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Whast is seo

What is SEO?

SEO is changing fast, and as an SEO manager or Digital marketer, you need to learn the fundamentals to do your best on Google. If you think that just writing great content and building the same old backlinks is giving the best results, it is for sure disappointing you! SEO in 2025 is about to change drastically. And if you are not ready, you are going to be left behind! In this article, we will go through what is SEO, and the most pillars of it, and also name some tools for recording your SEO results. 

SEO Definition 

Seo is also known as “Search Engine Optimization”. If you take a look at the definition of SEO on Google, it is going to say that it is a set of practices designed to improve the appearance and positioning of web pages and organic search results. 

Think of it as the entire internet was a giant library, and the books inside the library were individual websites. If you want to go to the library and pick up a book on cooking, you probably search a database. This database organized the millions of books in the library based on how related they are to your search query and how good they are. This is exactly what Google does as well when you have search queries. When you type a query into a search engine, like Google, it exhibits the best answer. 

SEO Knowledge 

You’ve probably heard the idea that you don’t know what you don’t know, and this is true in SEO. If you don’t know the terminology and the basic concepts, you won’t be able to diagnose your SEO performance. here are the most important pillars of SEO:

1.Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking

Google must be able to crawl your website. otherwise, it can’t index your pages and if it can’t index your pages, your pages can’t rank. this is the most important part of the SEO process because without it nothing else matters!  You can go into the Google search console and see how well Google crawls and indexes your site. Go to indexing, click on pages, and scroll down to the section that says “Why pages aren’t indexed”. You can then click through on any of these issues to investigate further. Keep in mind that you don’t want every page indexed by Google. some pages to keep out of Google’s index are login Pages, checkout pages, and archive Pages. because these tend to cause duplicate content. in this case, you can use the no index follow directives, and if you’re on WordPress you can easily manage these pages with popular SEO plugins like Yoast, an all-in-one SEO pack, and rank math.

2. Keywords

Now as of right now people still use words to search, and maybe you’ll think it into existence at some point. but even then, it would still require words. keywords are simply how Searchers find our websites. but the truth is that most people don’t understand how to do proper keyword research. and it stems from not understanding One Core principle of keyword research, which is search intent. understanding search intent will save you tons of wasted effort and time going after keywords that won’t produce a return on investment.

Also if you understand it, you’ll know what type of page to build to satisfy the intent of the keyword. in other words, the intent of the keyword should dictate your content strategy. what is search intent, it’s simply what a Searcher wants to achieve when using Google. By understanding the searcher’s end goal you can deliver the perfect page for them, and when you deliver the perfect page, Google will reward you with rankings. Now the good news is that you don’t need to be a genius to understand search intent.

There is a foolproof way to understand the  intent;

Use Google

Google will show you the types of pages it believes satisfy the intent of the keyword. It’s right most of the time, except for lower-competition keywords. With lower-competition keywords, Google won’t have a big enough pool of pages to pick from, and that means you’ll be able to rank easily if you create a hyper-focused page. 

3. SEO Technical

Don’t worry about technical SEO. it isn’t as scary as it might sound. You need elementary coding skills to drive SEO results for hundreds of websites. You don’t need to be super technical to get SEO results. you just need to know what to look for;

here are two high-impact technical SEO opportunities you need to look for in every campaign;

·   Page Loading Speed

Core web vitals is a confirmed Google ranking factor, you must take it seriously. Your site’s loading speed is critical for conversions. In fact, according to Google, a one-second website speed improvement can increase conversions for mobile users by up to 27%, and for a quick page speed analysis using Google Web.dev or GTmetrics. For a more comprehensive analysis, you can use Google Search Console, or you can use Screaming Frog and integrate the Google Page speed insights API to see your scores across your entire website. If you’re not scoring well, you should prioritize fixing it because it’s a factor that is within your direct control.

