO factor that beats all others.

One of the most common answers you get in SEO is, “Well, it depends…”

This can be frustrating, but it is the truth.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

How Long Does SEO Take To Work?

Only Google knows exactly how its algorithm works.

They release updates, and there are a few lists of the most crucial rating factors.

The truth is that SEO takes as long as it takes – which could be weeks or even months, depending on your strategy.

If someone else does something a little better, it can be removed from the SERPs.

What Is The Difference Between On-Page SEO & Off-Page SEO?

On-page SEO refers to changes you make on the site you own that have an impact on SEO.

For example, adding an XML sitemap to boost your SEO.

Off-page SEO refers to SEO strategies that take place outside of your website, such as building links to pillar content.

Link Building Is Hard – Can’t I Just Buy Links?

You can. You can also run your hand through a blender. No one will stop you. But it is often an ineffective SEO strategy.

Instead of buying links, I recommend starting with our link building guide.

SEO Factors That Rule Today & Beyond

Now that we’ve covered the basics, you’re ready to get your hands dirty.

Below, we’ll cover some of the most critical factors of SEO.

Keep in mind that SEO trends change constantly, and what works now may not work in a few months.

Relevant, High-Quality Content Wins

There are many technical SEO factors – site structure, anchor text, URL structure, etc.

Those details are important, but the backbone of SEO is high quality content. If you get this right, the rest of SEO will be much easier.

If you want to crack the first page on Google, you need relevant and well-optimized content that earns links.

What do we mean by high quality content?

Here are a few things to keep in mind when developing content:

In short, make sure all your content is written for humans first and optimized for Google second.

Metadata Matters

Metadata is the title and lines of text on the search results page.

For example, if you Google [who killed Carole Baskin’s husband], here is the metadata you will see:

Screenshot from search for [who killed Carole Baskin’s husband], Google, July 2022

Metadata tells the user what they can expect to find if they click on the page.

Optimizing your metadata is quite simple:

Think of metadata as advertisements for your content.

Why should users click? What can you tell them?

Use the meta to encourage clicks, which will drive traffic and lead to more business.

Links Matter, But…

Links have been a critical aspect of SEO for as long as Google has existed.

Links work as ‘votes’ which tell Google that other sites think your content is useful and relevant.

The more high quality relevant links you acquire, the higher your site is likely to rank for related key terms.

In short, links are still fundamental to SEO.

But, quality is more important than quantity.

If you invest in link building as part of your SEO efforts, target links from popular, topically relevant websites in your niche.

User Experience (UX) Impacts Rankings

User experience (UX) plays a substantial role in how well your website will rank on Google.

However, user experience depends on many factors such as infrastructure and site layout, content, etc., making it difficult to measure.

If you want to win at SEO, UX should be a top priority.

Here are a few best practices to follow:

As Google gets smarter, UX will likely play an even more important role in the future.

So now is the time to learn the basics and implement best practices on your site.

Mobile Matters More Than Ever Before

In 2018, Google moved to mobile-first indexing, which means that the search engine uses mobile versions of your site to rank your sites in their results.

Google’s move makes sense because more than 50% of traffic worldwide is generated by mobile devices.

First, Google suggests investing in responsive design. You want to make your content consistent across desktop and mobile devices and ensure your site loads quickly on mobile and desktop.

In short, you need to boost your mobile game or site to rank at the bottom of Google’s search results.

Don’t Ignore Voice Search

When it comes to voice, there is a lot of conflicting information out there.

Google said, back in 2016, that voice searches made up about 20% of all searches made in the Google app.

Today, more than a quarter of all Americans own a smart speaker. Yet 72% of marketers have no plans to optimize for voice search.

Is voice search important? It does.

Voice search has grown in popularity and will likely continue to do so. It shouldn’t be your #1 SEO priority, but it makes sense to start optimizing for voice search.

Many of the voice search optimization strategies also make sense for semantic search.

Here are a few steps to help optimize your site for voice search:

Voice search optimization isn’t a must right now, but voice search optimizations make sense for Google in general and can give you an edge in the future.

3 Tips For Actually Succeeding In SEO

There are two types of SEO tips: the technical stuff I covered above and the core SEO principles. The technical stuff will change, but these SEO tips stand the test of time.

If It Seems Shady, It Will Probably Burn You

You may have heard of black hat SEO, white hat, and gray hat.

Black hat SEO refers to practices that are totally against Google’s terms of service.

Like building 10 sites and interlinking them to make Google think your bitcoin sites are legit.

