Demystifying SEO: Everything You Need to Know About Search Engine Optimization

By khoanc, at: April 10, 2023, 6:06 p.m.

Estimated Reading Time: 27 min read

Demystifying SEO: Everything You Need to Know About Search Engine Optimization
Demystifying SEO: Everything You Need to Know About Search Engine Optimization

We will cover some important topics

  1. What is SEO?
  2. How important is SEO in marketing?
  3. How does SEO work?
  4. Types of SEO?
  5. Notes when doing website SEO
  6. Who needs SEO?
  7. Tools to support SEO?
  8. Conclusion

Lets go through one by one

1. What is SEO?


SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization (search engine optimization). It includes techniques to optimize a web page so that it can achieve a high position on the natural search results of search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. The purpose of SEO is to attract traffic from users related to the website's topic and increase the credibility of the website. When a website is well optimized for SEO, it will appear higher on the search engine results page, helping to increase traffic and reach potential customers.


2. How important is SEO in marketing?

SEO is crucial in digital marketing as it helps businesses to reach their target audience through search engines. With the continuous growth of internet users, SEO can help businesses to attract a substantial amount of traffic to their websites and increase brand awareness, lead generation and sales.

Moreover, SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy when compared to traditional advertising methods. It allows businesses to optimize their marketing costs and save on advertising expenses.

2.1 SEO helps increase the number of potential customers
SEO helps businesses reach potential customers by increasing their visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). When a person searches for a product or service, they use specific search terms, and if a website doesn't appear on the SERP, the business has missed out on the opportunity to reach that customer. With SEO, a website can improve its ranking on SERPs and have a better chance of showing up in front of people who are interested in their products or services. This increases the business's ability to attract potential customers and convert them into actual customers.

2.2 SEO helps increase brand awareness
SEO not only increases your visibility to potential customers but also helps to increase brand awareness. In online businesses, search engines act as your virtual storefront, and SEO can help bring you to the attention of your target audience.

Ranking high in search results can be equated to having a prime location in a physical storefront. When you appear at the top of search results, your website will be seen by many users every time they search for a product or service related to your business. This creates brand recognition and recall in the minds of users, and when done effectively, can help establish your brand as a trusted and reputable source online.

2.3 SEO supports optimizing the cost of reaching customers
SEO can also help optimize marketing costs. While traditional marketing methods like print and television ads can be expensive, SEO can be a relatively low-cost marketing strategy. While there may be costs associated with hiring an SEO expert or creating optimized content, the long-term benefits of a successful SEO strategy can outweigh the initial investment. Additionally, because SEO is targeted to users who are already searching for your products or services, the leads generated from SEO tend to have higher conversion rates than leads generated from traditional advertising methods. This can ultimately lead to a better return on investment (ROI) for your marketing budget.

2.4 SEO helps you understand your customers better
SEO helps businesses gain valuable insights into their customers by analyzing search data and user behavior on their website. By understanding what keywords and topics customers are searching for, businesses can tailor their content and messaging to better meet their needs. Additionally, by analyzing user behavior on their website, businesses can identify areas for improvement in the user experience and make adjustments to increase engagement and conversion rates. Overall, SEO helps businesses understand their customers better and create more effective marketing strategies.


3. How does SEO work?


Doing SEO means the activities of optimizing your website for the search engine you want to rank for, for example: Google, Yahoo, Bing or Yandex, Baidu, Yahoo...

Each search engine has different algorithms to help determine the best search results for users.

For example, Google has over 200 ranking factors in their algorithm.

 

You can also read more about how Google search works at Google's own blog here


4. Types of SEO?


Common types of SEO include:

  • Content SEO (Optimizing website content)
  • Local SEO (Optimizing for local search)
  • Image SEO (Optimizing images)
  • Video SEO (Optimizing videos)
  • Voice search SEO (Optimizing for voice search)

In addition, on the Vietnamese market, there are some other terms used to describe different SEO approaches, such as holistic SEO, keyword SEO, and app SEO.

4.1 What is overall SEO?
Overall SEO
is the process of optimizing the entire website with the aim of increasing the website's visibility. It focuses on targeting and ranking keywords related to the products and services offered by a business, as well as targeting keywords that potential customers of the business are searching for. The goal of overall SEO is to improve the overall search engine ranking of the website and drive more traffic to the site.

