SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a set of techniques and strategies used to improve the visibility of a website in the organic results of search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The main goal of SEO is to increase the quality traffic to a website, which can translate into more potential customers, higher sales, and better brand recognition.
SEO is an essential discipline for any business that wants to increase its online visibility and attract more quality organic traffic. Using the right tools, it is possible to carry out an effective SEO strategy that encompasses content optimization, link building, and technical improvements of the website.
Implementing these techniques and tools not only improves search engine ranking but also provides a better user experience, which can lead to higher conversion rates and customer loyalty. Staying up-to-date with SEO trends and changes is crucial, as search engine algorithms constantly evolve, and adapting to these changes is key to staying competitive in the digital world.
This text provides a comprehensive overview of SEO and the best tools available to optimize websites and improve their ranking on search engines.
SEO Importance
Organic search, which generates around 53.3% of all web traffic, has become a crucial part of digital marketing. Organic traffic has many possibilities of converting users into buyers or members of your business.
However, driving organic traffic to your site is not easy, and this is where SEO comes into play. With SEO, you can optimize different parts of your website and page to fit the different criteria of the ever-changing search algorithms.
SEO provides a set of strategies that focus on increasing the visibility of a website in search engines. The higher your search engine ranking, the more traffic your site will receive.
Especially for businesses, optimizing your site’s SEO can give your brand more exposure and increase your sales and revenue. Additionally, Google’s algorithm takes numerous SEO factors into account when ranking a website in the results.
If your website manages to position itself at the top of the search results pages, it will help you establish the trust and credibility of your brand or business on the Internet.
SEO vs SEM: What's the difference?
We already saw what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means. Now we will briefly review the difference between SEO and SEM.
Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are marketing strategies that companies use to reach their audience through search results.
The key difference is that SEO focuses on optimizing pages so that they rank better through organic traffic. This refers to users who come from search engines such as Google or Bing.
For its part, SEM uses paid strategies to increase the visibility of a web page in search engines. Paid traffic visitors come from clicking on ads generated in Google Ads, Facebook Ads or other Advertising Platforms such as Taboola, Outbrain, Revcontent, StudAds, Eleavers, among others.
While SEO takes some time (days, months or years) to give consistent and long-lasting results, SEM offers an almost instantaneous result. You’ll quickly see how many clicks and conversions your ads generate on search engines. The big difference between SEO and SEM is Cost.
Despite being different, SEO and SEM go hand in hand. A good SEO foundation is necessary for a successful SEM strategy.
Optimizing your landing pages with keywords can improve Google Quality Score and increase your site’s visibility.
Most Important Factors in SEO
As the leading search engine, Google processes more than 3 billion searches a day. Therefore, occupying the top positions in Google results can drive significant traffic to your site.
For this reason, it is essential to pay close attention to Google’s web positioning factors. These factors, which constantly evolve along with Google’s search algorithms, help deliver the most relevant content for a better user experience.
From loading time to page security, these are the most important SEO factors you should know:
Page Speed
This defines the time it takes for a web page to load. A page that loads quickly helps your site rank better in search engines.
Regularly monitor your site’s performance and use speed analysis tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom’s speed test to get insight into your site’s performance.
SEO Mobile Device Compatibility
A responsive design automatically adjusts web page elements to fit different screen sizes, providing an optimal experience for users on all devices.
Pages on responsive, mobile-friendly sites will appear higher in search engines. Check out Google’s Lighthouse tool to measure the usability of your site.
High Quality Content
Provides relevant and objective information to answer specific queries. Google evaluates content length, structure, relevant keywords, and information. Always create unique and original content to attract more users and increase the visibility of your site.
Backlinks
Known as inbound links, they are links to your website located on other sites, which serve as an indicator of your site’s authority. When a website or blog includes your link in its content, it marks your site as a relevant source.
Pages with high-quality inbound links from credible sites can rank higher on search engine pages.
User Experience
Google measures user experience through several indicators, such as bounce rate and dwell time. When visitors come to a site and leave soon after, Google considers the site irrelevant.
