What is SEO and why you should do it

What is SEO and why should you do it? We will answer this question in this post, explaining it as completely as possible. After all, anyone who has a website has to do SEO.

In this post, we will cover:

• What is SEO;
• How the Google algorithm works;
• Because SEO will help my results;
• Conclusion.

What is SEO

Firstly and straight to the point, what is it? SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is a set of optimization techniques for blogs, websites and pages on the internet. It aims to make these pages appear on search engine search pages, such as Google, Yahoo e Bing. And, preferably, in the best positions.

So, analyzing coldly, it's not enough for you to put your website up, with that cool design, talking about your services and products. Your website must be fine optimized so that your company stands out in search results. This is the function of SEO.

It is also important to emphasize that SEO and WITHOUT (Search Engine Marketing) are different things. While SEO focuses on organic searches, SEM encompasses organic and paid searches.

How the Google algorithm works

What is a search engine

With each passing day, new websites and new content are produced and posted on the web. According to the website Internet Live Stats, there are more than 1.5 billion websites (a number that grows every second, if you follow it live).

With such a large volume of data moving back and forth, finding information has become essential for any user's navigation. To give you an idea, more than 4 billion searches are carried out per day, on Google alone.

A search engine is a system that organizes all this information so that we can find what we are looking for. They are divided into three types: hierarchical search engines, directories and metasearch engines.

Hierarchical search engines use crawlers (known spiders) to collect information that is compatible with the user's searches. They then rank them according to the relevance of the specific search and the user's browsing history.

Directories, on the other hand, are website links grouped by categories. It organizes links by category and publication date.

Finally, we have metasearch engines, which use several search sites at the same time, analyzing the results that they all present.

Google

The first internet search engine appeared in 1993, Architext, followed by Yahoo! in 1994 and, later, Google (1997). Architext, in fact, still exists, under the name Excite and has a very different interface from what we are used to. Later, other search tools came along, such as DuckDuckGo.

Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google appeared with the aim of organizing the internet, using link structures to analyze and determine the relevance of results for each specific search. Based on PageRank, a metric created by Larry Page, which seeks to understand the importance of a website or page on the internet, the most important search site on the web emerged.

PageRank, in a superficial analysis, performs a classification from 0 to 10 (using decimal places) on each website, determining its importance in the results of a SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

Despite being an important and historical metric, PageRank today is no longer the determining factor for a ranking. This is because Google always updates its evaluation criteria, according to the constant changes that the web usually goes through.

In 2003, the first major update to the algorithm appeared, Florida, a filter applied with the aim of identifying classification manipulation practices, the so-called Black Hat techniques. Finally, in 2015, the algorithm was updated so that searches on smartphones favored websites that adapt to the size of devices (responsive websites).

Why SEO will help my results

Currently, Google takes into account more than 200 items to classify and determine the relevance of a website. This makes it necessary to constant content production, within a well-defined SEO strategy, in addition to alignment with the technical part.

A content production is essential, as the algorithms take into account the updating of information. If you have a website that is always up to date, the chance of delivering a more accurate answer to a search is greater than a website that is out of date.

Regarding the technical part, if it is not done or is executed in a poorly planned way, your website may be read incorrectly by Google. You spiders They need to know what information is important and understand the hierarchy of their pages and their content.

Conclusion

Working on SEO is a matter of survival. If you don't, you will depend 100% on a job focused on paid searches. Furthermore, the more you work on SEO, the less your investment in Google Ads.

In this way, SEO has become a constant task, faced not only with new requirements and updates from Google, but also in relation to the work of competitors and technological updates, such as the emergence of smartphones, in addition to user habits.

How about working on your website’s SEO with Vero Contents? Enter in contact a specialist right now!

Marcel Castilho

Marcel Castilho is a specialist in digital marketing, neuromarketing, neuroscience, mindfulness and positive psychology. In addition to being an advertiser, he also has a Master's degree in Neurolinguistic Programming. He is the founder and owner of Vero Comunicação and also the digital agency Vero Contents.