We’re going to be real frank with you—SEO is hard. It’s not some fool-proof scheme where you can just plug in a crapload of keywords and end up on the first page of Google. If it were that easy, you wouldn’t be reading this blog now, would you?
If you don’t know, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, three words that everyone thinks about, but very few know what they mean (or how the hell SEO works).
Even for professional SEOs, like our team at Lifted Logic, implementing effective SEO can be difficult.
As a digital agency in Kansas City, we’ve spent years studying SEO and all things web (we even build unique, SEO-driven websites that actually drive traffic), but things are always changing (except core practices, of course). Seriously, we can’t catch a break here. Still, we work hard to stay on top of the curve so we can execute well-planned digital strategies for our clients that reap long-lasting benefits for their business—and their ROI.
If you’re wondering about SEO and how you can use it the right way for your business, keep reading for our ultimate 2021 guide on search engine optimization. In this guide, we’ll go over:
- What is SEO and how it works
- Domain Authority
- How to properly use backlinking
- The importance of keywords and quality content
- What to do when you think your SEO is “done”
How does SEO work?
We’re not going to get super technical here because honestly, the technicalities are boring and won’t help you really understand anything. What we will do is give you the pertinent information you need to know to get started without falling asleep while you read.
What is SEO?
To keep it simple, search engine optimization is a way to increase your web traffic through organic search results.
Based on that definition, there is one clear goal: increasing web traffic.
But wait. Don’t stop here and simply focus all of your attention on the quantity of your website traffic. You could have all the traffic in the world, but if it’s not the right traffic, then what’s the point?
Hint: there isn’t one.
Example time. Say you own a vegan pizza shop and you’re trying to get more people to find your website. We’re going to be real honest here: there are some people who straight up hate the idea of cashew “cheese” pizza and wouldn’t go within a five mile radius of anything even close to it. So if you strategize an SEO plan that solely prioritizes quantity of users, you may end up with a lot of traffic, but it will probably include some of those very people who love cheese—and who will bounce from your website at the first hint of a substitute. That’s low-quality traffic you don’t want.
The point of a well-planned SEO strategy is to not only increase traffic, but to increase the quality of your traffic. You want to effectively target people who are interested in your products or services, and exclude people who are not—because this is what converts traffic to leads and leads to sales.
How do search engines work?
You can’t understand SEO without knowing a little about search engines work. After all, it’s literally called search engine optimization
While you’re working to optimize for search engines, search engines are determining if your content is relevant for a user. After all, Google, Bing, and Yahoo are businesses. At the end of the day, if they are not serving the right results to their consumers, they’ll stop getting traffic. And when they stop getting traffic, they don’t have the leverage they need to sell ad space. #FullCircle
Search engines log millions of pages of content every day using three main steps:
- Crawling
- Indexing
- Ranking
Bots, often called spiders, crawl through the web to find new content, including text, videos, pdfs, images—you name it. The primary method for these spiders to discover new content is via hyperlinks.
Once the bots find a new URL that hosts some form of content, they index it. That means they save it into a massive online database that their users will then be able to search through.
In general, this crawl process can take anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks to recognize new content on the web.
Then here