What The Heck Is SEO Really?

Search engine optimization, more commonly styled as just SEO, is a set of practices that are intended to help web pages rank higher in the listings of results on search engines like Google. You might operate a roofing company near Chicago, and you'd obviously prefer that your website rank as the number one listing when someone searches for "roof repair Chicago, IL," for example. While no SEO services provider can guarantee you'll get the number one spot—especially for a highly competitive keyword in a tough market—they can see that you'll be entering the fight without your website being a hindrance. To accomplish that goal, they use the following techniques.

Website Improvements

Among the biggest things that hurt sites in terms of SEO is the fact that most of them are, at best, terribly optimized. They often take anywhere from five to ten seconds to load, don't look good in the mobile version, and present information in an unfriendly manner.

Believe it or not, Google and the other search businesses actually care about all of that. You, the consumer, are their core product, and anything that makes your experience better is a win for them. To that end, they knock sites down in ranking for providing what is ultimately a bad user experience.

To that end, an SEO firm will make improvements to your website. This can include cleaning up pages, adding elements that make the site more readable to search indexing bots, and making it mobile-friendly. In some cases, the job will also call for performing hosting upgrades to add speed.

Off-Site Elements

In the olden days of the late 1990s, everything in SEO was about one form of off-site content: the inbound link. If someone linked to your site using a term, that's what told Google that your site mattered—and if a lot of folks linked to you, then it must have really mattered. Unfortunately, that system was easily gamed, encouraging people to stuff links.

To correct the problem, Google focused on promoting websites that developed links naturally. Over time this has evolved with the changing internet landscape, adding new value to things like social media likes. The company has also built software that identifies dirty patterns and punishes cheats accordingly. A good SEO services provider will work within the guidelines from the search giants to ensure that your website will perform well while not running afoul of penalties.