SEO, or search engine optimization, involves enhancing websites, web pages, and content to achieve higher rankings in search engines like Google. It encompasses a variety of practices aimed at improving the visibility, positioning, and relevance of different types of content in organic search results. This content can include web pages, videos, images, local business listings, and other digital assets. Since organic search is the primary way people find and access online content, applying SEO best practices is crucial for ensuring that your digital content is discoverable and appealing to the public, thereby boosting your website’s organic traffic.

How do search engines operate?

To grasp how SEO functions, it’s essential to understand the basics of how search engines operate. Search engines deploy crawlers (also known as spiders or bots) to collect information from across the internet, which they store in large databases called “indexes.” Crawlers start from a known web page and follow links from that page to others.

For instance, if Google has already indexed a page on Patagonia.com about used clothing, which includes internal links to pages for used jackets, used hiking boots, and used flannel shirts, Google can follow these links to crawl those pages. Additionally, if Patagonia’s main used clothing page links to an article on TheGuardian.com about the negative impacts of fast fashion, Google can follow this link to discover and potentially index that content.

The content of the discovered page and the context of the links the crawler followed from Patagonia to The Guardian help Google understand the page’s relevance to other indexed pages.

If you are the journalist who wrote The Guardian article on fast fashion, a link from a major brand’s used clothing section to your piece signals to Google that there might be a connection between the issues of fast fashion and the solution of buying used clothing. These semantic relationships help Google determine which results to display for user queries.

Search engines’ success relies on providing relevant results to users. The more links a search engine like Google finds pointing from one type of content to a particular resource, the more confident it becomes in the relevance of that resource to specific search queries. Consequently, the search engine ranks this resource higher for those queries.

SEO encompasses three main categories: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO. These elements work together to help search engines discover, crawl, index, understand, and rank your content. This article will delve into each of these topics.

What makes SEO significant?

One key reason why SEO is important is that it enables online publishers to appear in search engine results. Search engines like Google and Bing use their own algorithms to surface and format the content they display when a user types a query into the search box.

For example, when a user enters a query, a search engine like Google can provide a diverse range of results. Let’s examine and identify some of the different types of results that can appear:

 

1. Traditional Organic Results

Google’s most recognizable results are the traditional organic results, which are links to web pages ranked in a specific order based on Google’s algorithms. These algorithms are sets of formulas that the search engine uses to determine the relevance of potential results to a user’s query. Historically, Google would typically display a page with 10 organic results for each query, but this number can now vary significantly. The number of results also changes depending on whether the user is searching from a desktop computer, mobile phone, or another device. Traditional organic results appear like this, with each entry featuring a title, description, link to the source, and additional elements such as dates and extra links:

Bing’s traditional organic results are similar in appearance and functionality to those of Google:

 

2. SERP Features

In addition to traditional organic results, search engines can present a range of other displays known collectively as “SERP features.” These features come in various forms, including but not limited to:

• Local pack results
• Google Business Profiles
• Knowledge panels
• Sitelinks
• Featured Snippets
• Image packs and image carousels
• Video packs
• People Also Ask features
• Related searches
• Plus additional SERP features for news results, hotel and travel results, shopping, FAQs, job listings, and more.

Local pack results show a list of local businesses for certain queries:

Google Business Profiles highlight a single local business for specific queries:

Knowledge panels provide information about organizations, individuals, and locations for certain queries:

Sitelinks are links to additional pages within a website that can appear as part of the site’s organic listing. These links are shown if the individual pages are strong enough or if the search engine considers them particularly relevant to the user’s query. For example, an organic listing for a retailer might include sitelinks to its pages for women’s wear, men’s wear, used clothing, and more:

There are at least four primary types of results known as “featured snippets,” which include carousels, lists, paragraphs, and tables. Related features also encompass videos and the less common double featured snippets. To display featured snippets, Google extracts content from web pages to provide summaries directly within the SERPs, linking back to the original sources.

Image packs and image carousels that link to their original sources:

Video packs that link to their original sources:

“People also ask” features provide summaries and links to additional information based on questions related to the user’s initial query:

“Related searches” features provide links to additional sets of SERPs, encouraging users to broaden their query to find related information:

There are also various other SERP features for news results, hotel and travel listings, shopping, FAQs, job postings, and more. SEO is crucial because it affects what search engines display for all these results and features.

SEO does not affect any SERP components that have been paid for by advertisers. Paid search results can include ads from programs like Google Ads, which are marked with a “sponsored” label:

And local business lead generation ads from Google’s Local Services Ads program, which appear for certain queries:

Whenever a result is marked as “sponsored,” it indicates a paid ad placement that isn’t affected by your SEO efforts. However, almost all other types of search engine results are significantly influenced by your optimization strategy.

