Demystifying SEO: What does it all mean?

SEO is something that in recent years has become even more of a must-do from a marketing point of view. It’s an area of marketing that comes with a lot of jargon which can make it seem more complicated than it actually is. Allow me to simplify SEO for you by breaking down what it all means, avoiding jargon as much as possible. 

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation 

Let’s start at the beginning with what SEO is and how it works. To put it simply, SEO refers to a set of practices that you can implement to improve the quality and quantity of traffic to your website and web pages via search engines. SEO is unpaid and is therefore considered an organic marketing technique. 

Despite the name, ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ it’s as much about understanding people as machines. You need to understand what people search for online, what answers they’re seeking and how they’re asking for them. Think of how people act online much like a conversation. They’re more likely to ask a question like “What is SEO?” than to simply search “SEO”, so consider the questions your audience need to have answered and what answer you can give them. 

There are two types of SEO. Black hat SEO and white hat SEO. 

Black hat SEO refers to risky techniques that attempt to fool and manipulate search engines, sending people to your page who shouldn’t necessarily be there. It has ethical implications and should be avoided at all costs!

White hat is about using SEO techniques and best practices that abide by search engine rules and also provides value to the audience. 

SERP: Search Engine Results Page

Another acronym that’s used a lot when talking about search engines and organic marketing. This is the page someone sees after conducting a search.

The first result on Google SERP gets a whopping average click-through of 28.5% (down to 2.5% by the 10th result). By comparison, paid Google Ads have an average click-through rate of between 7 and 2% which really shows the potential value of SEO and organic content marketing to your business.
(Source: https://www.highervisibility.com/blog/organic-vs-paid-search-statistics/)

Let’s now quickly go through some of the key phrases you’ll see when researching SEO. 

1. Meta titles and meta descriptions

   These are tags that sit within the HTML of a web page. They are not seen when you’re on the page but are seen by search engines. 
   
   A meta title and meta description can inform the preview that someone sees on the SERP. 
   

   For Google, a meta title should be 60 characters in length, and a meta description 160 characters in length. 
   

   You’ll want to integrate some keywords into these. 
   

2. Keywords

   A keyword is a search term that you integrate into the body of your web page, or into the meta elements. These don’t need to be one word, quite often they’re a phrase. 
   

   You’ll hear people talk about ranking for certain keywords. Quite simply, this is where your website sits compared to other websites for that keyword, so how far down the search engine results page your webpage sits. 
   

3. Long-tail keywords

   Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific keyword phrases. They’re more likely to be used by customers who are using voice search, e.g on Amazon Alexa or Google Home, or are close to the point of purchase. 
   

   Let’s take an example. If you’re a coffee distributor the keyword “coffee” will be hugely competitive. It’s unlikely that you would be able to rank for that keyword vs. huge multinational coffee brands. However, say you’re a UK based coffee distributor and you focus on sustainability, you might consider a long-tail keyword like “UK based sustainable and ethical coffee roasters” or go even more granular with, “Bristol-based ethical coffee distributors”. The quantity of people searching will be much lower but the leads gained will be more likely to convert. 

A word of warning

Optimising your website for SEO won’t last forever. Search terms will change, how search engines rank websites will change, and your customers will change. So make sure that SEO is something you review regularly. 

We cover organic marketing methods, paid ads and a whole lot more inside my group programme, Fully Booked Bootcamp. The doors open again in September 2021, register here to receive an exclusive early bird offer. (link to www.nikihutchison.com/fully-booked-bootcamp)