What is SEO? An Introduction to SEO Basics

Segment these by platform to see whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, or another tool performs best and adapt your strategy accordingly. In STAT, go to your project view and filter for Top 10 rankings in your keyword set. Generative engines don’t copy and paste responses from a database. They create new responses each time based on patterns in the data. They may reference the same page across multiple searches, but their language is generated on the fly.

• Knowing how search engines discover, evaluate, and rank web content allows you to make informed decisions about optimizing your website and crafting your SEO strategy.
• Half of the websites linked out to authority sites (like Oxford University).
• User experience (UX) is how visitors interact with and perceive your site (its design, usability, etc.)—and Google values a positive user experience.
• High-quality backlinks help your SEO rankings, while poor-quality backlinks can hurt your site’s credibility.
• They aim to generate results that create revenue for your business.

Start with SEO keyword research

“This seems to be true even if the websites that are selling backlinks have Google rankings themselves,” Rubright says. However, that’s possible only if you rank for the keywords those people would use when searching. And that’s even if your website appeared at the top of the search results.

But the traffic they do bring is far more likely to convert into actual customers. Instead, fewer people are clicking through to websites for informational queries. AI tools, AI Overviews, and other SERP features have reduced the available clicks (and therefore traffic) you can drive to your site. Using simple language makes your content easier for your users to understand. And if your users can understand it better, they’re more likely to engage with it. Instead, you need to make strategic updates if you want to see a measurable impact on your traffic and rankings.

Here’s a beginner-friendly overview of algorithmic and manual search penalties, their differences, common issues that trigger them, and solutions for recovery. It’s also important to note that manual penalties are communicated through Google Search Console, an essential tool for website owners. High-quality content establishes your website as a credible source of information, building trust with your audience and authority within your industry. This credibility not only encourages visitors to return to your site but also makes other websites more likely to link to your content, further boosting your SEO efforts.

Improve Your Site’s User Experience

Set up Google Analytics 4 (or an alternative analytics tool) to track SEO metrics like organic traffic and conversions. When you find keywords you want to target, save them with the “+” button. With a Semrush subscription or trial, you can get a personal keyword difficulty score (PKD%) for each keyword. This measures ranking difficulty for your domain in particular.

Search for your “money” pages by setting the filter to “Target page” and entering a relevant keyword phrase. Technical SEO is a method of optimizing a website’s technical elements to improve its performance in SERPs or Search Engine Result Pages. The higher (or more frequently) a website is displayed in a search engine list (like Google), the more visitors it is expected to receive. Now we know what is SEO, let us have a closer look at SEO Search SEO Anomaly optimization in depth. Not to mention, these agencies can also damage your reputation with Google — the world’s biggest search engine. As a reference, if you’re partnering with one of the best SEO companies in the world, expect to see prices higher than the industry average.

Simply enter the URLs of top-ranking pages and get the keywords that they rank for. The keywords will indicate subtopics that you should consider including in your content. Use this SEO checklist to improve your website’s search engine rankings.

SEO Best Practices From Selected Industry Specialists

With that in mind, we hope you have a clearer vision of how to improve your website’s SEO efforts. However, make sure the keyword placement sounds natural and avoid stuffing unnecessary words. Meanwhile, when a user searches for “buy a JBL Bluetooth speaker” Google instantly shows eCommerce pages as the top results. When a user searches for “how to pair a JBL Bluetooth speaker” Google will present results from pages or videos that contain instructions of some kind. You may need to hire someone or outsource to freelancers or an agency.