Introduction to SEO

Discover the Building Blocks of Search Engine Optimisation

Once upon a time, people in pursuit of knowledge acquired new information through either word of mouth or by haunting the halls of local libraries, poring over encyclopaedias, academic journals, and microfilms of historical newspapers. Local business information was found within Yellow Pages, a directory as hefty as a brick, both in size and weight. Travel information was sourced from brochures and consultations with travel agents. Governments and NGOs disseminated information via fact sheets and bulletins at city halls, government offices and community centres. 

But all that changed with the advent and proliferation of the internet, and it’s arguably essential linchpin, the search engine. It unlocked a large repository of information, accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Businesses, government agencies, and institutions of learning could now effortlessly share information via websites to a larger audience, transforming how information was sought, shared and consumed. 

However, such a central way to access information introduces new challenges. Generally, organisations listed at the top of the search engines get the most eyeballs, which in the world of business, translates to more sales, more enquiries, and ultimately more business. 

This urgency gave rise to a field of expertise, called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) focused on improving a website’s ranking on the search engine results pages.

In this article, we’ll provide an introduction to SEO, delving into topics like how search engines work, key elements of SEO, as well as common mistakes, how to avoid them and the consequences of utilising unapproved SEO practices aka Black Hat SEO.

How Do Search Engines Work

The best way to understand how search engines work is to think of the internet as a gigantic library, with each website as a book in that library. 

Search engines are like the librarians who know where every book is located. When you ask for information on a specific topic, as you would on a Google search, the librarian—i.e., the search engine— sorts through the entire library, through a process called crawling, and provides relevant books based on the searchers query, arranged in a list from most relevant to least relevant, also known as ranking. 

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, as it is more commonly known, refers to techniques that help a website increase in ranking. It encompasses aspects like improving the quality and volume of content, making adjustments to text, images, videos as well as more deeply embedded elements such as title tags, robot tags, and URL slugs.

With the most optimal adjustments, a website will improve its ranking on search engine results pages, and attract a higher volume and quality of relevant traffic.

Importance of SEO in Digital Marketing

Internet connectivity is central to many aspects of modern living. It made our lives more convenient and connected, and is destined to shape our future in myriad ways. According to Statista, as of October 2023, there were 5.3 billion internet users worldwide, which amounts to over 65.7 percent of the global population. 

Given that a significant portion of online activity begins with a search query, securing a top spot can spell the difference between visibility and obscurity, as well as between stagnation and growth. The following points shed light on the importance of SEO in digital marketing. 

Cost-Effectiveness

Businesses and organisations come in all shapes and sizes, each with varying financial wherewithal. What is considered economical for one business might be a considerable expense for another. Compared to paid channels such as social media ads, SEO is more cost-effective. 

For example, paid acquisition channels require budgets for elements such as design, creatives, testing, copywriting. And this excludes what you need to spend to run ads. SEO, meanwhile, generally requires spending on the website and in content creation. 

It’s also worth noting that with SEO, you can still see results even when you stop or reduce spending. But the same cannot be said for paid ads. Read our guide for strategies on how you can improve your marketing return on investment.

SEO Builds Trust and Credibility

Ranking at the top of the search engine results pages (SERP) is like an endorsement. Consumers are more likely to perceive a brand or organisation as credible and trustworthy if its website appears high on the SERPs. The general sentiment is, “If Google has ranked this website on the first page of Google, it is most likely to be good and/or relevant, and if Google doesn’t rank a website on the SERP, it is more likely to be bad and/or irrelevant”

This perception can positively affect other areas beneficial to a business, such as boosting brand awareness and brand recognition. As the saying goes “out of sight, out of mind”, the more times a business appears in the SERPS, the higher the chances that a user will pick them over a lesser known competitor. 

SEO Provides a Competitive Edge

Did you know that a staggering 90% of web traffic flows to the results listed on the first page of a Google search? In today’s digital marketplace, where attention equates to revenue, SEO isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity for staying competitive.

Businesses in all industries are vying for those coveted top spots. Why? Because they understand that securing a higher position on search engines like Google, translates to more clicks which, in turn, boosts the potential for generating revenue. 

It is for this reason that savvy businesses invest in comprehensive SEO and content strategies to not only keep pace with the competition but to leave them in the, well, digital dust. 

