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On this page, we’ll cover the basics of SEO and answer some common questions, including:

• What is SEO in digital marketing?
• How does SEO in digital marketing work?
• How do search engines work?
• What is the difference between organic search vs. paid search?
• How does SEO in digital marketing compare to SEM and PPC?
• What are the benefits of SEO in digital marketing?
• What are the types of SEO in digital marketing?

So, just keep reading to get all of your questions answered!

P.S.Do you want the inside scoop on all things SEO and digital marketing fromaward-winningexperts? Thensign up for our newsletter, Revenue Weekly, to get expert SEO and digital marketing advice sent straight to your inbox for free!

What is SEO in digital marketing?

SEO in digital marketing is a strategy that focuses on your website’s presence in search results onsearch engineslike Google. It involves using varioustechniquesto improve your website to help both search engines and consumers better understand your website.

How does SEO in digital marketing work?

Now that you know the answer to the question “what is SEO in digital marketing,” let’s go over how it works.

When you implement anSEO strategy, you optimize your website to show up in thesearch engine results pages (SERPs)for keywords and phrases related to your business. You’ll alsosubmit your website URLs to Google(and other search engines) so they can show up in the SERPs.

Keywordsare the words and phrases your target audience searches for online. For example, if your business sells running sneakers, your audience may search using keywords like “running sneakers” or “women’s running sneakers” and other variations.

Search engines like to provide the best experience for their users, which is why they have hundreds ofranking factorsthat determine your spot in the SERPs. Search engines want to show users the best websites in the results to provide them with the information they need.

With SEO, you’ll implement techniques that improve your website’suser experienceto ensure that your site gives your audience answers to their queries. A few examples of SEO techniques include:

• Implementingresponsive designto make your website friendly for mobile users
• Improving yourwebsite navigationto ensure users can easily navigate your site
• Creatingcustom contentthat answers users’ questions
• Insertingkeywords and phrasesthroughout your site pages and content
• And more

When you implement an SEO strategy, your improvements will send positive signals to search engines that your website provides value to users. As a result, search engines will rank your website higher in the SERPs.

Achieving atop spot in the search resultsis essential because75% of usersdon’t click past the first page of results.

How do search engines work?

The hub of SEO — the search engine framework — is the key to understanding why SERPs showcase certain pages over others. Search engines are intricate systems that study all the websites across the Internet and organize the information for you.

So, how do search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo digest such an immense amount of data? Search engines go through three steps — crawling, indexing, and ranking — to yield the strongest results.

The anatomy of a search result

Let’s start by diving into what a search engine results page looks like. A SERP consists of paid and organic results.

Paid results consist of websites who’ve paid Google to appear at the top of the search results. You can idenitfy them by the “sponsored” tag that appears above the title.

After the three paid results, you’ll see the full list of organic results that make up the rest of the page. These results consist of websites who haven’t paid to appear in the results. Google picked these websites to appear based on a number ofranking factors, like relevance, keyword targeting, user experience, and more.

Crawling and indexing

Search engines use special bots or search crawlers to inspect all the nooks and crannies of the Internet.

They find websites by “crawling” from URL to URL, and as they move through pages, the bots scrutinize the main text and supplementary parts on the page.

Search bots collect these details in a comprehensive index, and they’re sorted into categories based on the title, URL, media, and text. This pool of websites gets dipped into later when someone searches related words.

The crawling mechanism follows the links on pages too, which act as trails across the web. If your website isn’t easy to locate by the crawlers, they can remain invisible to search engines and left off the index.

Ranking

The contents of the index then serve as candidates for searches, and further algorithms determine how well it matches search terms or “keywords.”

If the page is informative, reliable, and meets a variety of other standards, it has a better ranking.

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What is the difference between organic search vs. paid search?

When it comes to understanding SEO in digital marketing, it’s essential to understand organic SEO and paid search, and how they differ.

Thedifference between organic search and paid searchis organic search is free andpaid searchis paid.

When you submit a search to a search engine, the results display paid and organic listings — paid listings will have the word “Ad” attached to them. Click on a paid listing and the advertiser will pay for that click. Click on an organic listing and the website owner will pay nothing.

SEO is all about improving your rankings in the organic search results.

Whilepaid searchis valuable and has its uses, organic search’sreturn on investment (ROI)makes SEO a smart investment for any business. That’s why it’s important to learn what SEO is and how SEO works because you can use that knowledge toimprove your site’s search result rankingsand traffic numbers.

How does SEO in digital marketing compare to SEM and PPC?

While exploring SEO strategies, you might come across the terms search engine marketing (SEM) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. If you’re wondering what these terms are and how they differ from SEO, we’ve got you covered.

