What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of driving traffic to your website from search engines. In this comprehensive guide we are going to explain you different aspect of SEO.

Such as what is search engine? Which search engine you should focus more, what is SEO?, how it works and why it is important for you as a website owner.

We have taken utmost care while writing this article and avoided technical jargon. This article has written in the mind for newbie who wants a basic understating of SEO in layman language.

What is a search engine?

The search engine is a software that reads online content on millions of websites on the Internet. Now of course, the most common search engine out there is Google.

So let’s take an example if we want a search for “Party wear kurtis”. So we would type “Party wear kurtis” and immediately Google will list all the websites pertaining to this keyword.

For example if we click on first link then you will see a web page from Myntra as mentioned below.

So the question now, How does Google know this website?

The answer is, Google actually collects all the online content of this website and store it in its huge databases inside thousands of servers.

So the way how Google reads this website is by using a software called Googlebot. 

Googlebot is a web crawler. It is an automated software that browses websites and online content.

It is actually a software that Google uses to collect all the online content available on all the websites. So whatever content that you can read the same can also be read by Googlebot.

That’s how you get to see a list of websites and online content available on Google.

But while you are optimizing the website for SEO which search engine should you focus most, let’s briefly analyze the same on the following section.

Which search engine is the most popular?

Here is the market share for search engines around the world. As of March 2021 Google is holding 92.41% of search engine market share worldwide.

– Source: Statcounter.com

It shows that Google is the king of all search engines. Now if you have a website you definitely want Google to rank your website high on its search engine result.

We discussed what is a search engine and which search engine you need to focus most. In the next section we are going to discuss about SEO and how it is interrelated with your website and search engine like Google.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a process to rank your website high on search engine result like Google through organic search.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of driving traffic to your website from search engines.

Let’s break into pieces for your understanding,

On the following screenshot we can see an example of a search engine result for the keyword “Party wear kurtis” from Google.

So you can see Myntra.com is at result 1 where as Manyavar.com is at result 2 and so on.

Now that you know what is SEO but how does Google decides which page will come first and which will come second. To understand this process, we need to learn how SEO works.

How SEO works?

Google and other search engines have their software to assess the quality of each and every website. They call it an Algorithm or in layman language a formula which assesses something.

Search engine like Google want to serve the most relevant results to their users.

So as we had searched for “Party wear kurtis”, Google should be shown websites who have great content on “Party wear kurtis” and not websites which have poor content or websites that either do not open or are purely spammy in nature.

Hence, the objective of a search engine is to show the most relevant results for a query that is made by users.

Its now clear for us what is the objective of a search engine, let’s understand as a website owner what would be the objective for you.  As a website owner you want more traffic to your website, which usually translates to more email subscribers or sales a product like ebook.

Hence, the owner of a website would want to optimize his website so that it adheres to all the best practices that search engines instruct to website owners.

If the owner of a website keeps everything clean, builds a very useful website which is easy to navigate and provides great content and user experience to its users, then search engines would love to show that website to people who are searching for content.

It is a win-win situation for the user, the website owner, and the search engine. In this situation, everyone is happy.

The Search engine was able to satisfy the need of the user and show him content he was looking for. In returns the user is most likely to use the same search engine again in future.

Hence it makes us clear how SEO works. But is SEO important?

Why is SEO important? 

In previous section, we understood how SEO works. We are going to end this article by telling you, why SEO is important for you as a website owner. 

In today’s competitive market, SEO is more important than ever. Search engines serve millions and millions of users per day looking for answers to their questions or for solutions to their problems.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important because:

• Generate Traffic: The majority of search engine users are more likely to click on one of the top 10 suggestions in the search result pages (SRP), therefore taking advantage of this and gain visitors to your website you need to be in top positions.
• Create trust among user: Users trust search engine and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords the user is searching, increases the website’s trust.
• Social media promotion: SEO is good for the social promotion of your website. People who find your website by searching Google, Bing or any other search engine are more likely to promote it on Facebook or Twitter or other social media platform.
• Generate more revenue: SEO can put you ahead of the competition. If two websites are selling the same thing, the search engine optimized website is more likely to have more customers and make more sales.