On the other hand, if visitors stay for a while, it is a sign that the site provides valuable information.
Site Security
It includes all actions to protect a page and its visitors from cyber attacks. Thus, Google gives priority to sites protected by HTTPS. Meanwhile, a site that doesn’t have it is marked as unsafe and will most likely drive visitors away.
Since security is a priority for all web users, it is essential to add an SSL certificate to your site.
How does SEO work?
Google and other search engines work to collect, organize and display relevant information to answer user queries. To do this, they carry out three main processes:
Tracking. Search engines rely on a team of web crawlers, also known as web spiders or simply bots, who are responsible for finding up-to-date content on the web. Web crawlers help discover and collect the information necessary to index a page.
Indexing. It refers to a process in which search engines store and organize collected web pages. Once web crawlers find information on a site, such as keywords and fresh content, they add the web page to the search index. When users search for relevant information, the search engine will retrieve the indexed web page.
Positioning. Web pages in the index will be displayed in search results from most relevant to least relevant content.
SEO improves your web presence by making your site more attractive to search engines. In other words, it determines how well your site goes through this series of steps, from crawling to SEO.
For example, well-structured internal links on your pages make it easy for web crawlers to jump from page to page. This allows them to explore your website in depth and index more content.
Additionally, search engine algorithms also take into account other ranking factors such as relevant keywords, quality of internal links, and freshness of content.
Therefore, optimizing your website content taking these factors into account can significantly increase your search rankings.
SEO Types
SEO is divided into several key areas:
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to the process of optimizing the individual pages of a site to increase its position in organic search engine results.
This type of SEO focuses on both the page content and the HTML source code, including title tags, header tags, and meta description. This way, the page will be attractive to web users and search engine crawlers.
On-page SEO also helps organize your page so that web crawlers can easily analyze the content and index it for relevant searches.
To guide you in on-page SEO optimization, we have put together some of the main practices you should know.
Site Content
Google uses a framework known as E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) to evaluate the quality of content, pages, and sites. Favor high-quality content from reliable authors and trusted pages.
Therefore, to rank higher in search results, you need to make sure your page meets these criteria.
Keyword Optimization
Including keywords in your content helps the search algorithm identify the type of information you provide. Conduct keyword research with SEO tools like Ahrefs Keywords Explorer or Google Keyword Planner to find a target keyword and build your content around it.
Of course, make sure that the distribution of the keywords is natural to avoid Google’s penalty for keyword stuffing.
Title Tag
Also known as a page title, it appears as a clickable link that people see on search engine results pages. Determines the relevance of the page to the user’s search intent.
A well-written title will generate more clicks and drive more traffic to the page. Additionally, search engines like Google favor and rank concise titles containing keywords higher.
Header Tags
Breaking content into pieces with header tags provides a better user experience and makes it easier for web crawlers to index the page.
When users type their search terms, the search engine will look for any relevant information using these tags as a guide. In this way, the chances of your page appearing higher in search engines increase.
Image Alt Text
Alt text is an attribute that describes a specific image that the site cannot display and is useful for visually impaired users. Screen readers use the alt text information to describe the image.
This text informs the search engine that the image is a valuable piece of your content. This provides additional organic ranking opportunities for your page as it can appear in Google image search results.
Meta Description
It refers to the short description of pages in SERPs, which appear as snippets along with the page title and URL. Meta descriptions include keywords and accurately describe the information the page offers.
A good meta description can generate more clicks and reduce bounce rates if the content satisfies the user’s intent.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO refers to any action taken outside the site to improve your position in search results. It allows the search engine to know how the public perceives a site, a company or a product.
As a result, a well-constructed off-page SEO strategy can help your website increase its page authority and rank higher in search engines.
These are some factors of this type of SEO that must be taken into account:
Link Building
It refers to the process of acquiring links from other websites to your site. Google’s algorithm relies heavily on links. Every link you receive serves as a vote of confidence for your site.
