How Does SEO Work?

Thursday, June 12, 2025

When I first got started with keyword research, I pretty much ignored the cost per click (CPC). You can usually filter out a good chunk of keywords based on keyword difficulty alone. Either way, you’ll get an idea of how hard (or easy) each keyword is to rank for.

  • And when you rank for that term, you’re going to get linked to like there’s no tomorrow.
  • An SEO audit is an evaluation of the current state of your website, factoring in on-page SEO, off-page SEO and technical SEO.
  • For example, the H1 on this page is the article title, “Understanding On-page SEO” is an H2, and this section is an H3.

Include Keywords in Your Content

Like me, he was a moderator at the old WebmasterWorld Forums, only he’s been doing SEO for even longer. Although he’s younger than I am, I totally consider him my elder in the SEO business. Todd Friesen, along with Greg Boser, was an SEO podcasting pioneer with their SEO Rockstars show. Things can get a bit confusing because many people today use SEM interchangeably with PPC. This can make it seem like SEO is being left out, but that’s not the case.

search engine optimization

Best SEO Practices: Ways to Improve Your Google Rankings

search engine optimization

If your site information is found useful by audiences, it will also encourage visitors to return. Pages with increased visits helps SEO, as it signals to search engines that your site is an authority on your chosen topic. While good to prioritize, it’s important to avoid keyword stuffing.

search engine optimization

Next, you will learn about the key drivers of the search ecosystem and how SEO is related to social media. The lesson also brushes up on the pros and cons of SEO and how to avoid common outdated techniques. At the end of the lesson, you can learn more about potential careers in SEO. You will also be able to differentiate between the various aspects of an enterprise, small-medium business, agency, and individual SEO. Each of these techniques plays a role in helping your website rank higher in search results, drawing in more organic traffic. Whether you’re running an e-commerce site or a blog, Search engine optimization plays a pivotal role in attracting quality traffic and driving business growth.

search engine optimization

The Best SEO Services for Small Businesses

Bruce Clay, widely recognized as the BHS Links father of search engine optimization, leads a premier SEO agency with a global presence. Our ethical and technical SEO consulting services have become our hallmark. Our SEO analysts, each with over 10 years of experience, leverage their extensive knowledge to elevate your traffic to new heights. Whether researching a product, looking for a restaurant, or booking a vacation, search engines are a common starting point when you need information.

search engine optimization

Once claimed, the information you add to your business profile can show up in Google’s search results and in Google Maps. This is a tab on the SERPs that allows users to see results from TikTok, YouTube, Quora, Reddit, tweets, and more. In our example, since it’s a product review and there was no mention of our free SEO tools or AWT, we could reach out and let the author know.

We’ve seen cases where marketers have been so focused on building only certain types of links that they have neglected the rest of their options. If you have a post about hiking tips and you have two backlinks, one from a post about outdoor sports and the other from a post about politics, the former backlink is much more valuable. Another great source of keywords with featured snippets is the so-called “People also ask” box that often appears below the featured snippet. Featured snippet (sometimes called “position zero”) is a selected search result that appears above the standard 10 results in Google search.

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