Did you know that 75% of users never go past the first page of Google results? That means that if your website does not appear in the top results, you are missing out on a significant number of potential visitors. But how do you reach the positions every website craves?
That is where SEO comes in.
To define SEO quickly and simply, also known as organic search optimisation, it is a set of techniques whose aim is to improve the visibility of a website in the results of the SERP. Google is the best-known and most widely used search engine in the world, but we must not forget Bing or Yahoo.
SEO is a so-called free technique which, unlike paid advertising, focuses on organic search in depth, in other words the so-called “organic” results.
Today, having a solid SEO strategy has become indispensable in the digital world. Indeed, more than 90% of online experiences start with a simple search. By properly optimising its website to meet the criteria, a company seizes the chance to increase its visibility and also to attract qualified traffic.
In the long term, SEO also helps generate conversions while cutting advertising costs.
What is SEO?
The very principle of SEO is to improve the visibility of a website on search engines organically. It can also be called free search ranking, because the methods used are not paid to Google, unlike PPC (paid search). The goal of organic search work is to reach the top of the results.
Origin and meaning
The acronym SEO comes from English: Search Engine Optimization. It appeared in the 1990s with the arrival of search engines, and mainly Google in 1998.
SEO has a simple objective: to make a website relevant and accessible to the robots that will determine the place the site can occupy in the results. We must not forget the importance of the user on websites, because yes, a site must meet Google’s criteria, but also those of internet users: they are the ones who take action and convert.
SEO vs PPC (paid search)
To build an effective step-by-step SEO strategy, it is essential to understand the difference between SEO and PPC. These two levers are complementary, but completely different in their practices.
SEO refers to all the optimisations that have a direct impact on a site’s visibility. It covers the content, the structure of the site and its popularity through link building.
PPC (SEA, Search Engine Advertising), also called paid search, is simply advertising on search engines. The principle is simple: it consists in buying advertising space to appear at the top of the results through platforms such as Google Ads, the most widely used.
Where the two levers complement each other is in an overall strategy. SEO is a long-term strategy that offers lasting visibility, while PPC brings quick results but needs a significant budget to stay effective over time.
The goals of SEO
The goals of SEO are simple on paper: increase visibility, improve rankings and attract qualified traffic.
Increase visibility
The most viewed results are the first 3, which record practically all of the clicks. That is why the most important thing in optimisation and website creation is to appear on the first page of results. This increases visibility among a wide audience. Optimising a web page means paying attention to both the big and the small details.
It covers keywords, the structure of the site, and the quality and writing of content. SEO helps convey the topic of a site and of a web page, and so catch the attention of search engines.
Improve rankings
Visibility and ranking go hand in hand. To gain visibility, you need to improve your ranking in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), the result pages of search engines. They analyse all sites and rank them according to their relevance to a specific query.
When optimising a site, you need to think about all the possible techniques. That means content quality, site architecture and backlinks. With all of that, a site can stay competitive in the long run.
Attract qualified traffic
Having a lot of traffic on a website is good, but if visitors do not take action, it is not very useful. That is why we are always looking for quality traffic. Qualified traffic means visitors who are genuinely interested in the products or services on offer. That is why, when building an editorial strategy, we sometimes target keywords that generate less monthly volume, but more precise ones known as long-tail keywords. It is also essential to have good content that meets visitors’ needs.
The 3 pillars of SEO
Technical SEO
Technical optimisation covers all the aspects of a website that affect its accessibility and how it works for search engines. Many aspects are taken into account by search engines. That includes loading speed, which today is an essential criterion for the user experience.
Because yes, if a site takes too long to load, visitors leave as quickly as they arrived.
There is also another factor that is becoming more and more important: responsive design. It is about how well the site adapts to different devices (tablet, mobile or computer).
Another factor is crucial today for search engines, but above all for users: security. On a website, the HTTPS protocol is a must. It has become indispensable not only to protect users’ data and improve search rankings, but also to build an atmosphere of trust with visitors.
Good technical optimisation also ensures that robots can crawl and index the site properly. Crawling is the process by which search engines explore all the pages of a website. If, during a crawl, the robots run into too many technical problems (inaccessible pages, 404 errors, incorrect redirects), they may prevent pages from being indexed and therefore harm the visibility of the results.
On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO, or the semantic strategy, groups together all the optimisations carried out directly on a web page. Its goal is to improve the position in search engines.
In On-Page SEO optimisations the focus is mainly on the content of the page. Contrary to what people think, the content of a page is much broader than the text. It can include Hn tags to structure the content and tell search engines how the different sections of a page are organised.
Then there is the best-known element, meta data, more commonly called the meta title and meta description: this is the first thing a user sees of a web page, and it directly influences the click-through rate.
But be careful! Before even thinking about content, you need to set up a strategy of relevant keywords to try to rank as well as possible in the results. Identifying keywords lets you write fluent, natural content that meets users’ needs.
Quality content, well structured and optimised, not only improves the site’s ranking but also engages visitors, which reduces the bounce rate and increases the time spent on the page. This sends positive signals to search engines, strengthening the page’s position even further.
Off-Page SEO
Off-Page SEO covers all the actions carried out outside the site with the aim of improving its reputation and authority. Most of the time, when we talk about Off-Page we are talking about backlinks. That is, incoming links from other websites.
They are a trust signal that search engines take into account when positioning pages on the SERP.
Indeed, the more links a site receives, of varying strength, the more it is seen as credible and relevant in its field.
SEO, a must for businesses
Greater visibility
When we talk about SEO, at first glance we are talking about online visibility. What we are after with SEO is positions. It is with these positions that a site gains visibility.
The more a site is optimised for search engines, the more likely it is to appear at the top of search results and see its visibility grow strongly. By ranking among the first results, the site can have enough visibility to stand out from its competitors and capture a qualified audience.
A low-cost strategy in the long run
Unlike other forms of digital marketing, SEO support costs less in the long run. At the start, SEO requires an initial investment to develop a lasting and effective strategy. However, once well established, organic search keeps generating organic traffic without major costs, offering a much higher ROI.
An ROI that is far more likely to take off if you entrust your SEO to an agency.
Whereas acquisition channels such as PPC or social media advertising require continuous investment to maintain visibility.
Strengthen credibility and trust
When a site ranks for relevant queries among the first results of the SERP, it also strengthens its credibility and trust. This is because users tend to regard the first results as the most reliable and the most authoritative. A good SEO ranking therefore gives the impression that the company is a reference in its field and topic, something that will inevitably influence its buying decisions.
So, what is SEO?
SEO is a pillar of digital marketing that has become indispensable over time. It increases visibility, improves rankings and attracts qualified traffic. A company that does no SEO today cannot claim to have enough of a digital presence to survive.
SEO is a lever that is constantly evolving and requires you to keep constantly up to date with the latest trends and to adapt your strategy to these changes.