However, you should always prioritize quality over quantity and make sure you only get quality links from trusted sites.
Social Media Marketing
Building a strong social media presence is important for your business. It is a resource for users to verify their reputation. Posting engaging content on social media helps reach a wider audience.
Additionally, if your content manages to get traffic from different parts of the world, the search engine will see that your site is trustworthy.
Influencer Marketing
Building relationships with brands or influencers is a great way to build brand awareness. Done right, influencer marketing can help support your brand and attract new audiences to your site. This way, you can get more traffic and recognition.
Forums
Forum pages like Quora, Reddit, and Stack Overflow are a great opportunity to promote your website. There, you can participate in real conversations between users by answering questions, allowing you to show your experience and credibility.
Additionally, you can add a link to a page on your site and drive organic search traffic.
Although link building is the core aspect of this strategy, all activities that take place outside of a site are considered off-page SEO and should not be overlooked.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the process of optimizing the technical aspects of your website to ensure that it meets the criteria of a search engine algorithm. This includes optimizing speed, mobile friendliness, and page architecture.
Technical SEO optimization will guide a search engine like Google to easily detect and index your pages. This will reward a website with well-optimized technical SEO with a higher position in search results.
Technical SEO not only helps improve your search engine ranking, but also influences the user experience. Users and search engines prefer a well-structured site with fast loading times and high security, which are all essential technical SEO factors.
There are several aspects of technical SEO that you should take into account when optimizing your website:
Page loading speed
A website with pages that take too long to load will have a higher bounce rate and poorer SEO. Measures such as caching, image compression, and reducing page redirects are some of the effective ways to optimize speed.
Additionally, you can use tools like GTmetrix and PageSpeed Insights to know which components you should optimize.
Structured data
It refers to the tags you can add to your HTML code to help a search engine better identify your content. Adding structured data will improve your page snippets in search results.
For example, you can add ratings or reviews along with the meta description to make the page more attractive. This can attract more traffic and improve the click-through rate to your site.
Internal links
It is the process of including hyperlinks that point to other pages on the same website. By placing internal links, search engine crawlers will find and index more pages of your site.
When implemented correctly, internal links can also improve page authority, improve the browsing experience, and increase the dwell time of your page.
XML sitemaps
Simply put, an XML sitemap is a collection of the URLs of your pages. It serves as a roadmap and allows crawlers to reach important pages on your website more quickly.
The Yoast SEO plugin offers an easy way to build an XML sitemap for WordPress sites. You can also use free generators like InSpyder or Screaming Frog.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
This web framework generates lightweight pages that optimize loading time for mobile users. By enabling AMP, Google will serve your web pages through a designated cache, allowing your page to load faster.
Additionally, Google prioritizes sites with AMP, making this framework a tiebreaker for high-quality sites.
SSL certificate
A website with an SSL certificate will enable HTTPS in its URL. This indicates that all information transferred between a website and its users is secured and encrypted.
Since Google uses HTTPS as one of its web positioning factors, activating it makes your website reach better positions in searches. If your web host plan comes with an SSL certificate, be sure to activate it.
Local SEO
Local SEO is a practice to improve the visibility of local businesses in search results. It provides greater exposure and allows businesses to promote their brands, products and services in local communities.
When people search for “doctors near me” or “pet stores near me,” search engines identify their locations through their IP addresses and present relevant results accordingly. To get a place in search engines locally, it is necessary to optimize your local SEO.
If you want your business to appear in these positions, pay close attention to the different aspects of local SEO:
Google My Business (GMB) profile
The map that appears in the first results of Google local search comes from GMB profiles. You must first create an account. Be sure to fill out accurate and complete information, such as your name, address, and phone number, as this information will serve as a ranking factor.
Additionally, Google also ranks a GMB profile based on its distance, prominence, and relevance to a search.
Local Keyword Research
If done right, including local keywords on your pages can give a boost to SERP rankings. Make a list of keywords that describe your products or services and then add location-based modifiers.
