In 2023 more than ever, SEO is an important organic lever to be visible on the web. With competition in this field, it is essential to have your website appear in the first positions of search engine results to float and capture quality prospects on your sales platform.
But for that, you have to take the time to optimize your site’s SEO. You can use a web agency specializing in SEO or take an interest in the subject, and why not do some of the work yourself? Whatever your choice, it is always preferable to have a minimum of knowledge in this area which is fundamental today to succeed in online business.
This comprehensive guide will reveal everything about the fundamentals of SEO, from theory to practice, and everything you need to know in 2023 to optimize your web pages effectively and sustainably.
What is SEO?
SEO, also called Search Engine Optimization, refers to improving the organic traffic of your website and its ranking on the main search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, among others. Secondary search engines.
As we will see throughout this article, SEO includes many elements, such as creating high-quality content, constantly monitoring the technical health of your site, obtaining links to your site’s internet, your site’s presence in local search, etc.
Why is SEO Essential?
SEO is essential for e-businesses because it helps increase businesses’ online visibility.
Paid advertising, such as Google Ads, and social media like Facebook or YouTube contribute to online visibility. Still, the beauty of SEO is that it can drive traffic to your website over time. Time inexpensively, if done well.
Thus, SEO is a source of free organic traffic (provided that you take care of all aspects related to optimization and content creation…) for the optimization of your site on Google and other search engines. If you publish high-quality pages that meet user queries, they will be more likely to appear in the top positions of the SERPs.
Check out: 10 SEO Tips to Create an Optimized Web Page
There are additional reasons why SEO is an essential tool for your digital marketing strategy, which derives from the visibility offered by your good positioning in the search pages:
How Do Search Engines Work?
Search engines like Google use relatively complex processes — actually algorithms — to organize and rank the content of the billions of websites worldwide. These algorithms consider various factors and criteria to determine a page’s ranking or position in search engines.
In short, search engines ingest vast masses of data and digital content and organize the result of their analysis in the form of information that can be seen on Google, Yahoo, or Qwant search pages.
The ultimate goal of search engines is to satisfy Internet users with the results they find on the search engine results pages, also called SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). i.e., the page is generated in response to an Internet user’s request entered in the search bar.
In a schematic form, the SEO of your site would take the following form:
Incorporating keywords into your content is an essential part of this research process. Keywords are words or phrases that users type into the search engine bar when making a query.
Your web page’s keywords must be relevant, that is to say, about your sector of activity and your company, and they must preferably have a good volume of research.
You can use tools such as Ubersuggest and Google Keyword Planner to find keywords suited to your SEO strategy.
In 2023, using a keyword multiple times in an article is an outdated practice that will not help you improve your ranking on Google search pages. Instead, use keywords to guide users to the content you offer.
Use keywords above the fold line and headings that help users and search engines determine what your web pages are about.
How Does Google Work?
The main goal of an SEO strategy is usually to get the best positioning possible on Google, preferably in the top results of the first page.
Here’s how the Google search engine works to find and rank content from websites around the world:
Crawling: Google uses “bots” to explore the web and search for new pages or updates. For Google to find a page, it must preferably have links. Generally speaking, the more links a page has, the easier it is for Google to locate it.
Indexing: Next, Google analyzes the URLs discovered by the bots and tries to make sense of the page’s topic. Google reviews things like content, images, and other media files. It then stores this information in the Google index, i.e., its database.
Ranking: After Google evaluates the URLs, it determines the most relevant pages for users’ search queries and organizes them accordingly in the SERPs.
The Google Algorithm
The Google search algorithm refers to the American giant’s internal content ranking process.
Google’s algorithm takes into account a wide range of factors and criteria when making its ranking.
This complex analysis tool has evolved over the years and since its inception. Recently, Google engineers focused the algorithm’s work on understanding search intent through language models.
For example, Google can take the two examples below and provide relevant results even though the verb “change” is used in different contexts each time.
Example 1: How do I change the battery of my mobile phone?
Example 2: How to change dollars into euros?
Even if all the details of the Google algorithm formula are kept out of the reach of ordinary mortals, which is understandable, it is quite possible to optimize its SEO and to follow the logic and logic as closely as possible. Way of thinking of Google thanks to the best practices to follow, which the Californian firm regularly distills.
In addition, you can count on many Google search experts on the internet, such as the American John Mueller or the French Olivier Andrieu, to name two of the best known, if you want to be aware of the latest Google SEO trends.
Still, here are some things to keep in mind when optimizing your website in 2023, based on advice from Google itself:
Finally, finishing this paragraph on the Google algorithm is impossible without mentioning the famous penalties. Google Penalties are manual actions taken by Google to address inappropriate SEO methods and tactics.