SEO Enhances User Experience

SEO is about more than fine-tuning the technical minutiae to make a website more appealing to search engines; it’s also focused on enhancing the user experience. By crafting a well-structured, uncluttered website replete with high-quality content, a business simplifies navigation for users, making it easier for them to find what they’re looking for.

Not only does this improved user experience encourage potential customers to stay on the site, but it also entices them to return—unlocking additional opportunities for generating revenue. 

It’s worth noting that search engines factor in user experience when ranking websites. After all, if Google serves irrelevant search results, they’ll likely lose their user base over time, since search engine users will likely attempt to try using other search engines instead. And one of the best indicators of post search success (or a lack of) would be user behaviour. But of course, that’s not all, since search engines such as Google rely on innumerable signals to determine who ranks first on the SERPs.

Key Elements of SEO

Employing an effective SEO strategy requires an understanding of its various components. Rather than being a one-dimensional strategy, it encompasses various elements, chiefly, On-page SEO, Off-page SEO and Technical SEO. Each contributes to a website’s visibility and ranking.

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO involves optimising various elements on your website to align with the search queries used by your target audience when searching for the products or services you offer. This includes conducting keyword research to understand the language your audience uses and incorporating these keywords into relevant web pages. 

Besides optimising select elements, On-page SEO also focuses on creating high-quality content that is not only informative but also valuable to the reader. Beyond content, On-Page SEO includes additional elements such as crafting compelling meta descriptions and title tags, optimising URLs for search engines, incorporating internal links, and adding descriptive alt text to images, among other factors.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO, on the other hand, encompasses actions taken outside the website to improve visibility on SERPS. To put it simply, it’s about sending a signal to search engines that your website is credible and authoritative by getting other sources on the internet to vouch for the quality of your content. 

There are several ways to achieve this, which includes, but is not limited to, gaining inbound links naturally, encouraging customers to leave reviews, content marketing (e.g podcasting, guest posting, social media and PR), and attending events to drive interest in your business. 

It’s very important to note that Google opposes any buying or selling of links to manipulate search ranks. More to the point, Google does not condone offering money in exchange for positive reviews. Violating these policies will result in your website ranking lower on the SERPS or not appearing at all. 

Technical SEO

True to its name, Technical SEO involves a range of technical backend optimisations to ensure that a website can be effectively crawled, indexed, and understood by search engines. To put it simply, it deals with a website’s underlying structure. 

Some of the optimisations under the Technical SEO domain include, managing 301 and 302 redirects properly to ensure that users and search engines are directed to the correct pages, creating SEO-friendly URLS, improving the load time of the website by optimising images, creating an XML sitemaps to guide search engine boats and resolve crawl errors, and more. 

Common SEO Mistakes

SEO is an ever-changing landscape, but at the end of the day, the fundamentals goals remain the same: to improve visibility, drive quality traffic and to foster meaningful user engagement. With that said, it’s easy to fall into traps that can have a negative impact on a website’s search engine performance. Below are some common SEO mistakes and how to avoid them. 

Thin Content

Google prides itself for providing a search engine that caters to the needs of the user. This is reflected in its mission, which is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useless. 

What happens when the information provided by a website runs contrary to that mission? It gets demoted, and this is more likely to happen to thin content.

Thin content can be described as content that provides little to no value to a reader. It is often generated when businesses place more emphasis on hitting keywords and keeping up with competitors rather than providing value to the reader. 

Ignoring Technical Aspects of SEO

On-page SEO, Off-page SEO and Technical SEO each have their role to play in contributing to a website’s visibility and ranking. However, some elements, chiefly On-page SEO and Off-page SEO, are easier for the layperson to implement. Because of this, some ignore the Technical aspect of SEO, in hopes that their efforts in On-page SEO and Off-page SEO, will be enough to offset the need for Technical SEO. 

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Ignoring these underlying technical elements could hamper all your efforts to boost your website, especially since technical SEO plays an important role in helping search engines understand what a website is about.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing involves excessively padding a website with keywords—often unnaturally and out of context—to manipulate search results.

It used to be a common practice back in the late 1990s and early 2000s when search engines relied on keyword density and term frequency to judge relevance. 

Several updates soon came after that reduced the effectiveness of this strategy, most notably, the Panda update in 2016. This update was developed in response to the proliferation of content farms, responsible for churning out large volumes of low quality content. 

Today, keyword stuffing is considered to be a Black Hat SEO tactic, and can result in a downgrade in ranking or worse, removal from search results. 

