What is SEO?

All about SEO (Search Engine Optimization): what it is, main techniques, tools, how to get started… Access now and reach the top of Google!

You have certainly heard of Google, right?

So, every time a page is published on the internet, Google (and other search engines) seek to index it so that it is found by those looking for it.

But there are thousands of pages being published every day on the internet and that means there is a lot of competition. So how do you get one page ahead of others?

That’s where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes in. As the translation itself suggests, SEO is an optimization for search engines, that is, a set of techniques that influence search engine algorithms to define the ranking of a page for a particular keyword that has been searched.

On this page you can study everything about SEO, from basic to advanced. At the top there is an index to find the desired chapter.

But, if you want to read from the beginning, there is nothing more fair than starting with history.

History of SEO

In 1993 Architext appeared, considered the first Internet search engine (which became Excite). With success, new similar sites have emerged, such as Yahoo! (1994) and, finally, Google (1997).

Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google was created to be a large-scale search tool and “organize the internet”, using the link structure to determine the relevance of pages according to the user’s search.

The idea of ​​using the links received by a page is inspired by academia: an article or scientific research that receives citations from magazines and articles by other authors, especially those with a better reputation, are considered more reliable.

Following this logic, the revolutionary Pagerank was developed: a metric from 0 to 10, created by Larry Page and calculated by the quantity and quality of links received.

In December 1997, PC Magazine wrote that Google “has an unusual ability to return extremely relevant results” and ranked it as the top search engine on the “Top 100 Web Sites”.

According to this Search Engine Land post, it was also in 1997 that the term SEO was first mentioned in the book Net-Results, written by Bob Heyman, Leland Harden, and Rick Bruner. According to them, the term came up in a discussion about the positioning of Jefferson Starship’s website on search engines.

The optimization of sites for search engines is done to reach the user delivering the answer they are looking for with the ideal format

By including more keywords with the name of the band in the content of the site, they noticed that the site returned to the first position. With that, Bob and Leland called this technique Search Engine Optimization.

Until the popularization of Google, SEO actions were limited to sending the site to search engines and on-page optimizations, such as the inclusion (and repetition) of keywords in the content.

With the popularization of Google, SEO professionals began to look more at the link metric, very important for the search engine.

As a result, link building strategies emerged, exploring both legitimate techniques for obtaining links and more obscure practices, focused only on improving the evaluation of the site, regardless of quality.

These ranking manipulation techniques became known as Black Hat SEO.

It was also in 2000 that the Google Toolbar was launched for Internet Explorer, which featured the websites Pagerank, from 0 to 10. This made link building techniques more measurable and popular.

After years of website optimization, link generation, and a lot of manipulation of the ranking with Black Hat techniques, in 2003 the first major update of its algorithm, called Florida, was launched, which changed SEO forever.

According to an article written at the time by Gord Hotchkiss, Florida was a filter applied in commercially based searches, identified by the use of specific keywords. It cleaned up many of the sites that previously filled the ranking (in several tests, the tool removed 50 to 98% of the sites listed previously).

The target was affiliate sites, with domains that contained keywords and a network of links pointing to the home page of the site.

When launched, the update sparked outrage among merchants, whose affiliate sites were their primary source of traffic (and sales).

Despite the impact of the update, the results were positive, with higher quality sites being launched, retailers investing more on the site itself and improving the search results.

This was just the first update from Google. In the following years new updates were launched, always with the objective of reducing the illegitimate results presented by the search engine and improving the quality of searches.

Since then, in each update launched by Google, there are also several speculations about the death of SEO. However, the optimization of sites for search engines goes far beyond questionable techniques that aim to manipulate the results displayed by Google, which are penalized and extinguished with the updates.

The optimization of sites for search engines is done to reach the user by delivering the answer they are looking for in the ideal format, offering the best possible experience in the brand environment and following the guidelines of the search engines.

The most popular search engine on the planet is Google, and that’s the next chapter about it.

How Google works

Have you ever stopped to think about everything that happens between typing your search and clicking on Google results?

What happens in this period is the secret of the search giant’s success. The quality and speed of its classification made the company the largest search engine in the world, massacring competitors, even with the added participation.

To get an idea, the domain is so big that in the United States there is the verb to google, which is used in phrases like “ He googled you ” (he searched for you on Google).

Understand better the work behind the most accessed results pages in the world.

Tracking, indexing and displaying results

These are the 3 main research return processes.

