11 November 2022|3 Comments|Tags Google algorithm, Holistic SEO, SEO basics
Do you have a website? And do you want more traffic? If yes, then there’s no doubt about it: SEO should be part of your marketing efforts. It’s a great way to get and keep people on your website. But what does it actually entail? In this post, we’ll explain what SEO is and how you can get started!
What is SEO?
SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’. It’s the practice of optimizing your web pages to make them reach a high position in the search results of Google and other search engines. In other words: People will be more likely to encounter your website when searching online. SEO focuses on improving the rankings in the organic – aka non-paid – search results.
In the image above, we see the first few results when someone searches for the keyphrase ‘Neptune planet’. In this case, Wikipedia is the first result and this means that their page on Neptune ranks #1 on this search term. The idea behind SEO is that when you optimize your page to become the best result, you can climb those rankings and become one of the first results that people see. Which will get you more clicks and traffic to your site!
Although this example only shows us organic results, that isn’t always the case. Depending on the search term someone uses, there can also be ads or a rich result at the top, or a few products by Google Shopping. There are a lot of different possibilities. What Google shows can also depend on what it knows about the searcher (the country they live in, for example).
Why is SEO important?
You’ve created a website because you want people to buy your product, subscribe to your service, or read your content. Whatever your goal, you want people to visit your website. If you own a donut shop in Amsterdam, for example, you want your website to be number 1 when people Google: “donuts Amsterdam”. Because the chances of people clicking on your website are much higher when it’s the top result!
But how do you make this happen? One word: Search Engine Optimization! SEO is a great way to get people to your website for free. Which is especially useful if you’re a small business owner who doesn’t have a lot of money to spend on advertising.
What determines how high you rank?
How high each result ranks is determined by Google’s algorithm. And although parts of Google’s algorithm remain secret, years of experience in SEO have given us insight into the most important ranking factors. These ranking factors can be divided into two categories:
On-page SEO factors
The ranking of your pages is partly determined by on-page factors. On-page factors are all the things on your website that you have a direct influence on. These factors include technical aspects (e.g. the quality of your code and site speed) and content-related aspects, like the structure of your website or the quality of the copy on your website. These are all crucial on-page SEO factors that you can work on.
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Off-page SEO factors
In addition to on-page SEO factors, your rankings are also determined by a few off-page SEO factors. These factors include links from other websites, social media attention, and other marketing activities that happen off of your own website. Although not impossible, these off-page SEO factors can be more difficult to influence. The most important of these off-page factors is the number and quality of links pointing towards your site. The more quality, relevant sites that link to your website, the higher your position in Google will be.
Another off-page factor that plays a role in SEO is your competition relating to the niche of your particular business. In some niches, it is much harder to rank than in others. The competitiveness of your market therefore also has a major influence on your chances of ranking.
Holistic SEO: A long-term strategy
At Yoast, we practice ‘holistic SEO‘. With holistic SEO, your primary goal is to build and maintain the best possible website. You don’t try to fool Google; Instead, you invest your time and effort in a sustainable long-term strategy. If you work on improving your pages and having a high-quality website, then your chances of ranking will improve too. After all, Google wants to offer its users the best results to their search query, and the best results often have great content and are user-friendly, fast, and easily accessible.
Ranking well in search engines like Google asks for an extensive SEO strategy focused on every aspect of your website and its marketing. The technical side, the user experience (UX), the content on your website: all need to be top-notch. To keep ranking well in Google, you should develop – what we call – a holistic SEO approach.
A holistic SEO approach isn’t just better for your rankings — it also helps users find what they need more quickly. And that’s better for environmental sustainability too!
How can we help you get started?
At Yoast, our mission is to make SEO accessible for everyone. That’s why we have a few plugins that can help you with that, like our popular Yoast SEO plugin. We have a free and premium version of this plugin. One of the main advantages is that it helps you create high-ranking content. Our free SEO and readability analysis gives you detailed suggestions to create copy humans and search engines enjoy!
The premium version of our plugin will help you get to that next level and optimize your content for synonyms and related keywords and boost your site structure with our internal linking suggestions. You’ll also get access to all of our SEO courses, where you can learn vital SEO skills that you will be able to apply immediately!
Go Premium and get access to all our features!
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Premium comes with lots of features and free access to our SEO courses!
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Conclusion
SEO is the practice of optimizing websites to make them reach a high position in Google’s – or another search engine’s – search results. At Yoast, we believe that holistic SEO is the best way to rank your pages because you focus on optimizing every aspect of your site.
Don’t use any black-hat tricks, because eventually, this will have negative consequences for your rankings. Instead, practice sustainable SEO with your user in mind, and you will benefit in the long run. Read more on how to rank high in Google or if you use WordPress, make sure to check out our ultimate guide on SEO in WordPress:
Read more: The ultimate guide to WordPress SEO »
Marieke van de Rakt
Marieke is the head of strategy at Yoast and founder of Yoast SEO academy. She loves coming up with new ideas and products to make SEO attainable for everyone, and ensure a healthy growth for Yoast!