Finally, it’s important to note that both Google and Bing are in the early stages of providing AI-based content to users, as discussed by Tom Capper on the Moz Blog. The extent to which SEO can influence AI content is still uncertain. For instance, it’s evident that SEO is affecting Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) experiments, as content from traditional local packs is being utilized to some degree in SGE responses to local queries, like this:

Currently, there is no clear strategy for gaining inclusion in services like Google’s Bard or New Bing chat. As these products potentially gain popularity, part of an SEO’s role will involve analyzing AI results and developing methods to establish a presence within these new formats. Additionally, SEOs will likely need to compete with these AI-driven results for visibility in the evolving SERPs.

What are the primary objectives of SEO?

Although each SEO campaign may have distinct objectives, most online publishers share the desire to achieve some or all of the following five outcomes from their optimization efforts:

1. Increased visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs)

Most Google users tend to stay on the first page of search results to find answers to their queries, with 75% clicking on either the first or second result. Due to this behavior, a key objective of SEO is to achieve higher rankings in search results. The more visible your content is, the greater its chances of being discovered and selected by the public.

At this stage of your learning, it’s crucial to understand that website owners should not chase the myth of being #1 in search engine rankings. Search engines like Google display different results to different users based on their device location and even slight variations in query language. Instead of aiming for the top spot, a more effective goal is to ensure high visibility to your target audience for your most important searches across various SERP styles and features.

2. Increased traffic to your website and other digital assets.

When users visit your site by clicking on organic search results, this is referred to as “traffic.” The impact of the click-through rate (CTR) on organic rankings in Google is a topic of ongoing debate within the SEO industry. Bing has confirmed that both CTR and bounce rate (the rate at which users leave your page shortly after arriving) are used as ranking factors. Although the exact details of search engine algorithms are kept confidential, it is reasonable to conclude that a primary goal of SEO is to drive more traffic from search results to your online assets.

3. Higher quality traffic to your website and other digital assets.

While attracting a large amount of traffic from the SERPs might initially seem like a dream come true for any site owner, it will generally only impact fundamental business goals if this traffic converts into sales or other key actions. For instance, an independently-owned doughnut shop in San Francisco might achieve first-page rankings in Google for sourdough doughnuts. It could go viral on social media for a humorous or unique marketing campaign and even make it into mainstream news. It might receive national or even international traffic from these rankings and efforts, but if its product is only available for purchase by customers in its city, most of this traffic will not convert to sales and may only marginally support the business’s viability.

Therefore, a better goal than merely aiming for high traffic to your digital assets is to use SEO to strategize on attracting the most qualified traffic for what you offer, as this will typically have the highest conversion rate. High-quality organic traffic depends on search engines determining that your content is highly relevant for the queries most likely to result in conversions, whether those conversions are defined as sales, form submissions, phone calls, leads, or even customers spending more time on your website.

4. Enhanced clarity and understanding for the public.

One of the most effective ways to learn about SEO is to view it as a form of customer service. Google rewards content that is beneficial to the public. Their 2022 Helpful Content algorithm update emphasized rewarding sites that consistently publish content genuinely useful to searchers. For years, Google has encouraged site owners to create content for people rather than search engines.

SEO can make your site more understandable, discoverable, and user-friendly for potential visitors. Optimization affects both how your content appears in the SERPs and how it looks and functions when users click through to your digital assets. Providing excellent service and a great user experience is one of the most practical reasons to invest in SEO.

5. Improved clarity and understanding for search engines.

For search engines to feature and reward your content, thereby helping you gain the visibility, traffic, and conversions you need, your website and other digital assets must be understandable to the crawlers/spiders/bots used by entities like Google and Bing to crawl and index content. This is accomplished through various SEO efforts, which can be categorized into:

• On-page SEO: Primarily involves optimizing specific elements of a webpage to ensure its content and relevance are clear.
• Technical SEO: Focuses on managing the technical aspects of your website to ensure it can be effectively crawled, indexed, and understood by search engines.
• Off-page SEO: Involves earning links, citations, recognition, and press from third parties to build the authority of your digital assets.

Collectively, these three areas of SEO help ensure that search engines can align your content with the perceived intent of searchers’ queries. The better search engines understand your content, the greater your chances of achieving high, broad, and highly-converting rankings. We will explore each of these three concepts in more detail next.

What SEO factors affect search engine rankings?

Optimizing your site typically focuses on three main areas: on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.

• On-page SEO involves optimizing your website’s content so that it is easily understood by both search engines and humans.
• Technical SEO includes any technical actions aimed at improving search results, usually by ensuring your site functions efficiently.
• Off-page SEO encompasses activities outside your website that affect your rankings.

Together, these elements create a strong foundation to help you reach your target audience.