These penalties, of course, give rise to negative consequences on the websites that suffer them and have an effect that impacts their positioning on the search pages.
Here are some examples:
On-page SEO vs. Off-page SEO
Another important aspect to consider when talking about SEO is the distinction between On-page SEO and off-page SEO.
On-page SEO
As its name suggests, On-page SEO involves optimizing your site’s content or web pages. It’s a practice you can control, unlike the off-page tactics we’ll cover next. For example, you can update the meta description tags of your web pages and create your content.
Here are some other examples of On-page SEO factors:
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO includes all optimization practices that take place outside of your website. These “off-page” tactics help search engines and internet users determine if your site is authoritative in its field, relevant, and trustworthy.
Check out: Off Page SEO Techniques to Increase Organic Traffic
Although off-page SEO can include social media and influencer marketing, link-building is the most important aspect.
Link building refers to getting other websites to link to your site. These links are comparable to votes of confidence. As a result, getting this link (also called a “backlink”) from a site with a high degree of authority to your site can certainly generate more traffic and boost its legitimacy.
However, remember that it is not necessarily the quantity that counts regarding incoming links, just quality of backlinks matters.
For example, spammy backlinks will not positively impact your site and may even result in penalties. Also, avoid buying links or using methods not recommended by Google.
Related resource: Off-Page SEO Guide to Improve Position on Google
Building backlinks is a tedious and time-consuming job, but the results are worth the effort when it comes to inbound traffic, brand awareness, and authority.
While waiting to deepen this question of links, let’s see the ins and outs of the main areas of SEO, starting with content.
The Content
Content is essential for your SEO. The better it is, the more you can claim to occupy high positions in the SERPs.
But what differentiates poor content from great content?
Before we get to that question, let’s look at some critical areas of any content strategy.
Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions
A webpage’s meta titles and descriptions matter because that’s what Google shows users in search results.
An accurate meta title (also called a title tag) that clearly describes what the page’s content offers the user is essential: it’s what will make them click or not.
Meta titles and meta descriptions are concise, copywriting-style pieces of text that help users and Google better understand the content and purpose of each of your web pages. Include your primary keyword(s) in your meta description; it’s essential for both users and search engines.
The Writing Style
Preferably adopt a simple, direct, and targeted style of writing. Avoid short sentences, break down your content into paragraphs that follow each other logically, and avoid going off-topic. This will help readers directly find the solution they came for on your site.
Organize your content so that the added value it is supposed to provide is easy to identify, understand, and use.
Rich Content
Wherever possible, include elements of so-called “Rich Content,” i.e., elements of audio, video content, and illustrative images.
As Google cannot yet understand the content of images and videos, accompany your Rich Content elements with appropriate meta tags to help the search engine understand what it is.
You can also include a written version to make it easier for users who prefer written content.
Outgoing Links
Outbound links, which are links that point to external sites, lead your visitors to sources that confirm the accuracy of your content, validating both your credibility and that of the author.
The Origin of Your Sources
Explicitly identify the author or source of a document you cite or from which you share an extract, if applicable. If the author is an authority in his field, this will only bring more credibility to your content.
Viewing each piece of content as part of an overall, cohesive content strategy is essential. As soon as you apply this rule, you think about content marketing.
The Different Types of Content
Various forms of content are appropriate for each stage of the buying journey and different types of users. A good content strategy must therefore contain a carefully balanced mix of formats.
Here are the main ones:
Our Tips for Creating Better SEO Content
The Technical Aspect of SEO
Technical SEO concerns the quality of your site’s infrastructure and its ergonomics. Good technical SEO helps ensure that Google will find your content quickly and that it can adequately evaluate and index the information it encounters.
What are the top priorities for technical SEO?
Four areas absolutely must be addressed:
Our Advice for Better Technical SEO:
The Architecture of Your Website
What is called website architecture refers to the way web pages are grouped and organized within your site. An excellent website architecture takes user experience first and foremost. The easier a website is to navigate, the more it has a solid architecture, and the more users are likely to spend time and engage with it.
A website’s user experience level is ultimately about helping visitors get to where they want to go in as few clicks as possible and navigate easily from point A to point B. and back to point A again with just one click.
An excellent structure also makes it easier for Google to crawl and index sites. Your website architecture must therefore house pages grouped logically into categories and subcategories.
Our Advice for a Well-organized Website Architecture
The Notions of Authority and Trust
Google examines the notions of authority and trust in several ways, via two processes presented in the form of acronyms: EAT (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) and YMYL (Your Money or Your Life).