This is where the acronym PBN comes in.

Then there is a gray hat, which may not be technically wrong but walks a thin (grey) line.

White hat is on board, totally legit SEO. Some have argued convincingly that white hat is no longer a thing.

Many SEO professionals walk the gray hat line. And most of them burn.

To succeed in SEO, you have to do things the right way.

If something feels off – like buying or selling links – it will probably burn you out and torpedo your chances in the search.

Trust me. It is not worth the risk in the long run.

Read Real Experts

There are many SEO “experts”.

Some of them claim to get you to the top of page one on Google “guaranteed!”

Others don’t actually do SEO but write a lot about it. Make sure your sources are reputable.

Take everything you read with a grain of salt because nothing is universal.

What works for a tech e-commerce site won’t necessarily work for a restaurant supply store.

Keep an eye out for what comes straight from Google from the likes of John Mueller and Gary Illyes.

Test, Test, And Test Again

SEO is about determining what works for your site in your industry based on your unique landscape.

The only way to figure this out is to test – and keep testing repeatedly.

If you’re using shady tactics, all your work could go to waste if Google’s latest algorithm update changes things. But if you apply SEO best practices and test consistently, you can be prepared for when the winds change.

Testing is an eternal part of any successful SEO strategy.

Conclusion

Every SEO professional would love to find the magic formula that will catapult their sites to the top of the SERPs and keep them there forever.

Unfortunately, SEO doesn’t work like that.

There are rules and best practices, but the heart of SEO is figuring out what works for your site or client and then changing it when it stops working.

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

Introducing the 3 Stages of the SEO Tune-Up stage. Building stage. Expand-Out Stage.

Does SEO cost Money?

The average cost for project-based SEO services ranges from $1,000 to $1 million and more. Smaller companies using local SEO can spend around $1,000 per month per project. Larger enterprise-level companies can expect to pay millions of dollars per month.

Is Google SEO worth the money? There is no cost to appear in organic search results like Google, and making changes to improve your website’s SEO can have a huge impact on your search rankings over time. . Learn more about how Google organic search works and find tips for getting started here.

Is SEO a one-time cost?

It is worth noting that most SEO tactics require monthly attention, including link building and content marketing. SEO is not a one-time project; it needs to be constantly updated, analyzed and adjusted to deliver the desired results. The content and links must be updated and improved continuously.

How much does monthly SEO cost?

Average SEO costs are $100-$250 per hour for US SEO agencies. SEO costs often range from $2,500 – $10,000 per month for US agencies. The average SEO plan costs $2819 per month (per Ahrefs) Overseas SEO Companies can charge $10-$50 per hour.

How much does an SEO cost?

The average cost of SEO for small businesses is $750 to $2000 per month or $5000 to $30,000 for one-time projects. Smaller companies that invest in SEO consulting services can expect to pay $80 to $200 per hour.

Do you have to pay monthly for SEO?

If you are hiring a top SEO company to execute a local campaign, expect to pay $500.00 per month. A national or international campaign requires a minimum budget of $2,500 to $5,000 per month. Some firms offer a “trial package” at a lower price, without a contract.

How much does SEO services cost?

Average SEO costs are $100-$250 per hour for US SEO agencies. SEO costs often range from $2,500 – $10,000 per month for US agencies. The average SEO plan costs $2819 per month (per Ahrefs) Overseas SEO Companies can charge $10-$50 per hour.

How much does SEO cost for small business?

According to a survey of 1,200 business owners and more than 350 agencies, freelancers and consultants, the average cost of SEO for Small Businesses is $501-$1,000 per month globally. The average cost of SEO for small businesses in the United States is $2,501 to $5,000 per month.

How much does SEO cost per hour?

Hiring an experienced SEO freelancer or agency by the hour typically costs anywhere between $50-$150 per hour. Of course, you can find people who charge significantly less or more than this hourly rate. For example, this SEO hourly rate breakdown found that 6% of SEO providers charge more than $200/hour.

How much does SEO cost for a small website?

Prices range from $1,000 to $7,500 depending on complexity. Fixed Price Services: SEO agencies have a list of services they offer at a set price. Typical services are an SEO audit ranging from $500 to $7,500, social media site setup, between $500 and $3,000, or SEO writing, $0.15-$0.50 per word.

How can I do SEO for free?

