Welcome to the first of an upcoming series of resources all bringing us back to the basics of what SEO is all about. Understanding the baseline of how search engines work and how the online content we produce for our websites interacts with them, is sorted and ranked by them, should always be the beginning point of any earnest SEO project.
We hope that these resources can help to empower you in your work with us, allowing you to share the learning and development you access through collaborating with StudioHawk at large. Our Basics of SEO series aims to give you the base level of knowledge that will demystify SEO and support your collaboration with our team.
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The Breakdown of this Article:
- What SEO is all about
- The Building blocks of Search Engine Optimised websites
- Why Search Engines Rank the Way They Do
- The REAL foundations of SEO Success
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Search Engines are the medium through which most of us navigate the internet, entering a search term or question into a search bar and then selecting a website from the list offered to us. Optimising your website for search engines improves your site’s ‘ranking’ in search engines, leading to it being listed higher on a search page for certain keywords and queries entered by an internet user.
Why is SEO important?
SEO is vital for all websites and online businesses because visibility is key for gaining more customers and custom for your business. In our busy world of short attention spans it is increasingly unlikely that internet users will scroll past the first page of results when making a search. They are looking for quick, authoritative and quality results and if your page doesn’t rank within the first 10 results of a search engine results page (SERP) it is not likely to receive traffic.
Not only is organic traffic the lifeblood of a website, it is also a cost effective and more sustainable way of increasing your customer base and seeing ROI on your investment in website development. Unlike sponsored advertising on search engines, SEO work acts like a snowball, allowing your company to grow in authority over time, increasing site visits. Equally, whilst pay-per-click may boost your site to the top of a search, many users distrust ‘sponsored’ suggestions, meaning ranking higher is the most reliable and trustworthy way to engage internet users.
Search engines are constantly updating and responding to the fast paced development of today’s technology. This means that being proactive and investing time and money into SEO efforts will ensure your website can adapt to changes in the digital landscape.
The Three Main Pillars of SEO
Websites that are optimised for search engines have solid foundations from the three pillars of SEO. Let’s explore them:
Technical SEO – Structure
The underbelly of your website can be at the heart of its inability to rank for your desired searches online. Poor website infrastructure or faults can result in websites being penalised by search engines. Technical SEO not only satisfies the criteria of the robots that crawl websites for search engines, it is also foundational for greater user experience on your webpages. If your website does not work, is slow or difficult to navigate and use then potential customers who have made their way to your site won’t stick around for long. Minimising ‘bounces’ (short and bittersweet user visits to your site) will increase the likelihood of user interaction with your content, leading to conversions of purchases or enquiries for services.
SEO Content – Quality
Once the bones of your site are undoubtedly strong and stable, it’s time to populate your website with the meat of SEO, good quality content. Consumers will likely have many questions about your products or services, all of which can be discovered through thorough keyword research. Don’t let others give the answers that your customers need, lead them to your site and products by writing guides to your products and services, deep dives into how they were made or developed and advice on how to use them. By accurately targeting high-volume keywords you will increase the organic traffic to your website and the more eyes on your high-quality products, the more likely you are to see an increase in sales.
Backlinking – Authority
Once your website works and is populated with a world of good content, the next marker of a higher ranking website that you should seek out is an established network of authority built through linking. Linking internally should be implemented across your webpages to direct your potential customers to relevant product pages and to make it easy to move around your site. Making sure that there are external links included in your blog posts may also increase the authority of your website as you are providing ‘evidence’ to the information you are writing about and associating your website with the authority of the page you are linking to. The most valuable type of link in the SEO world is the ‘backlink’. This is when another website links to your content this could be in a news story, a listicle of products, a ranking article and many more instances. These links will direct readers towards your business, once more increasing your traffic and the standing of your website within search engines’ rankings.
Search Intent – Why Search Engines Rank the Way They Do?
Why do search engines have a ‘ranking’ functionality? Why do they place the websites in the order that they do? Although it may feel like there are murky metrics behind results pages there is one golden rule that underpins rankings.
Relevance is king. When a user inputs a search term, the engine wants to show them only the most relevant results for their query. Fulfilling the requirements of being high quality and authoritative are all a part of delivering content that entirely fulfils the request of the users search intent. Understanding search intent can help us to better target our websites and their content to potential, and returning, customers.
Within the SEO world there are four key search intents:
- Informational – The user is seeking information, often inputting a question into the search bar. Discovering the common questions your customer base is asking can be as simple as investigating your social media or reviews for frequently asked queries.
- Navigational – The user will be attempting to navigate to a known destination, so will likely be entering your product or business name into the search bar.
- Commercial – The user is interested in making a purchase, but is looking for more information. This can look like a search for the ‘best product’ or the ‘highest rated product’ in an attempt to figure out where to make a purchase.
- Transactional – This search takes place when a user has decided to make a purchase – making it as easy as possible for this motivated customer to find your product pages and to make an online purchase is crucial for benefiting from these searches.
The True Foundations of SEO Success
With 5 years experience under our belts, StudioHawk knows a thing or two about what it takes to achieve real SEO success, something our case studies can attest to. While the mechanics of a website are the bare minimum required to improve a website’s rankings, these actions have to be completed by a human being! Perspective and values are core qualities that can really impact the way in which your SEO strategy and help you achieve the results you want.
Patience
Working with organic traffic and search engines is much more of a long and truly rewarding journey than the quick hits of pay-per-clicks. The rate at which search engines ‘crawl’ the internet looking for updates on websites can take as long as a couple of months. It can be frustrating to know you have done the work that should lead to results without knowing what the outcomes will be. Having the patience and the communication with your SEO team to understand the dates by which you should see progress and what to look out for, will be crucial for a successful SEO campaign.
Consistency
One of the true basics of SEO work that is underappreciated by many is consistency. Whilst initial results can be emboldening and exciting, they don’t equate to a job finished. No website will remain static in its presentation and offering to users, with the speed of browser updates and technological advancements keeping up with SEO is vital to maintain high ranking positions. Keeping SEO a priority for your business will ensure that you can quickly adapt to changes, even responding to new trends that will allow your site to reach new heights of rankability.
Development and Learning
Here is where we arrive at the final and one of the most important qualities that can be found in a good SEO – seeking out constant development and learning opportunities. The internet is an ever-changing environment that adapts to technological development and enables fast paced trend changes. By maintaining understanding of updates and developments, you can ensure that your SEO practices are up-to-date and relevant to the current state of the web.
At StudioHawk we strive for constant improvement in our services, seeking ways to develop our knowledge of this field and how we can find innovative and effective solutions for our customers. Attending conferences and training events is a core part of these efforts as our specialists share their knowledge base and learn from other experts in the industry. We also offer our customers opportunities to expand their own knowledge of search engine optimisation through our Hawk Academy package and our treasure trove of free resources found in our blog.
We can all do with a knowledge refresh from time to time and we hope that this back to basics article has done just that. For a deeper dive into the key terms of the world of SEO check out our comprehensive SEO Glossary to unpick the meaning of the jargon of this industry. Make sure to check back to the Studio Hawk blog where we will be covering more of the building blocks that make the best SEO campaigns.