What is SEO Anyway

SEO is an acronym for search engine optimisation and refers to a process of improving a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERP). It involves the use of a variety of tools and techniques with a goal to make a website more likeable to major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing in order for them to recognise the website’s value and subsequently rank it higher in SERP.

Why SERP Ranking is So Important

The majority of web users look for information, products or service by using major search engines. These display results in the form of listing of relevant websites according to the query. Since most web users open only a few websites that are displayed on the first page of search results, SERP ranking plays the key role in your website’s traffic which in turn plays the key role in the overall success of your online presence. Obviously, your website needs as many visitors as possible to benefit from it because the more traffic your website generates the more likely you are to make a sale.

What Tools and Techniques are Used to Improve a Website’s SERP Ranking

Tools and techniques used to improve a website’s ranking vary greatly from one SEO company to another. But they can generally be divided into two groups or categories – on- and off-site optimisation. On-site website optimisation most often involves content and coding editing in order to make it more relevant for particular keywords as well as to make it easier for search engines to recognise that relevance.

Off-site optimisation is usually focused on increasing the number of backlinks as these increase the value of the website in the eyes of search engines. Each backlink is viewed as vote. As a result, the more votes you have the higher the weight of your website although not all votes have the same value. The highest value have links from quality websites with relevant content. The so-called link spams which are there only to manipulate the search engines and have no merit whatsoever, on the other hand, can even harm your website because search engine algorithms recognise manipulative strategies.

What SEO Can and Can’t Do

SEO can help you improve your SERP ranking and as a result, you can expect your website to receive more visitors. And more visitors translate into higher profits. But SEO has its limitations too. No matter how much or how little you pay, no SEO specialist can guarantee the #1 ranking on Google or other major search engines. SEO won’t necessarily bring thousands of visitors per day to your website either even if your website is ranked #1 on the 1st page of search results. How many visitors you will receive also depends on the number of searches for particular keywords and keyword phrases. Lastly, SEO can’t guarantee to make you rich. Your online earnings don’t only depend on your website’s ranking in SERP but they also depend on quality of your products/service.