The Best Free SEO Tools

• Bing Webmaster Tools. While Google Webmaster Tools gets all the glory, people forget that Bing Webmaster offers a full suite of website and search analytics. …
• Data Studio. …
• Improved Google Analytics Annotations. …
• Google Analytics. …
• Search Console. …
• Keyword Hero. …
• MozCast. …
• Beam Us Up.

Can SEO be done for free?

The Ahrefs SEO Toolbar is a free Chrome and Firefox extension that allows you to check for broken links, trace redirect chains and highlight nofollow links for any web page. It also generates an on-page SEO report that includes the web page: Title. Meta description.

Can I learn SEO by myself?

It is possible to learn how to do SEO on your own, you don’t need to be an SEO specialist or expert. The first thing you should do is to convince yourself that SEO is not difficult. If others can do it, so can you. All it takes is the willingness to learn and the time.

Can I learn SEO in 2 months? While it’s a career-long journey, you can actually learn SEO in about a month – enough to make a huge impact on your website and therefore your business as a whole.

How do I start learning SEO?

Here are the steps to teach yourself SEO in 6 steps:

• STEP 1 – Find a resource for beginners. …
• STEP 2 – Practice! …
• STEP 3- Find a Mentor. …
• STEP 4 – Join an SEO Group. …
• STEP 5 – Know what’s going on in the SEO world. …
• STEP 6 – Rinse and Repeat.

How long does it take to learn basic SEO?

It takes 1-3 months to learn the basics of SEO. The basics of search engine optimization can be understood and learned within 3 months, however, the more advanced concepts can take anywhere from 6-18 months. This is as long as you are consuming knowledge every day and learning from experts.

Is SEO course easy to learn?

Learning SEO is difficult because there is a lot of information to read about search engines and how the optimization process works, and it can be overwhelming at first.

What is the first step to start SEO?

Defining relevant keywords is the first step in creating search engine optimized website content. By using keywords and building your themes around them you will create content that gives answers to Google searches.

Can I learn SEO in a day?

If you can learn SEO for a few hours a day, then you can master the basics of SEO in 4-8 weeks and your first SEO job in 3-6 months. If you can learn SEO full time, then you can master the basics even within 1-2 weeks.

How fast can you learn SEO?

It takes 1-3 months to learn the basics of SEO. The basics of search engine optimization can be understood and learned within 3 months, however, the more advanced concepts can take anywhere from 6-18 months.

Is SEO course easy to learn?

Learning SEO is difficult because there is a lot of information to read about search engines and how the optimization process works, and it can be overwhelming at first.

Can You Learn SEO by yourself?

There is no better resource I have found as a starting place to learn SEO than The Beginner’s Guide to SEO from Moz. It’s free, and it starts to answer the most basic questions like “What is SEO?†Read the entire guide once and you’ll know more than the people who send you those SEO spam emails every day.

Which language is best for SEO?

JavaScript. If you are going down the road of web development, you want to be a better technical SEO, you want to understand how websites are built, JavaScript is an incredibly robust programming language that has increased in use on websites over the last few years.

Does language matter for SEO? Recommended Answers. There are situations when you want to optimize a website that is not in English. However, Google’s search algorithm has been designed to rank any website regardless of its language. Search Engine Technology is not dependent on any particular language.

What type of SEO is best?

White-Hat SEO White-hat SEO improves your search engine ranking on SERPs while regulating the integrity of your website with search engine terms of service. White hat SEO practices are the best way to create a successful website.

What are the 4 types of SEO?

Having cleared the approaches to search engine optimization, we can now go through what are the different types of SEO.

• On-page SEO (on-site SEO) …
• Off-page SEO (Off-Site SEO)…
• Technical SEO. …
• Local SEO.

Which one of the following is main strategy in types of SEO?

On-page SEO On-page SEO is the most common strategy that businesses focus on for their sites. Simply put, on-page SEO refers to changes you make to your site that have a positive impact on its performance. One of the most common on-page SEO optimizations is keyword optimization.

What language is SEO?

XML stands for “Extensible Markup Language” and is similar to HMTL using tags, elements, and attributes and was designed to both store and transport data, while HTML is used to display data. For SEO purposes, the most common use of XML is in XML Sitemap files.

What language should I learn for SEO?

SEO professionals are being encouraged to learn coding languages ​​that can help them automate many of the tasks that are typically done manually. In particular, search marketers are being encouraged to spend time learning Python and JavaScript, among other coding languages.

What is SEO in plain English?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of getting targeted traffic to a website from organic search engine rankings.

Does SEO work in other languages?

