Where is SEO done?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is really done in two different places.
- ON SITE – which means that a great deal of optimization needs to be performed on the actual website itself. This involves keyword rich content in tags and titles, file names, image names, pages names, and even the very structure of the of the web page’s URL is important. However, that is not all. There are other important things like schemas, out bound links, site maps, robot.txt files and much more.
- OFF SITE – Sorry, this one is kind of a broad “area”. But, it includes mostly one main thing and that is backlinks that point to your website from other websites on the Internet. A backlink is a link that links back to your website. So for example, you create an informational video and post it on YouTube. In the description of the video you place a full link back to a page on your website that is relevant to the video. Be sure your links actually have http:// or if the site has a secure certificate start the link with https://.
What this narrows done to is this. Google and other search engines like to know two things (and these are directly correlated to the two things above):
- Do you know what you are talking about?
- Do people like you?
It’s a little trickier than that but that sums it up nicely. Google wants to know if you are the “E.F Hutton” of your topic. Okay this probably dates me but back in the 70s and 80s there was a stock broker company called E.F. Hutton and this is one of their commercials:
Basically, if they are going to refer someone to your site they want to send them to the most relevant site with the best information on it.