An SEO tool like Ahrefs can help you identify the performance of keywords based on their search volume and difficulty.
Localized content
By targeting a specific demographic, localized content can help improve the visibility of your business’s website. Create locally relevant content that meets the demand of your target audience.
From blog posts and guides to case studies and recommendations, make sure you choose ones that fit your business niche.
Customer Reviews
Reviews show that customers trust your business and Google will notice this. Therefore, start encouraging your customers to leave feedback. You can do this by sending them an email or providing them with a review page.
Since Google also takes third-party reviews into account, be sure to monitor your online reviews.
White Hat SEO vs Black Hat SEO
SEO is commonly divided into two categories: White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. Both strategies aim to improve a website’s ranking in search engines, but they use very different methods to achieve this.
White Hat SEO refers to ethical and legitimate practices that follow the guidelines established by search engines. These techniques focus on providing real value to users and building a sustainable online presence.
Black Hat SEO, on the other hand, employs tactics that seek to trick search engine algorithms to obtain higher rankings.
In addition to keyword stuffing, other examples include using hidden links, duplicate content, and link farms to manipulate rankings. These practices can lead to severe penalties from search engines and damage your online reputation.
SEO Best Practices: Improving Google Positioning
With so many factors influencing your website’s search engine rankings, it is crucial to implement SEO best practices (White Hat SEO). Applying erroneous and obsolete strategies will not only harm your web positioning, but can also affect your traffic and conversions (Black Hat SEO).
We’ve put together a list of best practices to improve SEO and stay ahead of the competition.
SEO Target Long-Tail Keywords
Keyword research is essential for SEO optimization. It shows you everything from what people are searching to the terms your competitors are ranking for.
Therefore, it is important to know what SEO keyword research is and perform it efficiently. First of all, you need to understand the different types of SEO keywords:
Seeds
They are the keywords that define your niche and act as a basis for expanding your content. The keyword can be as simple as “pants” or “what is SEO.”
Synonyms
Keywords with the same meaning but composed differently that attract similar search results. For example, “how to fix broken cell phones” can be changed to “how to fix broken cell phones.”
Long Tail
Longer, more specific phrases that answer a specific search query. They usually have three or more keywords, such as “fat-free charcoal roast chicken recipe.”
Semantically related
These keywords are conceptually related to each other. For example, “visiting Los Angeles” is semantically related to “flight tickets to Los Angeles” and “best destinations in Los Angeles.”
The key to optimizing SEO with keyword research is to target a topic relevant to your sector that has good traffic potential taking into account metrics such as:
Search Volume
It determines how many people search for a specific query in a given time and is usually measured with national data.
Keyword Difficulty
Also known as keyword competition, this metric measures how difficult it is to rank for a keyword in Google’s organic search results. Fortunately, SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Google Keyword Planner can easily identify these metrics.
For example, if you want to write an article about cooking recipes, you will see that most of the seed keywords are very competitive:
If your website or blog is new and you target the keyword “cooking recipes,” you don’t have much chance of ranking well on Google. Therefore, it is better to make a list of long-tail keywords, for example:
- Traditional Spanish food vocina recipe
- Cooking recipe for a special dinner
A keyword with high search volume attracts more organic search traffic, but is also more competitive. Targeting high-volume keywords means competing with high-quality sites that have higher authority.
On the other hand, long-tail keywords have less competition and allow you to create highly relevant content for your audience.
Start by improving your website traffic using long-tail keywords and build your SEO keyword strategy from there.
Your competition is basically the websites that you will try to outperform. To do this, just take a closer look and see if you have a lot of professional websites, big media websites, or company websites. Is your website among these sites?
If you see a lot of established websites on the first page, I recommend starting with new, different keywords, especially if you have a new website. Those keywords will most likely have a lower search volume, but should be easier to rank for.
Plus, if you have a Google Ads account, you can even consider pay-per-click for certain search terms. Those with a high pay per click are typically harder to rank in organic search.