Multilingual SEO is meant to explicitly target consumers and users where native language content is really important. International SEO, on the other hand, is not always multilingual. Your SEO strategy can be successful in multiple countries – if they share a language.

What words are good for SEO?

These 3 SEO institutions concluded these numbers as the best word count, for higher rankings:

• Yoast – Word count and SEO: 1.000.
• Search Engine Journal – What is the ideal blog post length: 1.900.
• Backlinko – We analyzed 11.8 million Google search results: 1.447.

What words should I use for SEO?

The best keywords for your SEO strategy will take into account relevance, authority and volume. You want to find highly searched keywords that you can reasonably compete for based on: The level of competition you are facing. Your ability to produce content that exceeds in quality what is currently ranked.

Is 500 words good for SEO?

The general industry consensus in 2018 indicates that web pages, blogs and articles should generally (though not always) be at least 300 – 500 words for the purposes of good SEO.

How many words are good for SEO?

Yoast SEO content analysis checks the text length of your post. We advise you to write more than 300 words for regular posts or pages, while product descriptions should be more than 200 words. Why? A higher word count helps Google better understand what your text is about.

How long does SEO take to learn?

It takes 1-3 months to learn the basics of SEO. The basics of search engine optimization can be understood and learned within 3 months, however, the more advanced concepts can take anywhere from 6-18 months.

Is SEO hard to learn? The answer is simple. Learning SEO is difficult because there is a lot of information to read about search engines and how the optimization process works, and it can be overwhelming at first.

How long does SEO take to work?

TIME OF SEO RESULTS “In general, websites can see results in 4 to 6 months.” – SEO mechanics. “Many SEO firms will tell you that it takes 4 to 6 months to start seeing results. That’s generally accurate, but keep in mind… SEO results grow over time.” – Forbes.

How many hours does SEO work? Estimated Time: About three to 12 hours per week, depending on the size of your site and if any problems arise.

How long does SEO take to deliver real results?

The quick answer is this: SEO takes time. Most digital marketing experts agree that a website should start seeing the first results from SEO within 6 to 12 months. Google itself states that it takes 4 to 12 months for a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant to achieve significant search success.

Are SEO results guaranteed?

Guaranteed SEO services are SEO services that promise a specific result – typically first page rankings for a certain number of keywords. A company that offers an SEO guarantee will promise you your money back, free SEO work for a certain amount of time, or another offer if they don’t get the targeted results.

Why does it take so long for SEO to work?

It requires a lot of observation and data collection as well. Because of the competition, SEO takes a while to get higher in the rankings. It can also be difficult to keep up with the competition due to the fact that they have been around for a longer time. If a website is still working in SEO, there are still many steps ahead.

How long does SEO take to implement?

It can take at least two hours for one blog post to rank; two weeks for a competitive landing page to rank; six months for a series of pages to rank, or more than a year for a brand new site to see SEO traction. The generic answer ‘4-6 months’ is exactly that, generic.

How long should SEO take to work?

You Should Expect To See Results From SEO Within 6 to 12 Months… SEO should show results within a period of 6 to 12 months. By results, we mean a measurable increase in traffic and associated leads or conversions.

How long does SEO take to Work 2022?

This is the quick answer on how long SEO takes to start working in 2022: At least 6 months. It takes a considerable amount of time to notice good results from your SEO efforts (if you did it right!). However, 6-12 months is the ideal time frame as you will see positive returns from your SEO strategies.

Why does it take so long for SEO to work?

It requires a lot of observation and data collection as well. Because of the competition, SEO takes a while to get higher in the rankings. It can also be difficult to keep up with the competition due to the fact that they have been around for a longer time. If a website is still working in SEO, there are still many steps ahead.

Why does SEO take so long to work?

It requires a lot of observation and data collection as well. Because of the competition, SEO takes a while to get higher in the rankings. It can also be difficult to keep up with the competition due to the fact that they have been around for a longer time. If a website is still working in SEO, there are still many steps ahead.

How long does SEO take to work?

TIME OF SEO RESULTS – In general, websites can see results in 4 to 6 months. – SEO Mechanic. “Many SEO firms will tell you that it takes 4 to 6 months to start seeing results. That’s generally accurate, but keep in mind … SEO results grow over time.†– Forbes.

Why does SEO take a long time?

SEO takes so long because there are several factors involved in achieving results: SEO keyword difficulty, competition, inbound links, and domain age. Therefore, SEO can take longer or shorter depending on how you approach these key areas of search engine optimization.