SEO vs. SEM

Like we discussed above, SEO focuses on improving your website’s rankings in the organic search results. These are the results that display below the sponsored (paid) results.

SEM, on the other hand, is an umbrella term that focuses on improving your rankings in the both the organic and paid results. As a result, if you implement a SEM strategy, you’ll find yourself launching ads that appear at the top and bottom of the search results.

SEO vs. PPC

PPC is a digital advertising strategy that involves launching ads on search engines like Google. It’s often referred to as paid search.

With PPC, you’ll bid on keywords and phrases that you want your website to appear for in the search engine results.

So, PPC focuses on the paid side of search engine marketing while SEO focuses on the organic (free) side.

What are the benefits of SEO in digital marketing?

SEO is an essential strategy that can help your business grow and reach new heights. Check out more benefits of SEO in digital marketing below:

• Boost online visibility:SEO helps you boost your online visibility andbrand awareness。When you implement anSEO strategyfor your business, your website will appear higher in the search results. That means more members of your target audience discover your business online.

• Increase website traffic:You candrive more trafficto your website when youincrease your rankings in the SERPs。As a result, more users visit your website, read your content, and check out your products and services to increase sales and revenue for your business.

• Stand out from competitors:SEO enables you tooutrank your biggest competitorsin the search results. That means you can boost your credibility as an expert in your field to outshine your competitors and attract new customers.

SEO is a valuable strategy that enables you toacquire new customersand continuously promote your products and services online to drive more sales and revenue for your business.

What are the types of SEO in digital marketing?

Before you start implementing anSEO strategyfor your company, it’s essential to first understand the differenttypes of SEO, also known as thepillars of SEO。

Here are the four types of SEO in digital marketing:

1. On-page SEO
2. Off-page SEO
3. Technical SEO
4. Content

1. On-page SEO

What is on-page SEO? On-page SEO refers to optimizations that take place directly on your website toimprove your SEO。With on-page SEO, you focus on ensuring that your website is easy to use and provides value to users by answering their questions and giving them solutions to their queries.

Here are a few elements you can focus on optimizing with on-page SEO:

• Keywords
• URLs
• Title tags
• Header tags
• Meta descriptions

On-page SEO enables you to improve your website to help users and search engines better understand your website. For example, byoptimizing your titles, you can inform search engines and users about your page’s topic. As a result, you canincrease your rankingsand encourage users to click on your site.

2. Off-page SEO

Off-page SEOrefers to optimizations that take place outside of your website. With off-page SEO, you focus on yourwebsite’s authority。While your website or domain authority isn’t an official Google ranking factor, it can help boost your rankings by creating a site with valuable content that people and websites link back to.

This process can involveearning linksfrom other websites, shares onsocial media platforms, and other mentions of your website across the Internet. Off-page SEO can include:

• Creating accurate, valuable, andhigh-quality content
• Sharing your contenton social media
• Connecting withinfluencers
• Reaching out to other websites to host something that you’ve written

Your authority can determine whether search engines and users view your business as an expert in your field. And a high authority will help youronline reputationand search rankings blossom.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEOrefers to optimizations that make your website easy forsearch engine crawlersand users to use and understand. Search engine crawlersindex pagesand websites for search engines. In other words, search engine crawlers help search engines store your page and website data to use for future searches.

With technical SEO, you focus on optimizing the back-end of your website, such as your:

• Page load speed
• Mobile-friendliness
• Navigation
• And more

Yourpage design, navigation, and loading speed impacts how easily your audience and crawlers can use and understand your website. When yourwebsite loads quicklyand ensures that users can easily find the information they need, you can help your site rank higher in the SERPs.

4. Content

The last type of SEO iscontent。内容是网站的面包和黄油。It gives users and search engines essential information about your business, such as what you do and what types of products and services you offer.

Creating content also enables you to insert high-value keywords throughout your site to increase your opportunities torank higher in the search results。There are several types of content you can create for your business, including:

• Blog posts
• Informative articles
• Detailed guides
• Videos
• Infographics
• And more

Your content works hand-in-hand with yourSEO strategyto promote your products and services to more users online so you can drive more sales and revenue for your business.

Check your website’s SEO performance and receive a comprehensive report for free with SEO Checker

Do you want to check your website’s current SEO performance for free? Would you like to receive a comprehensiveSEO reportwithdata-drivenrecommendations for improvements to boost your search result rankings? That’s where our free tool,SEO Checker, can help!

Simply enter your website URL and then click enter to check your site’s performance in search engines like Google in seconds. Plus, you’ll receive a detailed report complete with your SEO score and suggestions for optimizations you can make to drive even better results for your business.

Try SEO Checkertoday for free!