The term SEO comes from the English language and means optimization for search engines; specifically, SEO optimization is a process by which you try to improve your website's position in search engine results for specific keywords or phrases with the help of a seo agency in London. Generally, SEO optimization is divided into two broad branches: On-Page and Off-Page SEO optimization. On-page SEO is about helping search engines understand what your website is about. Search engines don't read a website the same way people read it. They "understand" what a website is about by reading its code.
That's why an essential part of SEO is On-Page optimization. Some examples of On-Page SEO optimization elements:
- the page title must contain the keyword;
- create internal links to link pages together;
- the name of the images and the ALT attribute (image description) contain the keyword for which you want your page to appear on Google;
- the subtitles (headings) should contain keywords, etc.
- the site should have an excellent loading speed;
Although these things seem very technical, SEO services in London simplify everything. You don't need to be a programmer to do these basic things that can bring more traffic to your website.
Don't Worry if Things Are Unclear Now
Once you read this article, it will be easier to understand why an SEO agency in London is so helpful. Off-page SEO is all about showing search engines that your website is trustworthy. Let's say you and your competitor have similar sites with similar content, and all the technical elements above are optimized. Both sites:
- contain keywords in titles, subtitles, and images;
- it loads in under 5 seconds;
- have quality content;
- have internal links that create a link between pages;
And so on. How does Google know which of the two sites to display first and which second?
Google (and other search engines) have borrowed a method that people also use: they analyze external "opinions." Specifically, search engines look at how many sites refer (linking) to your site. In SEO terms, links to your site are like votes of trust or popularity from other sites. If 30 different essential and trusted sites refer to your site, and only two low-quality sites refer to your competitor's site, Google will perceive this as a signal of trust in your favor, and your site will appear before that of the competitor.
How Search Engines Work
To better understand what SEO is and what an SEO company in London can do, let's see how search engines work. Search engines are the portal through which people access information on the Internet (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo Search). But behind those simple interfaces are thousands of microprocessors and algorithms constantly crawling the World Wide Web and indexing (organizing) the content for us to access in milliseconds. Imagine the entire Internet as a giant spider's web where each intersection on that web is a page, and the links between them are the links.
To find all the documents on the Internet, Google uses programs called spiders or crawlers that scan all the sites on the Internet and then organize and store them on massive servers. That is, if spiders start crawling the Internet from site A or page A, and from site A, there are links to sites B, C, and D, etc. Once they find a website, the spiders store it in their databases and organize it according to various criteria. Like in a library, the books are not placed chaotically but ordered by genre, authors, etc. Things seem complicated, but for an SEO agency in London, these are daily tasks that are easy to accomplish.
What Happens When You Do a Google Search?
Let's say you do the following Google search: children's books. Google searches its database for every page that contains the search terms you entered. There are hundreds of thousands of possible outcomes. Google asks itself questions to sort the results and ensure they show you the answer you're looking for (over 200). That is, it analyzes On-Page SEO elements (those elements in your site mentioned earlier) and from outside the site (how many links to your site you have, how qualitative they are, etc.) to figure out whether a page best answers your search.
All these questions are ranking factors from the algorithms by which Google extracts certain sites from the database for a specific search and is constantly updated to prevent spam. Remember: no matter what the search engines update, their purpose has been and will be to deliver relevant content to the user. If people searched Google for solutions to various problems and couldn't find what they were looking for, they would stop using Google, stop making money from ads, and go bankrupt. That's why their prime directive for search engine optimization is creating content for people, not search engines.
A final update to Google's search algorithm is RankBrain. Now, Google uses artificial intelligence to provide better search results. Instead of being a fixed algorithm, it can acquire new knowledge and constantly improve (on its own) to give you the best results when you search on Google. Now that you understand what SEO means and how a search engine works, you must choose which side of the fence you are on before you hire an SEO company in London to start optimizing. Do you want to see results quickly and make money in the short term, or do you like to enjoy the results constantly?
What Is Black Hat SEO?
Black Hat SEO is an SEO optimization technique that search engines frown upon and penalize. Black Hat SEO optimization techniques involve using software that collects links automatically, delivers one content to search engines and another to humans, rewrites the same content by spinning words, etc. You are trying to trick the search engines. These are just a few techniques. Some still work, some don't. No SEO agency in London recommends using them because, in the end, Google will "catch you" and penalize your site (it will appear in the last positions in the search results or may even be closed).
White Hat SEOis an approach that respects search engine rules and guidelines. If you want a site that enjoys long-term results, then White Hat SEO optimization techniques are for you. Some white hat SEO techniques:
- analyzing potential customers – how they search the Internet to be able to create content around their needs;
- relevant content that includes keywords placed in a natural way that gives the text cursive;
- the structure of the site - the user can find the information he needs in a maximum of 3 clicks;
- valuable content – to be picked up naturally by other sites that link to your content;
On-Page SEO Optimization vs. Off-Page SEO Optimization
Now that you understand what SEO is and how search engines work, it's time to see how a London SEO company makes your business appear among the first results when your customers search for a product/service you offer. As mentioned earlier, SEO optimization can be divided into two significant branches: On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO. Both of these optimizations need to be done for your website to increase search engine results, but the first optimization you should start with is On-Page. What does this mean?
On-Page SEO means optimizing all elements IN your website, such as:
- Keywords;
- Page content HTML elements – the "chunks" of code that help search engines understand what your page is about – page title tag, image description tag, page subtitles.
- Site speed;
- The sitemap is the file that tells Google what the structure of your site is and, how the pages are related to each other, etc.
These are just some elements that must be considered in the On-Page SEO part. We will devote a separate chapter to each of them. Items that are closely related will be discussed together in a single chapter.
Off-Page SEO, in short, is getting other sites to send links to your site. In this case, both the quantity and quality of links matter. Just remember that in London, a "quality" website has nothing to do with the design or quality of the products/services it presents. Search engines take hundreds of factors into account when displaying search results. It is not your aim to identify all those factors. The goal is to create an SEO strategy based on the most critical factors influencing these results.