What is SEO and what factors to take into account to optimize the positioning of your website?

How many times have you heard asking “what is SEO“? There are many who still have doubts and who can not get a more or less clear answer. Moreover, I could say that if you are here reading this post, it is because at least you are curious about this topic.

Certainly, today almost anyone interested in knowing more about Digital Marketing, may be asking the same question as you: what is this SEO positioning?

I’ve written a lot about search engine positioning, but I think I’ve never talked more in-depth about the definition.

What does “SEO” really mean?

There are many people who want to start improving the visibility of their websites or blogs but do not know where to start. But, my goal in this article is not only to explain what SEO is, but also to tell you what kinds of basic techniques exist and what to do to get the most out of working with it.

What is SEO?

“SEO” is an abbreviation that stands for Search Engine Optimization

Definition: the SEO is a discipline that involves applying a series of techniques both inside (On-Page) and off (Off-Page) of a particular website with the aim of optimizing their visibility in the organic results of different engines search

In conclusion, it is a set of actions focused on improving the position of the site in search results for specific queries from different users, in order to increase web traffic and the possibility of monetization.

Keep in mind that: the higher the position of a website in the SERP (Search Engine Results Pages), in theory, the greater number of visitors will reach it from the search engines.

For example: 

When a user types in Google the keyword “bird sale Lahore”, the search engine presents, in hierarchical order, the web pages that talk about the sale of birds in that city.

In this case, the user will probably be conducting a search to find bird stores in Lahore.

The three words that you typed (sale, birds, and Lahore) are those that Google will have used to find the pages indexed in its database, which respond better to these characteristics and have placed them in order according to the specific parameters of their algorithms.

Why is it so important to improve those positions in the search engines?

Because hardly a user goes to the 2nd page of the search results of Google or any other search engine to search for information.

It is popularly said that: “The best place to hide a body is the second page of Google … no one will repair your murder. ”

In addition, there is a greater chance that the user will end up by clicking directly on the first results they find.

 Where do I begin to position my Web page?

With this post I wanted you to start by first having clear the basic concepts about what SEO is, what we have already talked about above so that now we can see together some basic factors that will come greatly in your new positioning strategies.

As I was saying, in addition to the definition of Search Engine Optimization, I will describe the main concepts that you must be clear about the subject and give you some basic guidelines so that you can take your first steps.

But, if you are really interested in learning much more, take a look at these other guides.

• What is the WPO and why is it a key factor?
• Basic On-Page positioning guide for bloggers
• How to optimize SEO for PrestaShop?
• How to improve your SEO International positioning?
• The new SEO positioning and the user experience (UXO)
• Complete manual in Spanish of SEMrush
• What is Local SEO and how to improve it in the web of your business?

Some important factors when talking about positioning

Search engines take into account hundreds of parameters when analyzing and positioning a website (depending on the degree of compliance with the search request entered).

Among them are:

The user experience: today, this is one of the factors that are most taken into account by search engines to position or retain a position, given that it is based on the experience of our visitors, that is, their users.

The Relevance of the content: it is the relation that the content of a page has in front of a certain search. Here we do not simply talk about the content of a page containing the term sought, but a search engine is based on hundreds of on-page factors related to the quality of it to position it.

The Authority of the site: basically here we talk about the notoriety of a website. The more popular a web page is, the more important it is considered that it can become the information that it contains.

All these factors are of special relevance to determine the usefulness (or not) of the content for the users.

Likewise, all the factors that affect the position of a website in search engines can be divided into two types:

• External
• Internal

Internal optimization factors to take into account

The internal optimization (on-page), refers to the system and internal structure of the site, includes work dedicated to the development of the general quality of the site and the benefits that the site brings to the user.

It includes work on the structure of the website’s information, the loading time, the perception of the quality of the content (from a user’s point of view) and, of course, the general quality of the website.

?You may be interested: What is an algorithm and how does it work in the main Internet search engines?

In content issues, it is important to create unique texts on each of the pages and not on keyword density optimization. Nowadays, search engine algorithms perform semantic text analysis to detect possible spam.

“You may also be interested in: How to create web content that captivates Google and increase your visits?

Factors of user behavior. These are all the actions that users can perform on our website:

• Navigation
• Click on text links
• Interaction with content
• Page views
• Time of permanence, etc.

It is important, at the same time, the internal optimization of the page headers or tags <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, the description of the meta-tag, the optimization of the code of the page, the structure of the URLs, etc.

External factors of optimization to consider

Let’s see now what are the external factors (off-page).

Main methods of external optimization

Let’s see how the main methods of external optimization:

? The quality and number of incoming links (backlinks)

?You may also be interested: How to make link building to position your website with links?

? The CTR that our results have in a search engine

? Use of external services.

Such as Google My Business.

? External publications

Some examples are guest posts, publications in Media, etc.

? Use of Social Networks

? Blog creation and management

? Press releases and press releases

?You may also be interested: How to strategically design press releases?

What factors can harm you in the SEO positioning of your website?

Ok, so far we have not seen anything that is not familiar to us, but we also have to pay close attention to the factors that can damage the positioning of our website.

Among the most important are:

? Actions that can be considered as Spam by the search engines.

? An excessive number of inbound links as a result of the unnatural increase in them.

? Incorrect layout

? Pages that take a long time to load.

? Incorrect server responses.

