What Does SEO Stand For? A Simple Guide to the SEO Basics
SEO is essentially the process of growing the quality and quantity of website traffic. If you’re wondering, “what does SEO stand for,” here’s a simple guide.
The SEO holy grail is reaching the front page of Google search results.
If you’re new to the SEO game, there’s a lot to learn. Staying up-to-date on SEO trends is crucial for any business online.
We’ll start with the basics. What does SEO stand for? We’ll answer that and provide a simple guide if you’re a beginner.
What Does SEO Stand For?
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of increasing visibility of a website on search engines by growing the quality and quantity of unpaid, or organic, traffic. Google wants to show people relevant, high-quality information.
in 2018, Google announced over 3,200 changes to its search systems. You need to keep track of what’s working because it always changes.
With this guide to local SEO, businesses can promote their products or services to a more localized area and target their intended audience. It makes ranking on Google for a specific locale a little easier.
Below are basic SEO strategies to consider to rank higher with the almighty Google.
Keywords
You want to use keywords in your content that people are actively searching for online.
There are tools online that show you what people are searching for and what keywords are ranking. Long-tail keywords have less competition and are, therefore, easier to rank higher on Google search results.
Link Building
You need links. More links mean more clicks and it gives your domain more credibility.
Having other credible websites link to your content tells Google that you are a trustworthy source of information and that people should go to your website for answers. More backlinks mean a higher organic search ranking.
Don’t forget internal links. Linking to your content means more clicks on your website and that you are an expert in your niche.
Technical Best Practices
The average webpage load time on desktops is about 10 seconds, although Google recommends a page load time of two seconds or less. This is one example of many technical elements that affect rankings.
Not only should each page load quickly on desktop and mobile, but also make sure there are no broken links or duplicate content, and that your content matches search intent.
Optimizing your images is a quick and easy way to better your chances of ranking higher. Make sure to compress images and have alt tags with descriptive file names.
Voice Search
Voice search is all about asking questions. 2020 is supposed to be the year that 50% of searches are done via voice.
This is becoming more popular and it’s something Google can’t ignore. Optimizing pages for web search brings more traffic and it means your content needs to be relevant.
Stay Up-To-Date on SEO
A textbook could be written about SEO best practices, diving deep into how to best optimize your content. But knowing the basics and knowing the trends can bring you a long way.
What does SEO stand for? We hope this answered your question.
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