What is SEO? | Your Express Guide

Our Express Guide – What is SEO?

Published 28/10/24 by Chris Glynn (Director of Digital Landscope)

Welcome to our SEO news blog. And this week we have created an express guide to answer a huge question that is asked by many. It’s something we get asked, it’s something that we know has been misunderstood and this means we see huge brands that are unable to leverage SEO as a digital marketing channel. This is an introductory guide into search engine optimisation and we aim to answer the question, “what is SEO?”. Before we get started, quick heads up – we are providing businesses like yours with a free SEO discovery pdf providing insights into your current performance on Google search. If this is something of interest, hit the button below to get that underway!

What Does SEO Stand For?

SEO stands for “search engine optimisation.” It’s all about tweaking your brand presence on your website and around the web to attract more visitors who use search engines like Google and Microsoft Bing. You could be missing out on business when people look for the products you offer, the services you provide, or information on topics where you have knowledge or experience. SEO needs to be part of your marketing activities, as there are users searching for the keywords that your business offers this very second. It’s time to define what keywords your users are searching for and the search potential in your territory.

PPC vs SEO

PPC stands for pay-per-click and is a form of advertising on Google search and other search engines. Google Ads is an example of a PPC platform and is a different animal to SEO, although focused around keywords like SEO, you pay for each click. We are Google Ads experts, so check out our Google Ads Services page for an overview of our services.

We are often asked for advice on whether a business should go for SEO or PPC or both. SEO can take longer to pay off due to crawl budget and other aspects, so cracking on with PPC whilst your SEO is building strength is a smart idea. Google Ads we would say is for experts due to the ever changing landscape, and we do hear of some agencies leaving their campaigns on an AI-based campaign settings, where the client isn’t getting the best cost-per-conversion that they could be getting, so something to bear in mind when choosing your PPC agency. We would recommend both SEO and PPC strategies as long as the industry allows, as both are fantastic forms of digital marketing and you’ll be tapping into thousands of monthly users that your business could really benefit from.

What Types of SEO Are There?

Technical SEO

Indexability and technical areas are crucial and if overlooked, there is little point in optimising other areas. Google Search Console and Screaming Frog are great tools for assessing technical aspects and can help with fixes.

On-Page SEO

This refers to your content, customer experience, how the user engages with the content. This also includes your keyword placements and how your copy is interpreted. A few important areas to optimise for Google are:

Title tags
Meta data
Header tags
Alt texts

If we think about a blog post for example. That page should be targeting keywords, it shouldn’t just be a news update and that needs to be considered when creating any content. A quick DL tip for your next blog post – think about your heading structure and where you are implementing keywords, make sure you don’t keyword stuff.

Off-Page SEO

Arguably one that is viewed as the most msytical types of SEO out there. It’s because it involves building your brand outwith your website. Link building for example, this is a delicate practice that needs done in the correct way, applying low quality irrelevant links, even if they are directories, will end up harming the website and it’s domain rating. This is why we suggest to avoid the freelancer websites where you see 1000 links for £5 – it’s just not worth it and you could be damaging your site for years to come by doing this.

Building a wider authority around the web, will help you to build this topical and domain authority that we know is an important ranking signal.

What Does a SERP mean?

This stands for Search Engine Results Page – you’ll see this referenced in SEO tools. It’s important to understand the type of SERP that you are targeting. In 2024 we have seen AI Overviews come in for millions of queries, this means that SEO’s need to adapt to these updates – it can be used to your advantage…

How Does SEO Work?

Content is king. If you have poor content, but a great domain rating, this won’t make anywhere near as much impact.

It is complex, we aren’t going to lie, but by breaking your strategy down into addressing all core areas of SEO (on-page, off-page, technical), you can start to plan out each area that makes these 3 SEO types up. Backlinks for example, you can aim to add X amount per month all with X domain rating or higher. Only by addressing all important areas of SEO can you build a bulletproof strategy, you also need to keep up to date with the latest Google Updates 😉

By following the guide of pushing all important areas of SEO and following the methodology of E-E-A-T you can keep yourself right.

E-E-A-T means Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. While it’s not a direct ranking factor, it plays a role in Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (SQEG). These guidelines help Google’s Quality Raters figure out if the search results are providing high-quality and relevant info.

Any More Questions?

SEO can be confusing with all the acronyms and jargon flying about. We are always happy to have a chat to businesses to help them navigate this area of digital marketing.

Thanks for reading our express guide to “what is SEO”. We hope this has come in useful and we welcome follow up questions, so feel free to drop us a line or book your free SEO discovery. More in this User Guide Series coming soon.

Let’s have a great month!

Chris G