Let’s see what these two acronyms hide:
EAT
Google uses the acronym EAT (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) to judge the overall credibility of a website. Google bases this on three levels: the page, the author, and the website.
In addition, the search engine seeks to know if the proposed content is credible as a solution to the problem it aims to solve.
EAT is essential for Google. Why?
If you take a look at their guidelines, the terms “expert,” “authority,” and “trust” appear more than 200 times.
Let’s take a brief look at each component of EAT:
YMYL
YMYL, a concept with a curious name that means “your money or your life,” is fundamental for the people who evaluate the quality of websites at Google.
As its guidelines explain, this term describes pages or topics that “could potentially impact a person’s happiness, health, financial stability, or future security .”
For this reason, pages displaying YMYL-like topics must be authoritative and trustworthy.
Here is a list of the main topics covered:
Google claims to require very high page quality standards for these pages because low-quality YMYL content can directly affect reader well-being.
By respecting the EAT and YMYL standards when creating your web content, you put all the chances on your side to obtain a suitable positioning on the Google search pages.
Our Tips for Building Authority and Trust on your Website
Link Building
As mentioned above, link building involves convincing other sites to link to your website via hyperlinks. This is one of the most important aspects of SEO because backlinks are like a Trustmark, which is essential for your website’s authority.
The more links you have from high-quality referrers, the more trustworthy your website appears to Google.
Check Out: How to Find Quality Backlinks?
Why is Link Building So Important?
Getting backlinks is a great way to boost your pages’ visibility in the SERPs, as long as those backlinks come from reliable and reputable sites. It is also recommended to have internal links, i.e., links from your website pointing to other website pages.
This helps Google navigate your site and lets it know that the pages you’re linking to are important. When working on building links for your site, focus on quality rather than quantity, as Google’s algorithm will not consider links from websites that are known to be unreliable.
How to Create Links?
There is no secret: the best way to get backlinks is to create high-quality content that will bring you links naturally.
Link building starts with identifying people who can link to your content (website owners, bloggers, etc.), then it’s about directing them to your content and getting them to create a link to it from a relevant page on their site.
Here’s how you can achieve this:
However, link building isn’t as easy as it sounds, and it can be quite a while before a website or blog decides to link to your content. For this reason, a link-building campaign can go a long way in speeding up this process.
Here are some strategies for a successful link-building campaign:
Our Tips for Creating Engaging Content that Generates Links
Local SEO
Local SEO refers to tactics used to optimize a business’s online presence for specific local search queries. For example, you have already made a request such as “Japanese restaurant nearby” with Google.
This type of specific query associated with a location generally yields results with three parts that make up what Google calls the “Map Pack”.
Google Business Profile
The above results are primarily driven by Google Business (formerly Google My Business) profiles.
Google Business Profile or “GMB” is a solution that provides high local visibility branding to businesses in the SERPs. Potential customers can use your GBP to contact you via many methods: email, phone, links, etc. Using all the resources Google Business offers is a great way to grow your local SEO efforts.
Google Business ranks content based on three main factors:
Our Advice to Improve Your Local SEO
The Impact of Social Networks on SEO
Yes, social media can influence your SEO, even if it does not directly impact your positioning on the search pages.
Social networks are a crucial and essential means of off-page SEO for companies wishing to make themselves known, amplify their brand awareness, and widely distribute their content to recover possible backlinks.
For example, some companies use platforms like Instagram or TikTok to present their company culture in light and offbeat, but also to answer customer questions about products or quickly solve problems, for example, Twitter.
When used well, social media can be great for managing your brand reputation and organic shares.
Again, this won’t directly impact your website’s positioning. Still, as we’ve explained, your social media activity and the exposure generated could lead to backlink opportunities, which will help improve your ranking in the SERPs.
Our Tips for Leveraging Social Media in Your SEO Efforts
Conclusion
If you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information available in this SEO guide, don’t panic! SEO is a practice — and even art, according to some specialists — that you have to take the time to assimilate to get the most out of it.
This involves great curiosity and a lot of energy because the world of SEO, dictated, among other things, by changes in the Google algorithm, is constantly evolving. There are many free tools to manage your SEO action best, and the Google Search Console is a good option.
It allows you to do a lot of things to improve your SEO: URL inspection, management of internal and external links, management of the ergonomics of your mobile site, management of essential web signals (Core Web Vitals) for, for example, know the loading speed of your pages, etc.
Here is a summary of the main criteria to take into account if you want to optimize the positioning of your web pages in search engines:
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