SEO Match your Content to Search Intent
Search engine algorithms help present specific results to users based on the purpose of their search. For example, Google not only provides users with relevant search results, but is able to determine their specific search intent.
When a user searches for “how to connect a Sony Bluetooth speaker,” Google will present pages or videos containing instructions of some kind. Instead, when a user searches for “buy a Sony Bluetooth speaker,” Google instantly displays e-commerce pages in the first results.
This happens because search algorithms can detect the four main search intentions and act accordingly.
Informative
It refers to users who want to know or learn about something. Searches for this intent include, among others, phrases with “how,” “where,” and “what is it for?”
Navigation
Users with this intention seek to visit specific sites. Instead of typing the URL into the address bar, users choose to navigate through Google. Some examples of searches with this intention are “Access to YouTube”, “Facebook”, “Instagram”.
Commercial
Users usually perform this search before making a purchase. They research and compare various brands, products or services to find the best option. A common query for this search intent looks like “gaming laptops” or “best coffees near me.”
Transactional
These search engines are directed to a specific product or service to purchase. Searches usually include brand names, such as “Buy iPhone 14” or “Sale Tablets.”
For example, to rank for a keyword like “natural facial cleansers,” you need to craft your content with informative intent. Focus on answering possible questions related to the sector, write about the benefits of natural products, tips for having healthy skin or natural products for the face.
But it’s different when you want to position yourself for “the best webcams for streaming.” Users with this intention simply want to compare the best webcams for streaming. Therefore, this belongs to commercial intent.
With this in mind, SEO best practice is to align your content to suit different intent types. In short, identify what your users want and give them an answer.
SEO Target Keyword in Title Tags
The title tag is essential for your website. It provides users with insight into the content and helps them see why it is relevant to their searches. Users want to find web pages that display keywords relevant to their queries. That’s why Google recommends you create effective titles and snippets for search results.
When you optimize a title tag with a target keyword, you give the search engine more opportunities to discover your website and rank it higher. For example, the first results for “how to increase website traffic” contain a specific target keyword.
The essential thing is to place the main keyword at the beginning of the title. Not only can it grab users’ attention, but it also helps search engines determine what the page is about. However, make sure your keyword placement sounds natural and avoid using redundant words.
In addition to optimizing your title tags, it’s also important to craft your meta descriptions. This allows you to reflect what the content is about and attract users to click on the page. Some SEO tips to keep in mind are to keep descriptions around 156 characters, use the active voice, and keep them practical.
If you use WordPress, the SEO plugin Yoast and Rank Math among others offer suggestions for title tags and descriptions, along with a snippet editor that lets you preview how your page will look on Google. SEO plugins like the ones mentioned are great because they give you recommendations on exactly what you need to do to optimize content for specific keywords.
It’s super easy: start by entering your keyphrase, then the plugin (e.g. Yoast) will analyze your content and provide you with a list of suggestions for optimization.
Get Authorized Backlinks
Authoritative backlinks are links that come from reputable websites. Google’s algorithm views backlinks as proof of trust in your site and considers the domain authority of the source to validate them. The right amount of authorized backlinks will provide more benefits than having an excess of links from spam sites. High-quality backlinks help your SEO ranking, while low-quality ones can hurt your site’s credibility.
Here are some SEO tips to build quality backlinks to your site:
Generate quality content
It is essential to offer complete and informative content on your site. This helps other sites judge your authority and determine if your page is worth linking to.
Guest blogging
It is about writing an entry for another website or blog. In exchange, they allow you to add backlinks in the post or in the author’s biography section. Plus, you get brand recognition and exposure to a broader audience, which drives more organic traffic to your site.
Analyze the competition’s backlinks.
Monitoring your competition allows you to identify websites that could link to yours. Tools like Monitor Backlinks and Ahrefs Link Intersect will allow you to monitor backlink opportunities. Once you’ve made a list of sites that link to your competitor, contact the site owners and send them your proposal.
