What is SEO and Why is it Important?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art and science of optimizing your online content so that a search engine likes to show it as a top result for searches of a certain keyword.
For bloggers, SEO is crucial because it helps you get more visibility without paying for advertising. By optimizing your posts, you’re more likely to appear in top search results, attract more visitors, and increase your blog’s audience.
When I’m working with a client through my agency, I like to describe SEO as “the gift that keeps on giving”. It takes a considerable amount of time, resources, and investment up front, but once the content starts ranking, it’ll likely stay that way for quite a while.
I use organic SEO as the backbone of pretty much any digital marketing campaign I build. Once that content starts getting traffic, I will add on other elements like email or social media marketing.
Understanding Search Engine Algorithms
The end goal of any SEO campaign is to try to rank content on a search engine. When you hear a digital marketer talk about ranking something, they’re likely referring to Google’s search results.
Search engine algorithms are complex systems used to retrieve data from the search index and instantly deliver the best possible results for a query.
But these results don’t just appear randomly. The algorithms consider various ranking factors – keywords, site usability, page speed, backlinks, and more – to decide the order in which websites should appear.
Understanding these algorithms is the first step in mastering SEO for your blog.
This is not as easy as it sounds though and there’s no simple trick to doing it. It’s a highly complicate process and one that you should take the time to understand.
If we could teach you in just one blog post, we would. But it’s not, so that’s why we build our How to Do SEO guide. that guide will go into much greater detail about the tactics and steps involved in SEO, but we’ll just cover the basic tactics at a high level here.