Intro to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Understanding how search engines work can help your business improve its online presence. This video explains:

– What search engine optimization is.
– How search engines understand your website.
– What they value most.

Transcript

00:00
(narrator) Hello.
00:01
Welcome to our introduction to Search Engine Optimization,
00:05
also known as SEO.
00:08
We’re going to be finding out
00:09
how search engines understand your website,
00:12
so you can tweak it accordingly.
00:15
This means your content will be shown to lots more potential customers.
00:20
First up, some advice from Adrian on how learning about SEO
00:24
really helped his business.
00:26
Optimizing my site for organic search has been absolutely essential.
00:30
I wouldn’t want to be in a position where I’m just running a site just on ads.
00:35
It needs to be ads and organic–
00:37
that’s a fully balanced business model.
00:39
Get your site completely sorted out.
00:41
Make sure your site is as clean as it can be,
00:44
looks great, works in response to theme,
00:47
to make sure every page on your site is doing what it’s supposed to do.
00:51
The first thing I do in the morning
00:53
is click to see where I am for “Best Man’s Speech”.
00:56
I’m nudging on page two of Google now which to me is like Christmas.
01:00
If I have the best site with the best information,
01:03
I will stand out.
01:04
And that’s the plan. Simple.
01:07
Every day millions of people search online,
01:09
for everything from airline tickets to zoos.
01:13
This means there are millions of opportunities
01:15
for businesses to appear in front of potential customers.
01:19
Let’s say you own a small farm
01:21
and want to expand by selling your produce online.
01:24
SEO helps search engines understand better what you have to offer.
01:30
This means when someone searches using a word or phrase
01:33
related to your business
01:35
like, let’s say, “heirloom tomatoes”,
01:37
you’re more likely to appear in their results.
01:41
When a search engine returns results, some of them are paid advertisements.
01:45
The rest are unpaid results that the search engine believes
01:49
are relevant to the phrases entered into the search box.
01:52
These are referred to as “organic results”.
01:56
Search engines have formulas or algorithms that help them order the list of results.
02:01
The search engines constantly scour the web for new content
02:05
and try to make sense of it.
02:07
Where your website appears in these results
02:09
is affected by the words you use on your site.
02:12
“Fresh farm produce”, for example, as well as other factors,
02:16
such as how many websites link to yours.
02:20
Does this seem confusing?
02:21
Well, how’s this?
02:23
Think of a search engine like a matchmaker;
02:25
the goal to find a searcher
02:27
exactly what he or she is looking for on the web.
02:30
But how does this work?
02:32
Well, to present the best possible results,
02:34
the engines look for as much information as possible about websites.
02:39
They might look at how popular sites are,
02:41
or what other people or sites are saying about them.
02:45
They might consider words on web pages, or key words in the code of a page
02:49
to better understand the topic.
02:51
Each of these components will help search engines
02:54
find the best match for your search.
02:57
Search engines can now also consider the searcher’s geographic location.
03:02
A search from the UK will display a localized set of results.
03:07
Chances are the same search originating from France
03:10
will show different results.
03:12
And with the explosion of mobile usage,
03:15
search engines now consider the devices people use
03:18
when they perform a search.
03:20
But just like a matchmaker who’s been in business for years
03:23
gets better and better,
03:25
search formulas evolve and add more and more information along the way.
03:30
Are you wondering what you can do
03:32
to make your site more attractive to search engines?
03:35
We’ll touch more on this in other videos,
03:37
but here’s a good starting point.
03:39
What search engines value most is unique, engaging, relevant content,
03:45
because their job is to find and show the most useful stuff.
03:49
So there we have it.
03:50
Search is a simple thing to use and many of us use it every day.
03:55
But what’s happening behind the scenes is constantly changing.
03:59
To effectively promote your website online,
04:02
you’ve got to keep tabs on what search engines value most
04:05
and make sure your website gives it to them.
04:09
As we go along, we’ll tell you much more about how search engines work
04:13
and help you to create a strategy for improving SEO
04:16
in order to achieve your business goals.

Optimized Webmedia Marketing is the best SEO Vancouver company. To learn how Optimized Webmedia Marketing can help optimize your website to attract more organic visitors, book a free consultation.