## SEO: A Comprehensive Guide to Search Engine Optimization
### What is SEO?
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility in Google, Microsoft Bing, and other search engines whenever people search for:
* Products you sell
* Services you provide
* Information on topics in which you have deep expertise and/or experience
The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to be found and clicked on. Ultimately, the goal of search engine optimization is to help attract website visitors who will become customers, clients, or an audience that keeps coming back.
### SEO vs. SEM and PPC
SEO is one part of a larger marketing strategy called search engine marketing (SEM). SEM includes both organic search (SEO) and paid search (PPC).
* **SEO:** Driving organic traffic from search engines
* **SEM:** Driving organic and paid traffic from search engines
Some people use SEM interchangeably with PPC, which is not accurate. PPC is a type of digital marketing where advertisers are charged whenever one of their ads gets clicked on.
### Why is SEO Important?
SEO is a critical marketing channel because:
* **Organic search delivers 53% of all website traffic.**
* **SEO drives real business results for brands, businesses, and organizations of all sizes.**
* **Search is often the primary source of traffic for websites.**
* **Good SEO work is sustainable.**
### Types of SEO
There are three types of SEO:
* **Technical SEO:** Optimizing the technical aspects of a website
* **On-site SEO:** Optimizing the content on a website for users and search engines
* **Off-site SEO:** Creating brand assets and doing things that will ultimately enhance brand awareness and recognition (i.e., demonstrating and growing its expertise, authority, and trustworthiness) and demand generation
### SEO Specialties
SEO also has a few subgenres, each requiring additional tactics and presenting different challenges:
* **Ecommerce SEO:** Optimizing category pages, product pages, faceted navigation, internal linking structures, product images, product reviews, schema, and more.
* **Enterprise SEO:** SEO on a massive scale, typically dealing with websites with 1 million+ pages.
* **International SEO:** Global SEO for international businesses, doing SEO for multiregional or multilingual websites, and optimizing for international search engines such as Baidu or Naver.
* **Local SEO:** Optimizing websites for visibility in local organic search engine results by managing and obtaining reviews and business listings, among others.
* **News SEO:** Optimizing websites for speed and visibility in Google Discover, Google’s Top Stories, and Google News.
### How Does SEO Work?
SEO works through a combination of:
* **People:** The person or team responsible for doing or ensuring that the strategic, tactical, and operational SEO work is completed.
* **Processes:** The actions taken to make the work more efficient.
* **Technology:** The platforms and tools used.
* **Activities:** The end product, or output.
### Six Critical Areas of SEO
1. **Understanding how search engines work:** Crawling, rendering, indexing, and ranking
2. **Researching:** Audience research, keyword research, competitor research, brand/business/client research, website research, and SERP analysis
3. **Planning:** Setting goals, defining KPIs and metrics, deciding how projects will be created and implemented, coordinating and communicating with stakeholders, choosing and implementing tools/technology, hiring and training a team, and setting a budget
4. **Creating and implementing:** Creating new content, recommending or implementing changes or enhancements to existing pages, and removing old, outdated, or low-quality content
5. **Monitoring and maintaining:** Monitoring for issues, fixing issues, and making improvements
6. **Analyzing, assessing, and reporting on performance:** Collecting performance data, reporting on progress, and making data-driven decisions
### How to Learn SEO
To learn SEO, you can:
* **Read or watch the latest SEO news, research, best practices, and other developments.**
* **Attend SEO events.**
* **Experiment with SEO on your own website.**
* **Take SEO courses or training programs.**
* **Follow SEO experts on social media.**
* **Join SEO groups or forums.**
### Conclusion
SEO is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring, maintenance, and improvement. By following the principles and best practices outlined in this guide, you can improve your website’s visibility in search results and attract more organic traffic.