Search engine optimization, commonly known as SEO, is an industry jargon that gets thrown around in meetings. What is SEO exactly? We will answer five commonly asked questions about SEO in this article!

1. What Does SEO Entail?

   Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a combination of technical improvements to optimize a website’s search ranking on search engines such as Google or Bing. Most of the time, businesses use SEO to improve their websites’ search rankings on Google. Increasing a website’s search ranking on search results helps a company gain more online visibility and website traffic from their target audience. To rank on search results such as Google search results, you need to include relevant keywords your target audience is searching for related to your product or service. For example, if you’re a Toronto SEO agency and you want to focus on attracting clients from the Toronto market, you want to include “Toronto SEO” in the website title tags.

2. What is a backlink?

   A backlink is an incoming link from an external website to your website. For example, if an online article hyperlinks your website in the article, your website has earned a backlink. The number of quality backlinks a website affects the website’s search ranking significantly. The more quality backlinks a website has, the more credible and authoritative the website appears to Google. Google takes credibility and authority under consideration when ranking a website on search results. The more backlinks a site has, the more credible the website appears to Google, and the more likely the website will appear highly on Google search results.

3. What is link building

   Link building refers to the action of actively earning backlinks to a website. For example, you can build links by reaching out to media outlets and asking them to feature you in an article and including your website URL in the article.

4. What is keyword research?

   A major part of SEO is keyword research. A significant aspect of SEO is discovering important words and phrases that people use in searching for products or services or information on search engines. If you search for “Sony cameras,” this would bring up results specific to the keywords in the search query. If you have the right keywords in your website content that matches the search query, you can be among the first set of results on Google. Keyword research is a major component of your SEO task and is usually the first step in your campaign.

5. What is on-page SEO?

   On-page SEO is more than just including a few keywords here and there. While keywords are important, technical on-page is also imperative to establishing positive SEO performance. On-page SEO refers to technical elements on a website that affect a website’s SEO performance. The elements include:

   • Include H1 on each webpage

     H1 refers to the main heading of a webpage. Google uses text in the H1 heading to gain textual understanding of a webpage. For example, if a webpage has the keywords “Men’s Running Shoes” in the H1 heading, Google understands that the webpage is related to “men’s running shoes” and displays the webpage for search queries related to these keywords.

   • Include alternative text for each image

     Alternative text is a HTML attribute that gives textual information to an image. Google uses alternative text to gain textual understanding of an image and the page the image is on. For example, if an image has the alternative text “2022 Toyota Corolla”, Google understands that the webpage is about 2022 Toyota Corolla and that the webpage that the image is on is related to 2022 Toyota Corolla or automotive. Writing the alternative text helps the webpage rank for keywords related to “2022 Toyota Corolla” or “automotive”.

   • Include target keywords in webpage URLs

     Google uses keywords in a webpage URL as an indicator of what the webpage is related to and which search queries the webpage wants to rank for. For example, if a webpage contains the keywords “/2022-Toyota-Corolla” in the URL, Google understands that the webpage is related to “2022 Toyota Corolla” and can display the webpage for search queries related to “2022 Toyota Corolla”.