Link building with broken links
This technique involves finding HTML 404 errors on a web page and notifying the site owner. This allows you to suggest your page as an alternative to replace the broken link. You can use Ahrefs to explore and identify broken links on a website.
If you are starting your website, what you would do is search Google for the keywords you want to rank for. The search results will show me many results and then try to find pages where you can place links to your website.
It can be a forum post or a blog. Try contacting the blog owner and offer them a guest post that you will have to write and link to your website. If it is a local website and you are trying to rank it locally, you can use directories and classified ad websites for this.
Google Algorithms and Updates
Google introduced a new search algorithm called page experience. It consists of a set of signals that measure the user’s experience when interacting with a web page.
Page experience includes existing SEO factors such as mobile-friendliness, website security, and page speed.
Usability refers to the ease of use of a website. Use website heatmapping tools like Crazy Egg and Hotjar to understand how users interact with your site. The tool highlights which parts get the most attention and where visitors are likely to get stuck, allowing you to improve your page structure and offer a better user experience.
Google removes potentially harmful sites from its search results. Thus, it keeps users away from malicious and misleading content. Access the security issues report in Google Search Console to make sure your pages don’t have any security issues. Helps detect pirated content, malware, and phishing attacks.
A responsive design automatically adjusts web page elements to fit different screen sizes. Provide an optimal visitor experience on all devices, from desktops to smartphones. A good practice is to use a flexible layout and eliminate pop-ups that open new windows.
Boost SEO with a Plugin
The main and best-known SEO plugins for WordPress are: Yoast SEO, Rank Math and All in One SEO, with the first being the most popular. You can make your site more attractive to Google and other search engines by using an SEO plugin.
If you search for “SEO” in the WordPress plugin repository, you will discover quite a few popular plugins. One of the best is as we already mentioned, Yoast SEO. Once you install and activate Yoast SEO, you’ll see a new SEO menu in the admin area, packed with a dizzying array of options.
The Yoast SEO plugin also gives you control over two important details: the title and description (known to web nerds as the meta description) of each post or page. These details are useful, even for SEO beginners, because Google displays them when it includes a page from your site in its search results. The Figure shows an example.
Google displays the title of a relevant web page with each search result; Technically, that’s the content of the HTML <title> tag. Below that, include an excerpt of the page (as shown here) or the meta description (if the description is available and matches your search keywords).
The title and description are also important because Google gives more weight to keywords in those places than to keywords in your content. In other words, if someone searches for “affiliate marketing” and you have those words in your title, you can beat a page with the same ranking that doesn’t.
Typically, the Yoast SEO plugin creates a good title for a post, based on a title generation formula on the SEO→Search Appearance→Content Types page. This formula places your post title first, followed by your site name.
Other Alternative Sources to Learn SEO
Learning about SEO from scratch requires a lot of time and patience. In addition to understanding the fundamentals of SEO, you will need resources to learn the fundamentals of digital marketing and how search engines work.
Some of the best SEO learning resources available are:
Google Webmaster Central Blog. This blog keeps you up to date on Google’s ever-changing algorithm. Provides documentation on the latest SEO factors, trends, SEO practices, new Google search features, and core updates.
Ahrefs. The Ahrefs blog offers a wide selection of guides and articles on SEO and marketing. Features up-to-date and relevant content written by SEO experts and marketing professionals.
MOZ. In addition to SEO tools and software, Moz has a very complete blog, in English, and a learning center. It offers everything from expert SEO tips to recent market data and insights to improve your marketing skills.
Search Engine Journal. This online platform features the latest SEO news, analysis and guides from marketing and SEO experts. Content ranges from beginner SEO tips to advanced strategies and practices. Additionally, the website provides various resources such as e-books, podcasts, and webinars.
Search Engine Roundtable. This website collects the most interesting threads from SEO forums and provides more details about them. It allows users to access information from different forums on recent SEO topics in one place.
Backlinko. With training in SEO and link building strategies, Backlinko is a popular marketing blog run by an SEO expert that helps grow online businesses. The content revolves around SEO tips, techniques, and case studies.