May 5, 2022
What is SEO and what benefits does it bring?
Whether we are looking for a doctor in our area or a new dress for a wedding, our first step will probably be to use Google search. This is how the vast majority of us search for products and services for ourselves. Therefore, companies, wanting to attract customers to their website, should take care of its high position in the search results. How to achieve it? A number of procedures called SEO helps in this regard.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a series of actions carried out both on-page and off-page to ensure higher ranking of a website in organic, free search engine results. However, the visibility of a website in a search engine consists not only of its position, but also of the estimated monthly traffic coming from search results and the number of words for which the website is displayed.
What is the difference between on-page SEO and off-page SEO?
On-page SEO includes all activities carried out on the website. At this stage, we make sure that the website and its content are both user-friendly and clear for robots. The on-page activities include improving the technical part of the website by optimising its HTML code, as well as optimising the content by placing keywords in the text and taking care of its proper structure by, for example, using headings. Equally important as the structure is, of course, the quality of content – in on-page SEO we also make sure that the texts are unique and interesting for the user.
Just as we have full control over on-page activities, in the case of off-page activities the matter looks a bit different. Off-page SEO consists mainly in building a network of external links, i.e. link-building. It is acquisition of links directing to our website from other websites. The aim of link building is to increase the authority of the website and thus its visibility.
What affects the position of a given website in Google?
Although the exact algorithms of the search engine are not known, it is known that there are elements that can affect the position of a given website in Google. However, there are over 200 recognized ranking factors, so it is impossible to describe them all. Therefore, we decided to highlight only a few of the most important ones.
Ranking factors can be divided into internal and external. The latter include, among others, age, domain history and the number of links leading to your website from other websites. Not without significance is the quality of pages on which these links are placed and whether they are thematically related to our website.
It is also worth remembering that the age of the website is not sufficient to ensure greater visibility on Google. If the website is not updated and new content does not appear on it, it may lose its position regardless of the time of its operation.
The most important internal factors (addressed by on-page activities) include the quantity and quality of content on the page, the presence of skillfully chosen keywords (not only in the content of the site, but also in the headings or titles), as well as optimization of the page itself and ensuring its proper structure. It is worth remembering that the content on the page should be unique – copying them may result in lower position of our site in search results.
Why is website positioning so important?
Research conducted by Backlinko shows that most users are limited to checking only the first page of Google, and only 0.78% of them also search the second page. At the same time, the first three positions get as much as 75.1% of all clicks. Therefore, if we want to ensure traffic to our website, we should strive to have it displayed on the first page of search results, and preferably on one of the first three positions.
However, there are many websites with similar themes, and therefore it is not always easy to stand out. Therefore, in order to have a chance in competition with – often more experienced in marketing – competitors, it is worth considering taking action to position our site in Google. Especially since according to BrightEdge Research as much as 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search.
Without good positioning, doing business on the Internet can be very difficult or even impossible. Increased visibility of a website means more traffic to the site, which in turn translates into increased sales. This is important not only for online store owners, but also for businesses that provide advertising space on their website. In case of low traffic on the site, advertisers may simply give up on promoting themselves there, which will make the service lose money. Local service providers, on the other hand, thanks to effective positioning, will be sure that residents of their locality will easily find them on the Internet.
Endless process
It is worth remembering that positioning is a long-term process and the results will not appear right away. You usually have to wait even a few months for the effects. At the same time it should be emphasized that a given place in the search results is not given to us once and for all – we have to constantly work for it by applying good practices and avoiding bad ones. It should also be borne in mind that the current algorithms may change at any time – some factors may lose their importance, while others become more valuable. So it’s a good idea to be vigilant and make sure you’re constantly adding new content to your site and updating old ones.