(Video) SEO for Beginners: Rank #1 In Google (FAST)
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3 Responses to What is SEO? An explanation for beginners
Kelly Clark•4 months ago
Is it important to have fresh content on your homepage for SEO? LOVE Yoast, BTW. Just upgraded to Premium and your courses are amazing!!! xo
Tyler Nguyen•4 months ago
Hi Kelly,
Great to hear that you’re using Yoast Premium and taking our courses! There are a lot of resources there that can help you learn SEO.
The homepage is an important page for a website, so we think you should always keep it updated. We can’t say for sure that having fresh content on your homepage will impact your SEO, but the homepage is a good place to promote your content. For example, we have a section on our homepage that displays recently published blog posts.
I hope this answer is helpful!
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Kelly•3 months ago
Thank you Tyler! LOVE this feedback. :) Kelly … still going through your courses and they’re so much fun. Especially LOVE the Lego analogies!
(Video) SEO for Beginners - How to Rank #1 in Google Fast in 2023
SEO is the process of growing a website's organic search traffic. You do this by ranking in organic search results. SEO is important because you're unlikely to rank well without it. Ranking high gets you free, passive, and consistent traffic month after month.
SEO is not easy. But it's no rocket science either. There are things you can implement right away and there are concepts that will take much more time and effort. So yes, you can do SEO on your own.
Explore the four types of SEO and learn how to optimize your site.
On-page SEO. Our Beginners Guide to SEO outlines the basics of search engine optimization, and on-page SEO is one of the easiest and most common ways to boost site visibility. ...
Defining the relevant keywords is the first step in creating a search engine optimized website content. By using the keywords and building your themes around them will create content that gives answers to Google searches.
Semrush Academy. Semrush Academy is one of the best courses available. ...
HubSpot Academy. HubSpot Academy contains a more content-oriented set of courses, including videos on inbound marketing, email marketing and even Instagram marketing. ...
As mentioned above, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, it's the process of optimizing your website so that search engines can find and rank it highly in their results pages. This increases visibility – which means more traffic to your site as well as more potential customers or clients!
SEO keywords (also known as “keywords” or “keyphrases”) are terms added to online content in order to improve search engine rankings for those terms. Most keywords are discovered during the keyword research process and are chosen based on a combination of search volume, competition and commercial intent.
Keyword research has long been considered a cornerstone of SEO. Creating content that features the keywords and terms your target audience are searching for seems like the most logical approach. However, using these keywords to excess will seriously harm your SEO strategy.
Experts say it usually takes one to three months to learn the foundations of SEO and a year or more to master the practice fully. The length of time it takes to learn the basics of SEO depends upon several factors.
The Golden Triangle is a distinct area of intense eye scan activity that is shown in the diagram below. It's important to understand that the Golden Triangle pattern is seen in first time visits to a results page. I find it easiest to think of it as a storm map. The darker the area (Red) the higher the eye traffic.
SEO is divided in two parts: On-page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page SEO refers to all techniques that can be implemented on your website to improve your ranking in SERP (search engine results pages), whereas off-page SEO refers to everything that can be done outside of your website to improve its visibility on the web.
78.2% of SEOs charge monthly retainers for some or all of their services. 54.5% of SEOs only offer one pricing model (i.e., hourly, retainer, or per-project). $501–$1,000 is the most popular monthly retainer. $75–$100 is the most popular hourly rate.
SEO is not that hard to learn, but it can be confusing and overwhelming to get started. Learning SEO means learning about a long list of individual digital marketing strategies, which can feel a bit like adding new weapons to your arsenal as you learn how to wield them.
SEO campaigns can cost anywhere from $5,000/mo to $100,000+/month depending on the vertical. Local SEO can be slightly lower. On average, quality SEO should cost $3,000+/month, at an average hourly rate of $150+. SEO campaigns can cost anywhere from $5,000/mo to $100,000+/month depending on the vertical.
Learning SEO will enable you to understand how and where you appear online. The more you own your presence, this will have a direct impact on the first impressions your potential clients will have.
SEO writing is the process of writing content to rank on the first page of search engines like Google. This involves researching keywords, writing high-quality content that matches user intent, and optimizing your headers for easy page crawling.
On-page SEO, which is sometimes called on-site SEO, is the process of tweaking a page's content, tags, and internal links to improve search visibility and increase traffic. In other words, it's a means of optimizing your website to help search engines better understand your website.
It's easier for pages to rank if they focus on one topic, so you should focus on two or three primary keywords per page that are reworded variations. Targeting four or more keywords is difficult because there is limited space in the title and meta description tags to target them.
To start, compile a list of about 10 words and terms associated with your product or service. Use an SEO tool ( Google's Keyword Tool, Ahrefs , SEMRush or GrowthBar just to name a few) to research these words, identify their search volume, and come up with variations that make sense for your business.
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