SEO – What Is It And Why Is It Important?

July 01 2022

The cover of a blog article on SEO - navy blue background with an artistic visualization of online positioning

SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization” in English, means optimization of a website for search engines.

But what does this concept mean? For the average Internet user, the process of searching for information begins with entering an appropriate query. It is on the part of the search engine to show the most accurate answer to this query. But how does Google know if your website is the best one? The answer to this question is hidden under the concept of crawler robots. In addition to humans, automated algorithms “roam” the Internet and collect information about websites and their content. So it can be concluded that the best website will be made in such a way as to be readable by both humans and crawlers.

Based on the data of performancemedia.pl, as many users in Poland use the Google browser:
95%

Three key types of SEO

Since SEO is a very complex and multi-disciplinary issue, the most common division into three main groups is.

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO is understood as all content-related activities that provide the client with new information and clarify the message about what your website is about. Activities such as writing blog posts, ensuring internal linking between subpages, and completing ALT attributes in images make search engine crawlers not only understand what your site is about, but also have no problem navigating it.

Screenshot from the health page. The text is structured in accordance with SEO principles, contains keywords and many links
An example of internal linking on a page marked with an underline.

Off-Page SEO

The opposite of On-Page SEO is optimization for what’s happening outside of your own website. Acquiring backlinks that lead from valuable sites to yours can quickly increase your position on the search results lists.

Of course, this does not mean that you should start your internet journey now and paste the link to your website everywhere. Google crawlers love to go from one topic page to a domain devoted to the same topic.

So if your website is, for example, a lamp shop, switching from an interior design blog or the ranking of the best lamps of 2022 will definitely allow it to jump to a higher position. Off-Page SEO also includes all social media channels.

Screenshot of the search results for "the best pendant lamps"
An example of brand positioning using keywords used on the company's blog page.

Technical SEO

The last group of SEO optimization is meeting certain technical requirements. Does the page have adequate contrast between the text and the background color? Are the interactive elements of the website the appropriate minimum size? Does the website have structured data implemented for easier communication between the content indexing robots and the website?

All this and many more elements contribute to the overall quality of the website, and the higher it is, the more traffic from the Internet will be directed to your address.

How to achieve 100 percent SEO of your website?

SEO is an optimization process, which means that there is no concept of one hundred percent achievement at this point. You can always get that extra backlink, write a new post, or update a previously written tutorial. The constantly changing trends in the internet marketing industry make it worth being constantly on top, introducing current solutions and looking for new opportunities.

Two employees of the e-commerce agency Click Leaders wearing white shirts discuss SEO results
Employees of e-commerce agencies provide their SEO experience.

BERT update

In 2019, Google publicized an update to the BERT algorithm, which made blog content in which more text meant better SEO for the page forgotten. Considering the fact that most users nowadays use mobile devices, Google has changed the algorithm that determined the quality of websites. The speed and ease of use with which we are able to provide answers to the question has gained in importance.

According to information from Google, if the mobile version of the website is not optimized well, then the desktop version will also be much lower in the search position.

MUM update

The year 2021 is another news as Google is testing a new content-analyzing algorithm called MUM. This algorithm will focus on the analysis of the website’s content, which is multimedia, not only graphic, but also video and audio. This means that clear, unambiguous photos will be important for good website SEO, as they are often the ones that provide the quickest answer to many queries.

What Should You Avoid In SEO?

Imagine a situation where you write a lot of text on a page with a product (for example: men’s sandals), but a large part of the content is about women’s high heels. Most of the users come to the site because they are looking for information about men’s shoes. Seeing that the page they visited is not the answer to their question, they will most likely either not click on the search result, or will immediately exit the page when they see its content. An unequivocal message will then be sent to Google: This page is not about men’s sandals. Thus, the website will start to decline in ranking because the answer given to the user is not appropriate.

Of course, there can be many reasons for leaving the website. A wall of text not broken down into legible paragraphs is not welcome. The same applies to an uncomfortable interface or lack of the desired functionality. This is why it is worth monitoring your website’s SEO constantly.

The content on your website should be user-friendly in the first place. SEO is important, but it will be useless if your content is just a blend of keywords. Remember that you are writing for people.

As you can see, the subject of SEO is extremely complex and requires many treatments for the website you create to work effectively. If you do not know how to start working on the quality of the website, opt for a professional audit. Identifying “hot spots” and the weakest parts of your site is the first step to improving your site’s search rankings.

Click Leaders e-commerce agency - a photo of Marcin Orłowski's Google Ads employee

Marcin Orlowski

Google Ads specialist. It's hard to find an SEO question that he wouldn't know the answer to. He feels best in the realm of data from Analitycs.

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