? Duplicate content.

As we can see, not only the “positive” factors of external and internal optimization have to be taken into account.

Avoiding “negative” factors have exactly the same importance.

?You may be interested: SEO Negative How to identify and protect your website from an attack?

This is a world that grows by leaps and bounds day after day and, even if you are a specialist, there is always something new to try or learn.

Extra: Tools that will help you in your strategy

As we know, there are now a lot of tools for SEO optimization.

Among them we could not fail to highlight some free Google or some payment, such as:

• Google Keyword Planner
• Webmaster Tools or Google Search Console
• Google Trends
• SEMrush
• XOVI

This is the case of SEMrush, of which I would like to speak in this 3rd part of the article.

As you can see, there are many novelties that she offers you and that will help you in your strategy, whether you are a novice or a professional with a lot of experience.

Let’s start, then, to see what these developments are.

Site Audit is one of the first tools that appear in the projects section.

Its main objective is to identify the problems that our website may have.

The data thrown by this section of the platform are divided into three types: serious errors, warnings, and warnings.

? Serious errors: they are the problems that have to be solved as soon as possible since they can harm our positioning.

One of the examples of this type of problem is the duplicate content.

? Warnings: these are all those problems with a lower level of risk, but which also require our attention.

In this case, for example, we could talk about broken internal links.

? Avisos: no are problems in themselves, but the advice offered by the platform to improve your results.

Apart from mentioning the problems you may have on your website, the tool also tells you where they are and how you have to fix them.

 On Page SEO Checker

The On Page SEO Checker tool came to light about a year ago. Today it is one of the 12 tools available in the projects section of the platform.

For those who have not had the opportunity to try it yet, I tell you in a few words what it is for.

In my opinion, “Projects” is the most interesting and least used part of this platform. Thanks to it, users can easily assemble a series of analyzes about their online projects (blogs, eCommerce, etc) and, in turn, analyze them comparatively with their direct competition.

That’s why, from the SEO point of view, “The Tool of Ideas” is a secret weapon that deserves special attention.

As the name suggests, this tool offers us a series of ideas that can help us better position our website on Google.

The ideas are divided into 6 groups:

1. Strategy tips: if we have, for example, a better positioned URL with a certain keyword, the tool will tell us so we do not waste time trying to position other pages with lower ranking.

2. Semantics: refers to the related keywords (suggested) with which we can enrich our content.

3. Contents: Without a doubt, the key words in themselves continue to be a vital factor.

In “contents”, the tool tells us how we have to use the keyword and in what part of the content we should put it (among other things).

4. Backlinks: this is a factor of indisputable importance to position our website. “SEO Ideas” gives you information about the new sources of reference traffic.

The information (as in other cases) is based on the data of your competition, which is better positioned than you.

5. Technical problems: you can waste a lot of time doing things to improve our positioning, but this tool tells you what you should fix to be able to do it (such as non traceable pages, the absence of internal links, etc,)

6. User experience: this factor has become today one of the most important for positioning.

Based on your Google Analytics data, you are presented with a list of suggestions so you can avoid these problems.

SEO Keyword Magic Tool

The tool Magic Keyword Tool is one of the newest within the platform and, although it is still in beta version, already offers a number of interesting possibilities.

The main objectives of Magic Tool are to analyze the niches of keywords, obtain the data of the related terms and segment the statistics in relation to the main metrics of keywords.

One of its main advantages is to help us get the total number of keywords available for the database of required country,city, which are more than 45 million today. you also have 22 more databases and, in some cases (such as the United States), it reaches up to 180 million keywords.

The interface of the tool itself is very friendly, something of an enormous advantage for users.

But…

How does SEO Keyword Magic Tool work?

In the tool, the first thing we have to do is select the country with which we want to work by clicking on the underlined text next to the word “database”.

Then, in the search bar, we can insert the keyword that interests us and click on “search”.

After starting the analysis we will see a line of filters with which we can segment the data that interests us.

For example: including or excluding keywords with the indicated terms.

We can also set limits on metrics such as:

• Search volume
• Difficulty level
• Cost per click
• Level of competition
• Indicate the SERP functionalities that the keyword has to carry (or vice versa).

Just below, in the first column on the left, the tool shows us a list of niches related to the indicated keyword.

In parentheses you can see the exact number of terms that each niche carries.

If we look at the right sector, we will see all the keywords that carry the main term and 6 additional columns with the metrics for each keyword.

As in most of the tools of this platform, all the data that SEO KeyWord Magic Tool offers can be downloaded in an Excel file.

It is important to remember that the tool is in Beta version and that it is still in full development. For that reason, it would not be bad to get your feedback on the functionalities that you currently have and what can be improved.

To conclude

If we take into account that most people search Google for information that answers their doubts, it is not surprising that these search engine positioning techniques focus almost exclusively on this Internet giant.

So, I hope that what we have tried to do in this post, define what SEO is and mention the basic concepts about the main techniques of positioning, has been useful.

Because these are not just basic elements to know, but indispensable subjects to take into account when working with the Search Engine Optimization of your website.

Undoubtedly, this is a very important subject that can be talked about a lot.

Instead of writing an article, we could undoubtedly write a book about what it means to do Search Engine Optimization or how it is done.

For the moment I put the endpoint here and I say goodbye until very soon.

As always, I expect your valuable feedback.