SEO: what it is, how to apply and analyze it, and what are the main advantages for your website

Three letters are shaping the way we produce content for the internet. Just three letters dictate the best practices for creating a web page, as well as the mistakes we can make along the way. SEO (Search Engine Optimization), or Optimization for Search Engines, is the set of guidelines for producing content with ranking potential in SERPs, that is, on search engine results pages.

Therefore, thoroughly understanding all the nuances of this type of tool is the key to awakening the potential that your company can develop. After all, as we have seen in other articles, the internet is an open field with a lot of space to be conquered, and you can do this with the right tactics.

With that in mind, this topic could not go unnoticed. That's why we brought you all the details you need to know about SEO and the best tips to start applying to your productions. So, let's go!

What is SEO?

Regardless of the segment, all companies that invest in creating a website have a common objective: to reach more and more people. We exchanged the old business card for a structured website, capable of taking a visitor on a journey of learning about our company. But, with popularity, competition also arrived, and keeping your website at the top of searches is something that you certainly want to achieve.

To really understand what SEO is, think of Google (or any other online search engine) as a large library. Without a shadow of a doubt, the amount of content published daily is infinitely extensive, so there is a need for a way to organize this material. Furthermore, the “librarian” must define what is consistent with the research carried out by the user and what is not, preventing them from becoming frustrated with a certain answer to their question. So, if your content is designed for a certain persona, you want it to be shown as the best answer to what they are searching for, right?

This is where SEO comes in, and without going too far into explaining its meaning, this is an optimization technique for search engines, a set of rules that impact search platform algorithms and determine the ranking of a page for a given keyword.

If it's not clear yet, don't worry. Well, we still have a lot to talk about SEO and you won't leave this article without understanding, once and for all, everything about the subject.

The history of SEO development

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, emerged in the 1990s, with the development of the first search engines. At the time, the platforms were based on simple algorithms, which remained focused, mainly on the relevance of the page content for the searched keywords. The first time they mentioned it was in 1997 in the book Net Results, written by Bob Heyman, Leland Harden and Rick Bruner.

Remember when we talked about the popularity of websites? Well…

With the increase in the number of pages on the internet, search engines began to develop more complex algorithms, which took into account a series of factors to determine a website's positioning in the SERPs. Among these factors, we can mention some, such as:

• Keywords: the results presented for a given search must be consistent with what you are looking for when searching for a certain key term;
• Content: a page without content or with content that does not satisfy the user is not enough to be ranked, therefore, it suffers penalties;
• Site structure: the website itself must be within the parameters established by search engines, to facilitate the analysis of the bots and user experience;
• Links: anchoring links, both external and internal, helps the previous topic and also the domain authority of your website;
• Velocity: Site speed is an important factor for user experience and also for ranking.

Through the development of these algorithms, the need arose to establish strategies and techniques to improve the positioning of a website in search results. These strategies and techniques are known as SEO, as we saw previously.

In the beginning, SEO was a relatively simple strategy, which was mainly based on the application of keywords to the website's content. Over time, complexity increased, thus involving a series of factors, including the quality of the content and the structure of the site.

Google's influence on today's SEO

Since the emergence of the internet, we know that big techs work day after day to further optimize the experience of users and brands that use this type of service. That's why we see an update all the time that promises to change the way we use the internet. Proof of this are the AIs of recent years.

But this update history goes back a long time, and many of them came from Google. As much as we try to expand the discussion of the term SEO, there is no way to talk about the topic without mentioning the role of the technological giant in this process. After all, the company fought to combat what we know as BlackHat, which is a term used to refer to harmful website publishing practices.

Therefore, throughout its growth, Google had to think about several factors that could contribute to ensuring that everything at the top of the results was relevant content and consistent with the searches carried out.

Google Helpful Content

Helpful Content is a concept that was introduced by Google in 2022 and determines the need to produce useful content to be ranked. In this way, it represents content that is useful to users, that is, that meets their needs and expectations. Furthermore, the search platform is giving more and more importance to this term. Well, I believe that it is the type of content that users are looking for in search results.

Google uses a number of factors to determine whether content is useful, including:

• Relevance: the article must be relevant to the user's search;
• Scope: the content must be complete and provide all the information the user needs;
• Confidence: the text must be accurate and reliable;
• Usability: the page must be easy to navigate and understand;
• Shelf life: the content must be valid and updated.

Sites that produce content based on these factors are more likely to rank well in Google search results. This is because the platform wants to provide users with the most relevant and useful search results possible.

Factors for SEO analysis and application

As we saw previously, there is a very long and complex path to reach what we know today as SEO. Therefore, for a strategy to be successful, it is important to analyze a series of factors. To achieve this, we have specialized professionals dedicated to understanding all the aspects and points of impact in an SEO strategy.

Guidelines for optimization can be divided into two categories. Being them:

SEO on-page

And it all what can be changed internally, that is:

• Optimization of titles and descriptions;
• Use of keywords;
• Site structure;
• Images and videos;
• Site speed.

SEO off-page

Off-page elements, as the name suggests, are related to external factors that can impact your website. Among them, we can mention:

• Link building;
• Guest posts;
• Social media;
• Paid publications.

How to keep an eye on these details?

One of the main advantages of working with digital marketing is the multitude of tools that are at your disposal, ready to help you in all processes involving strategies such as SEO. In fact, by talking about these techniques and not revealing the path to achieving success, we would be ending this article in the wrong way.

Therefore, below you will see some of the best tools that can make a difference in your daily life. Check out!

Google Search Console

Talking about SEO, Google shows up at one time or another. This time, it appears with Google Search Console. This is a free tool that provides information about your website's performance in Google search results. Having guidance in the analysis process is essential, so having data on how the main internet search engine sees your website is the key to a promising future for the ranking of your pages.

Yoast SEO

Thinking about targeting, you can talk to any writer and they will definitely talk about Yoast SEO. This is a free WordPress plugin that helps optimize your website for SEO. To do this, it indicates, as you write, whether your content meets the main ranking factors, that is, those we saw previously.

• Use of key words;
• Distribution of the key term among the subtitles;
• Analysis of Alt Text, meta description and title of the search result;
• Content readability;
• Among other factors.

SEMrush

Another indispensable tool is SEMrush. Unlike the previous ones, this is a paid option that offers a series of SEO features, including backlink analysis and keyword monitoring. You will probably use a lot of keyword research for your strategy. Because, the platform indicates various information relevant to this choice, such as: search volume with that term, difficulty in ranking based on the authority of sites that rank with it, among countless other factors.

To help you with this research, I'm going to leave you a free e-book with everything you need to know to research the best keywords for your SEO strategy. Download right now for free!

I hope you liked the content. Don't forget that you can find many articles like this at our blog. From marketing to industry trends, we bring you everything first hand to keep you informed!