Link Spam

Link spam encompasses any link strategies that are targeted towards manipulating search results. It includes exchanging money for links, link exchanges (link to me and I’ll link to you), advertorials or native advertising involving payment for articles with links, forum comments with links and more. 

Yes, buying and selling links is an integral part of the web economy, and Google recognises this, which is why a website is not in violation of Google’s policy when it qualifies the links with no follow or sponsored tags. 

Lack of Analytics and Reporting

Often, beginners new to SEO don’t give as much attention to analytics as they should. However, without tracking key performance indicators, assessing traffic patterns and measuring conversion rates, it’s difficult to assess the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. 

By keeping track of essential analytics, you gain invaluable insights that can help you fine tune your SEO. For example, if a particular keyword isn’t driving traffic as expected, analytics will reveal this, allowing you to pivot and focus on more fruitful areas. 

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is another common SEO mistake that can have far-reaching consequences on a site’s search engine performance. To put it simply, duplicate content refers to content that is similar or an exact copy of what is found on other pages on the same website or other websites. 

This can happen for several reasons; sometimes a business might write a similar answer in response to different questions, albeit accurate, sometimes a product with the same description can be featured on two different pages. Regardless of the reason, when multiple pages have the same content, search engines have trouble deciding which is most relevant to the search query, resulting in lowered ranking for all duplicate instances. 

SEO experts can help you diagnose and address such problems, be it through the use of canonical tags, unique meta descriptions or targeted internal linking. 

Future of SEO

Against the backdrop of continual updates, emerging technologies and shifting consumer behaviours, staying ahead requires a finger on the pulse of industry trends. From the integration of generative AI to changes in search engine algorithms, we’ve scoured the web to find some of the most significant technologies and strategies poised to redefine how we think about SEO. 

Voice and Mobile Search

An increasing number of the global online population are using voice search on mobile. 

As it becomes more integrated into our daily lives, organisations that optimise their content in response to this trend will find themselves with a distinct competitive advantage. 

This requires a shift in keyword strategy, with a focus on long-tail keywords and natural language. 

Additionally, given that most voice searches occur on mobile devices, it becomes essential to ensure that websites are mobile-friendly.

Visual Search

Visual search is rapidly gaining traction as a compelling alternative to text-based queries. According to research, nearly 62% of millennials prefer visual search capabilities over any other new technology. 

Unlike traditional text-based searches, visual search relies on images, graphics, or even real-world objects as queries.

The key to optimising for visual search is to focus on providing high-quality, contextually relevant images, complete with descriptive alt-text and file names. 

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)

In December 2022, Google made significant changes to how it evaluates content. Previously, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) were key criteria used in assessing whether content was providing helpful relevant information.

E-A-T is getting an extra E: experience. Elements that this update will look into include clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, the background of the author, and more. The goal is to eliminate search-engine first content made primarily to gain ranking.

Transformative Impact of AI on SEO

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard is shaking up the SEO landscape in more ways than one. For example, the integration of AI into search is transforming how users discover and consume content. 

Examples of these transformations are reflected in aspects such as featured snippets and intelligent search suggestions. Featured snippets, for example, provide succinct answers to user queries at the top of search results, eliminating the need to scroll through multiple pages. 

Similarly, search suggestions, powered by AI, help in refining and predicting user queries, enabling a more intuitive and efficient search process. 

On the other hand of the spectrum, AI is redefining the content creation process, which, if nothing else, has made SEO more competitive. 

In light of these developments, we recommend placing more emphasis on quality. This means writing with impact, paying attention to elements such as experience, brand tone of voice, correctness(factual information), authoritativeness and authenticity—all of which are key considerations that Google evaluates when ranking websites. 

Seeking an SEO Agency?

When executed effectively, SEO can have a large impact on the growth and performance of your business. Merely creating a website and expecting users to visit is no longer a viable strategy. Due consideration must be given to On-page, Off-page and other internal technical elements to ensure that they are not only understood by search engines, but also address the needs of your target audience. 

Since our launch, Rogue Digital has been driven by a mission to help clients maximise their digital return on investments while reducing marketing costs. Apart from SEO, we offer various services, including Search Engine Marketing, Content Writing, Web Development and much more. 

Book a call with our experts to discover how we can help your organisation achieve its digital marketing goals and reduce cost redundancies.