·   Site Architecture

To keep it simple, site architecture is based on your internal linking strategy and there are three core elements for optimizing site architecture;

·   Crawl Depth

You can use Screaming Frog and just simply look under the crawl depth column, and you should aim to have all pages no more than three clicks deep. In short, the deeper your pages are into the architecture indicates low priority, and Google will follow suit and crawl these pages with much less frequency and some may not even get indexed if they’re too deep into the architecture.

like crawl depth the quantity of internal links is important for a page. therefore, driving more internal links if you want a page to perform better, just look under the unique links column in Screaming Frog to see what pages need more internal links.

Google has confirmed that using descriptive anchor text is best for internal links. That means it’s wise to go through and optimize your internal link anchors. for example, don’t use generic anchor text like “this article” for your internal links. instead, use exact match or partial match anchors with all of your internal links. For example, if you want to link to your article about backlinks, use backlinks as the anchor text. Keep in mind that this rule does not apply to link building. You need to be much more careful when it comes to external anchor text during your link-building efforts. 

4. Content 

Without an SEO content strategy, you won’t get the results you want. There are two types of SEO content you need to know;

·  Keyword-Focus content

This is any page that is built around a dedicated keyword phrase. Experts recommend that 80% of your site’s content should fall into this category if you want more organic traffic from Google.

·  Non-Keyword Focused Content

Some examples include link bait like a script timer using nothing but chat GPT. although it does Target a keyword, its primary purpose is to serve as link bait. 

Satisfy the intent, But be the Purple Cow 

Seth Godin created the concept of the Purple Cow and in the context of SEO, you want to be the result among the top 10 in Google that stands out. the key to achieving that goal is finding a Content angle that hasn’t been used. for example, if every ranking result is a list post, you should attack it from a different angle like a case study.

Build a Moat

In short, your content should be so unique that it’s difficult for a competitor to replicate. go-to method for achieving this goal is unique data and exceptional design. in short, the more you invest in your content over time and capital perspective, the harder it will be to replicate. 

5. On-Page SEO

At a bare minimum, you should place your exact keyword phrase in your URL, title, meta description, H1, first sentence, and last sentence. you should also consider adding a variation of your primary keyword in the first h2 tag. This basic optimization will put you ahead of eighty percent of websites. but if you want to take it to another level you should optimize for NLP or natural language processing. you can use a tool like Surfer to accomplish this goal. just throw your keyword into Surfers and Surf analyzer, run your page through the tool then review their NLP recommendations and look for opportunities to add these keywords to your content. sometimes you’ll need to add some additional content to support these ideas.

6. Optimizing for Local SEO

Everything you’ve learned so far will improve local rankings but some variables are specific to Google’s local pack. First, what is the local pack?

In the section above the traditional organic results, you’ll see when you conduct searches with local intent like citing contractor St Louis. To rank in this local pack you’ll need a couple of things; 

Have an address in the Target location; if you want to rank in St Louis, you need a St Louis address. number two secure your Google business profile and populate it with relevant information. Include your keyword in the business description, like citing a contractor in St Louis. number three get as many reviews as possible because they’re the key to local pack rankings. number four make sure your NAPW information is consistent. NAPW simply stands for name, address, phone, and website. this information must be consistent across all structured and unstructured citations on the internet. you can use Bright Local’s free citation audit tool to see your existing listings and which ones you still need to build.

Backlinks which are links from other websites are the Difference makers in SEO, and Google uses backlinks as votes for your website. so the more votes you have from high-quality relevant websites the better you’ll perform at Google. Backlink studied 11.8 million Google search results and found that a site’s overall link Authority strongly correlates with higher search engine rankings. now the question is how do you get more high-quality backlinks?

There are many techniques you can use but the most scalable and reliable technique is creating valuable things that people want to link to. and that includes extremely high-quality content or free tools. content should be the foundation of your link-building strategy. In short, your content should deserve backlinks. so start with content and then work to promote it like crazy. and that means you’re going to use your assets like your email list and social media and then use traditional link-building techniques like guest posting, getting interviewed, or even Haro. Use the Ahrefs link intersect tool to see where your competitors have scored backlinks. go to competing domains and enter your biggest competitors into the Ahrefs link intersection.  now you know what websites you need to get links to.

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