Crawl is the process in which Google’s robots (called Googlebot) identify the pages to send to the search engine index. For this, the robots use the algorithms to define the prioritization and the indexing frequency of the pages.

The process starts with the URLs generated from previous tracking processes and enriched with the sitemaps. As you visit the pages, Googlebot identifies existing links and also includes them in the crawl list. New sites, changes and deletions are detected and updated during the process.

Then there is indexing, in which Googlebot processes each of the crawled pages to include them in its index. Here, information such as page content, date of publication, region of publication, title, description and structured data are indexed.

Thus, when a query occurs, a search for matching pages is done in the Google index, displaying the most relevant results. And it is not a relevance based on guesswork: it is determined by more than 200 ranking factors.

In the search process there is also the automatic filling of Google and the classic “Did you mean …”, made to save time, correct errors and assist in the search.

Algorithm and updates

Even if you’ve never worked with SEO, you’ve probably heard of Google’s algorithm or social networks like Facebook and Instagram.

These algorithms are responsible for filtering what is most relevant to you and not just throwing all the content available on the page, without any sorting criteria.

Google uses more than 200 ranking factors to define the order of the pages presented to the user for each search performed.

To improve more and more the information presented to the user and its relevance, this algorithm is constantly updated. Know the main ones and their impacts.

Google Services for SEO Specialist

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, which means “search engine optimization.” SEO optimization promotes the site in search engines, helping to find new customers or grow your brand. Every SEO specialist should know which promotion strategy will work better in each particular case, depending on the niche, direction and many other factors.

The essence of the work of an SEO specialist is as follows:

• Analysis of the structure, technical component and content of the site;
• Semantic core collection and clustering;
• Controlling and creating content;
• Management of online advertising campaigns;
• Providing technical advice on website development;
• Help in learning search engine optimization.

At the moment, many tools are presented that can help web professionals solve various problems. But there is one of the companies that provides not only high-quality services for content marketers, but also free ones.

What useful services can Google offer?

Most people perceive Google only as a search giant, and not as a powerful advertising platform. Many do not use these services due to the fact that they do not know anything about them. But if you are serious about your business, you can’t go past CEO tools. However, their setup can take a lot of time and this is only part of the work – SEO specialists will cope with this much faster and more competent. The services from the list below will be useful for both a novice and a content marketing professional.

1. Google search console. This is one of the most popular services used by webmasters. Here you can find out what condition your site is in. This will give you an understanding of where changes need to be implemented and errors resolved. Proper use of this service will entail more clicks to your site from search engines. Of course, in order to get the most out of this service, it will take some time. But this will not be a waste of your resource – the ability to quickly analyze reports and correctly apply them more than once will help every SEO specialist.
2. Google Keyword Panel. The tool will help each master save time for finding the necessary keys. Indeed, it often happens that those words on the basis of which they plan to write an article turn out to be highly competitive or too low-frequency. But thanks to the Google Keyword Panel, you can select the keys of the right frequency for the desired niche. As a result, creating quality content is much easier. And this is real thanks to the Google service for SEO.
3. Google analytics one of the most powerful tools for Internet analytics. Thanks to this service, each specialist will be able to find out very important information, such as:
   1. Report not only on new visitors but also on those that return to the site;
   2. Where people come from to the site;
   3. How much time people spend on your site;
   4. Failure Report.
4. Google trends tool is literally an idea generator for creating new content. He also helps to analyze the popularity and prospects of the topic for creating an article. Google Trends is the place where content marketers come to before writing a new article for the site. Indeed, thanks to the service from Google SEO, a specialist will be able to track the latest trends.
5. Google alert. It allows you to study the frequency of mentioning phrases in a search engine. This tool is relevant, first of all, for business – it’s very convenient to monitor the popularity of a brand, product, or service on the Internet or find out how often the names of executives or the names of competitors are mentioned on the Internet. To do this, you just need to configure the service once, and in the future reports on the specified keys will be sent to e-mail.
6. Google my business must-have tool for those doing business. You only need to register with Google My Business and when people search the Internet for something that the company can offer, according to the chosen words, the company will appear in the search results. This will be especially useful in large cities, for example, with SEO-optimization and website promotion in Moscow. Therefore, if you are engaged in business, but still do not use this service, then you should quickly register here to receive free advertising for your company. But it’s best to turn to specialists who will correctly set up the service and help grow your brand and increase sales.