Introduction to SEO
In my previous articles, I have introduced you to what is digital marketing and how social media marketing works both in a holistic perspective. This article will shed light to the 3rd major dimension of digital marketing which is Search Engine Optimization. Lot of my clients or people with whom I have interacted ask me: “if I do SEO, I will be increasing my revenue right”? This is the most common question I get asked. Are you thinking the same? So, stay tuned to know the answer.
Brief History of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
It was Aug 6th 1991, when the first website was created by Tim Berners-Lee and guess what its still live. As the years passed, there was a boom in websites offering bare minimum optimization. However, when Yahoo and Google entered the market, they brought in a whole new way on how data is indexed and delivered to the end user.
During the phase of 2006 and 2010, there were immense regulations that search engines implemented to avoid illegal practices thus setting a fair game for everyone. Also, this was the time when user engaging content with insights gained prominence. So, SEO services came to light and majority of the people started to realize it around 2012. And now… there is a fight between your privacy and personalization. Google tracks you everywhere and all the time.
What is SEO?
SEO is an ethical practice that digital marketers do to ensure quantity and quality traffic (people coming to your website) increases. Performing SEO activities will increase the visibility of your website to your end user. This can be achieved in 2 ways i.e. organic and paid fashion.
So paid marketing in short, is running online campaigns across various platforms i.e. Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and among others. Paid results allow you rank at the top for a set duration whilst organic results puts you on top without paying anyone. That being said, its not that easy as competition is very intense and there are over 200 parameters that Google analyzes you. Here is a glimpse of those parameters provided by Moz.
How does SEO work?
Coming at the top of the results organically (un-paid way) is an art of optimizing your content so search engines puts your website there. The first five results on Google get 67% of the total clicks and that’s why ranking your site at the top is a critical element. You have got 2 types of SEO optimization and they are: black hat SEO and white hat SEO. Black hat tactics focuses on optimizing the content only for search engines but not people. In most cases, they break the rules to rank high on search engines and also get blacklisted very soon.
Sticking with the knowledge I have, I will focus on white hat SEO. This approach is adopted if you want to build a sustainable online presence and its people focused rather than tricking the search engines. Below is a quick comparison table.
All your marketing tactics should be scalable and generate ROI at the end of the day- irrespective of whether its SMM or SEO. We have to keep in mind that SEO marketing doesn’t yield results overnight, instead it’s an on-going effort you put to ensure long-term benefits. To be frank, your methods you choose will show its results only after 4 to 8 months. Stay tuned with me on my next blog about on-page optimization. This is a sub- division of the umbrella called SEO!