On-page SEO

Investing in SEO involves conducting customer research, market research, and keyword research to ensure your content reflects the language real people use when searching for what your website offers. The insights gained from your research can then be applied to optimize various elements of your website and its pages, including but not limited to:

• Domain names
• Page URLs
• Page titles
• Headers
• Alt text
• Images
• Videos
• Navigational
• Meta description tags
• Internal links
• Sitemaps
• The main body text of each page

Technical SEO

To ensure your website can be effectively indexed and crawled by search engines, and properly used by people, technical SEO involves managing various elements, including but not limited to:

• Analytics setup
• Site crawling
• Indexing status
• Robots.txt status
• Canonicalization
• Internal link architecture design and management
• Coding
• Mobile-friendliness
• Cross browser rendering
• Page status codes
• Image compression
• Core Web Vitals status
• Page load/speed optimization
• Structured data
• JavaScript frameworks/rendering/pre-rendering
• Hreflang
• De-indexing
• Migrations

Off-page SEO

To maximize the visibility of your digital assets in search engines, attract relevant traffic, and achieve your desired conversions, off-page SEO can be defined as the practice of drawing attention to your content. Your options for pursuing this include, but are not limited to:

• Gaining links and citations from reputable third-party sites through the quality of your content.
• Managing link disavowal.
• Actively building links and citations from high-quality third-party sites by reaching out to those publications.
• Participating in various forms of online promotion, such as social media marketing, guest appearances on third-party blogs, podcasts, and vlogs.
• Engaging in traditional PR activities, including writing press releases and establishing relationships with influencers.
• For local businesses, creating local business profiles and building local unstructured citations.

All these factors work together to shape how search engines interpret and rank your website pages.

What are the most important factors for ranking in organic search?

Over the past few decades, SEO professionals have continuously worked to identify as many of Google’s proprietary organic ranking factors as possible and to organize them by their perceived influence on rankings. Similar efforts have been made for search engines like Bing. For several years, Moz conducted significant surveys on organic ranking factors and local search ranking factors. Such a list of factors could include, but is not limited to:

• On-page factors
• User behavior factors
• Link factors
• Core update factors
• Local guidelines factors
• Spam factors

E-E-A-T

There are also elements known as Google’s E-E-A-T factors. While many SEOs do not consider these traditional, direct ranking factors, they are principles that Google instructs its quality raters to use when evaluating the quality of search engine results. E-E-A-T factors can be defined as:

• Experience: Is the published content based on the author’s firsthand experience? For instance, if someone writes a restaurant review, did they actually visit and try the food? Or, if an influencer recommends a shampoo brand, did they personally use it on their hair?
• Expertise: Is the content created by someone skilled in the subject? For “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) topics like medical or financial advice, does the author have relevant degrees, licenses, or accreditations? For other topics, like DIY home repairs, has the author gained practical expertise through demonstrable experience?
• Authoritativeness: Do third parties acknowledge the source’s expertise? Do established authoritative sites and individuals link to and cite the content, such as a renowned food critic linking to their top choice for the best Thai restaurant in Seattle?
• Trustworthiness: Is the content factual and accurate? Are websites and transactions secure and built on good user experience (UX) principles? Is contact information accessible and accurate? Are policies clear and appropriate? Does public sentiment, like reviews, indicate that the business is legitimate and trustworthy? Google considers trustworthiness the most crucial of all the E-E-A-T factors.

The challenge in trying to definitively list the factors that most influence organic rankings lies in the diversity and variability of the SERPs. If your organization sells shoes, your SEO and marketing strategies will differ from those of a hotel, an online gaming platform, an architectural firm, or a software developer. The SERPs will not only feature different components for each relevant query but may also vary for each searcher based on their location. Additionally, public needs and behaviors can differ significantly depending on the intent behind their queries.

As the myth of achieving a #1 search engine ranking has faded, the understanding that one size does not fit all in SEO ranking factors has led to fewer surveys attempting to rank each factor’s impact. This evolution in the SEO industry, driven by the diversification of the SERPs, has led to a new best practice: studying what search engines return for your most important queries and analyzing the top competitors for these terms.

Instead of seeking universal top ranking factors, research the types of media that Google, Bing, or other search engines return for your top keyword phrases. Do you see strong organic competitors, featured snippets, image packs, video results, or local packs? How is AI impacting your niche in search, and how will your organization respond?

Learn to conduct thorough organic and local competitor audits and track and understand the SERP features that Google surfaces for your audience. Master the basics of on-page, off-page, and technical SEO, and then look for ways to not only compete with the top results but also to differentiate your brand in the SERPs, making it stand out to real people as the best and most relevant resource for their queries.

Be cautious of claims promising to make your company #1 in the organic SERPs or sources that assert they know the top ranking factors definitively. Only the search engines have this information, and SEO is about the ongoing study of this topic as search evolves. Your knowledge of SEO basics, learned from sites like this and through the use of SEO tools, combined with your own experimentation in your specific market, will be your best guide to which factors and strategies meet your goals for SERP visibility and maximum conversions.