Introduction to Search Engine Optimization | Articles | Outbrain Help

Search engines work by searching the Internet to find text that meets certain criteria. This text is known as keywords and refers to the most important theme(s) of the website, company, or product. Other important things that a search engine uses to rank a website include titles, headings, and links that make up the content of a website’s pages. Search engines also employ search engine indexing to find, digest, and store the content of a website. A search engine index refers to the set of data that’s used to base a final search result on.

Another important part of an SEO introduction is understanding the significance of keywords. We explained above that keywords are the specific words or set of words that best describe the theme or overall concept of an idea, website, business, or product. Keywords are the words that people use when conducting a search, and should be words that are included in the content of your webpage. Choosing the right keywords can help to drive traffic to your site, attract potential customers, and greatly improve your SEO ranking.

When deciding what keywords you should include in your text, you should consider things such as the relevancy of the keyword(s) to your website and company, as well as the competitors that are using the same keyword(s) (you can check this by running a quick Google search of chosen keywords yourself, and seeing what sites appear at the top of the list). If all three things are in check—the keywords are relevant to your website, competitors are experiencing success with similar keywords, and a sample campaign yields high traffic—you should feel confident in moving forward with the keywords.

Keywords aren’t the only part of a successful SEO campaign, although they are certainly important. Other things to consider when developing an SEO strategy include links, titles, meta descriptions, headings, subheadings, originality of content, images and videos, and your audience. The most important thing to remember when reflecting on this SEO introduction is that one single factor will not determine SEO success; rather, SEO success is dependent upon your content as a whole.

Content greatly affects SEO. The more relevant your content, the more up-to-date the content is, and the more interesting your content is, the higher it will rank. Always plan your content in advance, have someone edit it before posting, utilize headings and subheadings, think about layout, and include pictures and or videos. Also, you should design your content and website so it’s easy to share via social media.

While an SEO introduction is a great starting point, as your marketing efforts progress, you may want to consider securing additional SEO tools and services. Often times, search engines themselves will provide these tools and services, such as Google’s: Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Google AdWords Keywords Tool, Google Alerts, Google Trends, DoubleClick Ad Planner, Google Page Speed, Google Site Map, and more.

In addition to tools provided by Google, you can also explore other online tools, or even hire a company that specializes in SEO marketing to design your website and makes it SEO-friendly.

SEO is an important part of marketing in the online world and has many factors that can affect its success. Additionally, remember that SEO is an on-going process, and doesn’t end as soon as you’ve posted content. Instead, keeping a website relevant and up-to-date by posting new, high-quality content frequently and consistently is equally important.