If you're wondering, "What is SEO?" you're in the right place.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), makes your website come up more in search engines like Google and Bing.
But understanding the term is just the beginning. You need to know a lot more to really boost your website's traffic.
That's why our team at ScaleStaion has put together this detailed beginner's SEO guide to help you quickly find what you're looking for.
SEO is a series of steps to help websites appear higher in the organic results of Google and other search engines.
SEO can be done both on your website (on-site) and elsewhere on the internet (off-site). That's why you often hear about "on-page" and "off-page" SEO.
In practice, SEO usually involves:
Google uses complex processes called "algorithms" to rank web pages.
These algorithms look at many different factors to decide where a webpage should appear in search results.
You don't need to fully understand how these algorithms work (nobody does completely).
However, understanding the basics can help you grasp how SEO works and what you need to do to optimise your pages to rank well on Google.
Your main task in SEO is to provide relevant content. Why? Because Google's main goal is to show users relevant results.
Relevance isn't just about showing pages about apples instead of oranges when someone searches for “apples.”
It's also about meeting the user’s search intent—the reason behind their search.
There are four major types of search intent:
Things you must consider to create relevant content:
Finding the right keywords is just the beginning.
To rank for those keywords, you need to create and optimise your content effectively. Content creation and optimisation are crucial parts of SEO.
Here are a few key things that make content high-quality:
If you are having trouble brainstorming and creating relevant and useful content, then ScaleStation is always there to help you with its comprehensive SEO Services.
Google prefers user-friendly websites. Technical SEO is important for this. It makes sure your website is easy for search engines to crawl and index and meets usability standards.
This includes factors like:
Search engines use various off-page signals to decide if your site is trustworthy. One of the most important signals is backlinks—links from other websites to yours.
Generally, the more high-quality links your page gets, the more authority it gains in Google's eyes, which can lead to higher rankings.
This makes link building—getting backlinks to your site—a crucial part of SEO.
There are many link-building strategies, such as:
Always focus on the quality of the backlinks over quantity. One high-quality backlink is more valuable than many low-quality ones.
While you want as many links as possible, they should come from relevant, high-quality pages related to your site's topic.
Lastly, remember:
Google ranks individual pages, not entire websites, but the total number of backlinks to your site can still impact a page's ranking.
Internal linking (linking from one site's page to another) can pass authority between your pages, just like external links do.
In simple terms, SEO can drive a lot of traffic to your website. In December 2023, over 84.2 billion people visited Google.com. Even a small portion of this traffic could greatly benefit your business.
For the majority of the websites, search engines are the biggest source of traffic, providing over 60% of visitors.
The best part is that businesses don't have to pay for this traffic. Unlike paid ads, such as PPC ads on search engines or social media ads, SEO continues to deliver benefits long after you've invested in link-building or created valuable content.
Search engines like Google and Bing have a single goal: to provide users with the most relevant answers or information.
Whenever you use them, their algorithms pick the pages that best match your query and rank them, showing the most popular or authoritative ones first.
To provide the right information to users, search engines analyse five main factors:
Search engines use complex algorithms to analyse all this information. While these algorithms are secret, SEO providers have identified key factors that influence page rankings, known as ranking factors.
Following the E-E-A-T framework can significantly enhance your SEO strategy:
As AI becomes more prominent in search, human expertise and experience will become even more important. Unlike algorithms, human experts can offer unique insights and a personal touch that AI-generated content lacks.
SEO can be divided into three major categories. These are as follows:
Understanding these types highlights the importance of SEO in driving traffic and improving your website's visibility. Let’s dive deeper into each type.
On-page SEO deals with your website content. To rank well on SERP and attract traffic, your website's content needs to be easily found and understood. Google also emphasises the importance of SEO by favouring helpful content.
These services might include:
If your website’s content isn’t targeting relevant keywords or is generally unhelpful, it might be time to improve your on-page SEO.
Off-page SEO affects all the activities that happen outside your website and can influence your site’s rankings.
A key part of off-page SEO is getting high-quality backlinks. But off-page SEO includes more than just backlinks. It can also involve:
If your website isn’t getting much traffic because it’s not being talked about elsewhere, you might need to improve your off-page SEO. For more details, keep reading this comprehensive SEO guide.
