Search engine optimization: the guide

As part of a site creation or during a redesign, optimize SEO is essential to be visible on the web. You may have the most beautiful site in the world, without SEO, you will be drowned among the 2.2 million queries made on Google. Thus, propelling your site on the first page of Google can be the key to attract quality prospects to visit your site. In this, SEO is a decisive element that our SEO agency decrypts during this guide.

What is SEO?

Definition of SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the acronym that stands for "Search Engine Optimization" in French. It is a set of techniques to position a website in search engines to make it visible to users.

SEO is also known as "SEO", which increases the quality and quantity of website traffic through non-paying organic search results.

SEO VS SEA

Unlike the SEA (Search Engine Advertising), the organic results are obtained through a referencing without advertisements whose objective is to answer the request of Internet users within the pages of search results (SERP). SEO therefore applies to search engines but also refers to the needs of Internet users. For that, it is important to understand the expectations of the users when they type a request on Google in order to bring him the best possible answer.

Google is the most used search engine with 94% market share in France and 92% in the world, it is better to focus on the latter to build an SEO strategy.

Google market share in France

Motor market share in France (Source: StatCounter, WebRankInfo infographic )

In a global way, the SEO makes it possible to reinforce and improve the visibility of a site to gain positions on general and more specific queries sought by the Internet users. The ultimate goal of SEO is to bring your site to the best search results pages (SERPs) to meet a user's need and achieve your traffic and conversion goals.

As a pillar of inbound marketing, SEO's mission is to attract visitors to your website. This is the main lever of traffic acquisition of a site. According to the Brightedge study, 51% of website traffic comes on average from the organic channel, far ahead of social networks which represent only 5%.

SEO traffic source

Source: Search Engine Land

So, SEO is often one of the main issues in terms of traffic acquisition and therefore leads for companies, so much so that it works. To better understand the stakes and the functioning of SEO, it is important to revisit its history.

What is the SEO for?

SEO is a long-term strategy that can increase and develop its visibility on the web.

How does SEO work?

When Google's robots explore your site, it takes into account 3 families of criteria that are important to remember.

The 3 pillars of SEO: technology, content, popularity (linking)

1. The technical optimization (Technical SEO) of the website

The technical aspect is the skeleton of your site. This is the first thing Google will see from your site. In order for Google to see your site, it needs to index it to its database. To verify this, you can type the command "site:" in the Google search box followed by your domain name.

2. The quality and quantity of content

The content of a site is essential to position yourself on the SERP and affirm your expertise in the eyes of Internet users. Quality, unique, well-structured and attractive content is likely to be better positioned than lambda content.

3. The popularity of the website

The popularity of a website is particularly justified by the number of links it receives from other websites. More sites are citing you or sending your users back to your website and Google will give you more interest.

Thanks to its robots, Google indexes the web pages, analyzes them according to the 3 families of criteria, then ranks them in order of relevance for each request made by the Internet users. The goal of Google is to provide the user for a given keyword the most relevant search results.

The more actions you take to improve the 3 families of criteria (popularity, content, technical SEO), the more your website will be visible in Google on your strategic keywords. Work in this way, natural referencing makes sense.

Why SEO is important?

According to a study by GE Capital Retail Bank, 81% of Internet users go through Google to search for a product before going to the point of sale. This shows that the act of purchase is now preceded by an active search in Google, either to learn about the characteristics of the product or to compare prices.

A properly optimized site will be considered "SEO friendly" by Google and will therefore see its favored positioning in the search engine results. The goal is to position yourself on the first page and eventually achieve the best possible positioning. You should know that 91% of clicks on Google are on the first page of which 70% - 77% of clicks are on the first 5 results.

So there is no secret to make visible your website and your strategic pages, you must work on your SEO. The challenge is both quantitative and qualitative: SEO must bring you qualified traffic. It responds to a marketing issue that allows you to organize the meeting between your offer and the demand to encourage the consumer who uses more and more internet to inform himself and realize his act of purchase.

An effective SEO strategy takes into account different SEO criteria and allows your prospects to find you on the web, better position you and increase your organic traffic. In other words, SEO can earn you customers.

do not hesitate to contact us if you want advice on your SEO strategy.

This is Hridoy. I am a digital marketer. Loves to write something that added value for my readers.