Technical SEO deals with the behind-the-scenes elements of your site that impact how easily search engines and users can navigate and understand it. Effective technical SEO ensures your site loads quickly, is easy to go through, and can be easily crawled by search engines.
Problems like slow page load times, broken images, and poor navigation can hurt user experience and are signs of poor technical SEO.
Key components of technical SEO include:
The goal of technical SEO is to make your site user-friendly for both visitors and search engines. If users find it hard to navigate to key pages, search engines will too.
For example, a clear site structure helps users and search engines easily find important content. Explore our detailed SEO guide to learn more about technical SEO and other types of SEO.
In addition to the three main types of SEO, there are many other strategies for enhancing your visibility on search engines.
Here are a few additional ways to improve SEO that don't always fit into the usual categories:
Optimising your images with the right HTML tags is essential, just like the text content on your site. Image SEO helps your images appear in Google search results.
Video SEO involves optimising various parts of a video, such as:
You can also add structured data to your site's code to help your videos get noticed in search engines. This data helps Google understand your video's content better, and platforms like YouTube automatically include options like key moments.
For online stores, ecommerce SEO is crucial to attract more traffic and increase sales. This involves more than just updating product titles and descriptions. It may also include optimising your brand's presence on external platforms like Etsy or Amazon.
Given the competitive nature of e-commerce, having excellent SEO is vital to stand out among online shoppers.
To succeed, your site must work well on all devices, especially mobile phones. Mobile SEO ensures that your site is fast and user-friendly on mobile devices. This often involves technical SEO, optimising your code for better mobile performance.
Another aspect of mobile SEO is finding the right keywords people use on their phones, which can differ from desktop searches. Conducting mobile keyword research is essential for this.
For businesses with brick and motor stores, local SEO can drive more foot traffic. Optimising your content and platforms like Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) helps your brand reach a local audience.
Local SEO involves:
Local businesses should still focus on the main types of SEO—on-page, off-page, and technical SEO—while also taking specific actions to improve local rankings.
To get your website into search results, you need to focus on technical setup, content, and links. It's also important to monitor your progress to keep improving your strategy.
Tracking SEO success involves measuring data about traffic, engagement, and links. While many companies have their own specific SEO key performance indicators, here are some common ones:
Understanding these metrics will help you see how SEO works and guide your ongoing efforts.
Understanding how SEO works involves recognising the different ways to enhance your website for search engines. Most marketers use one of two main approaches: black hat SEO and white hat SEO.
White hat SEO involves following Google's guidelines and creating a long-term strategy that remains effective even after Google updates its algorithms.
Black hat SEO uses unethical techniques to trick Google into ranking your site higher. These methods might work temporarily, but eventually, Google will penalise and possibly blacklist your site.
Here are some examples of black hat techniques:
Google penalises sites that use these tactics, so we at ScaleStation only recommend white hat SEO—techniques that follow search engine guidelines. White hat SEO focuses on quality content, ethical practices, and sustainable strategies.
Grey hat SEO is a middle ground. It's not as ethical as white-hat SEO but not as deceptive as black-hat SEO. Grey hat tactics aim to gain an advantage without outright tricking the system.
Google’s rules can sometimes be unclear or contradictory. For instance, while Google frowns upon guest blogging solely for link building, it can be beneficial if done to grow your brand, build awareness, and drive quality traffic.
In SEO, how you do something is as important as what you do. If you buy guest posts on irrelevant sites and spam links, you’ll be penalised. However, writing valuable guest posts for relevant sites can improve your SEO and drive traffic to your site.
Now that you understand how SEO works, it's time to put this knowledge into action. At ScaleStation, we specialise in all types of SEO—whether it's on-page, off-page, technical, or more specific strategies like local and mobile SEO. Our team is always ready to help you create a strong SEO plan that aligns with your business goals.
Starting with SEO might seem overwhelming, but you don't have to do it alone. ScaleStation is here to guide you through every step of the process. We cover everything from conducting thorough keyword research and optimising your content to building high-quality backlinks and ensuring your site is technically sound.
Contact us now to learn more about our unique SEO services and how we can tailor a strategy to meet your unique needs.