4.2 What is keyword SEO?
Keyword SEO
refers to the practice of focusing on specific keywords or phrases in order to improve a website's search engine rankings for those terms. In Vietnam, it is often used to describe companies that focus on optimizing for main keywords, which are usually popular sales keywords. These SEO contracts typically have a moderate number of keywords and focus on short-tail keywords. This is in contrast to the overall SEO model, which focuses on optimizing for a broad range of keywords, including long-tail keywords.

4.3 What is SEO APP?
SEO APP
is an SEO model for optimizing mobile applications to rank high on Google search results, allowing users to easily find and install them. It involves optimizing keywords, titles, descriptions, and other factors that affect the visibility and ranking of mobile apps in app stores such as Appstore, CHplay.


5. Notes when doing website SEO


For most people when it comes to SEO, everyone thinks that they are optimizing for Google. That's why Glinteco will focus on optimizing your website for Google in this article.

NOTE:
There are many important things to put your website on TOP successfully, but in this article I would like to suggest the most important notes that you need to try to optimize.

 

5.1 Optimize Google's crawlability
The most important step is to optimize the website to make it as easy as possible for Googlebot to crawl.

Googlebot is the common name for Google's web crawler. Googlebot is a collective name for two different types of crawlers: desktop crawlers (Googlebot Desktop) that simulate users on desktop computers and mobile crawlers (Googlebot Desktop). Smartphone) simulates a user on a mobile device.
- According to Google

 

Think about it like this: Suppose you come to attend any class, but the building guard has not allowed you to enter the class so surely you will not be able to gain knowledge. And similarly if your website blocks Google's crawling process, surely Google can't rank your website, right?

SOME DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION YOU NEED TO KNOW
- On November 4, 2016, Google officially announced that it is testing mobile-first indexing instead of desktop indexing as before.
- On March 26, 2018 Google officially announced the priority of indexing on mobile devices (Mobile First Indexing).

 

It's still a bit confusing, isn't it? I will list some technical criteria so that you can understand more simply. To optimize the data collection process, you need to pay attention to the following information:

  • Server, the server where hosting is located
  • File Robots.txt
  • HTTP status code
  • Robot meta tags
  • HTML code of web content

If you can't optimize yourself, get help from a programmer or contact the person who created your website directly. Just a few small steps but will make your website more Googlebot friendly.

5.2 Keyword Research
Keyword research
is the most important job of an SEO campaign. The process of keyword research affects the investment budget of the whole project as well as strongly impacts the SEO strategy.

The most important job of the keyword research process is to find the set of keywords that need to be optimized and support the process of building a content strategy. If done incorrectly, it will consume a lot of resources of the business without bringing any really valuable results.

At the present time when researching keywords, you need to pay attention to information related to:

  • Search intent
  • Latent semantic indexing (LSI keyword)
  • Long tail keywords

Researching and choosing SEO keywords is not easy, I advise you to take the time and seriousness to search and build a set of keywords. Also you may need help from professionals to complete this process.

5.3 Optimizing website structure
To put it simply, optimizing website structure is how you organize your website content. A website usually consists of content on a variety of topics presented on posts and pages.

Site structure is concerned with how this content is grouped, linked, and presented to the reader. If you have a good site structure, it will be easier for users to find and Google can also index your URL better.

5.4 Build SEO standard content
Creating high-quality, valuable content is crucial to the success of your SEO efforts. Search engines like Google prioritize websites that provide useful and relevant information to their users.

Here are some tips to help you create SEO-friendly content:

  • Research and include relevant keywords in your content.
  • Write for your target audience, not just for search engines.
  • Use headings and subheadings to structure your content.
  • Use bullet points and lists to break up large chunks of text.
  • Include images and videos to enhance the user experience.
  • Use internal links to help users navigate your website.
  • Make sure your content is original and not copied from other sources.

By creating high-quality content that meets the needs of your target audience, you can attract more visitors to your website and improve your search engine rankings.

5.5 On-page Optimization
Onpage SEO
is a very important job of the website SEO process. Onpage optimization SEO can simply be understood that all the things you optimize on the page are called onpage optimization.

Your website's ranking is partly determined by on-page optimization factors. Onpage SEO factors include technical factors (e.g. the quality of your website code and speed) and content-related aspects, like the quality of the content on your site.

5.6 Off-page optimization
Off-page optimization
refers to all the activities and techniques implemented outside of your website to improve its search engine ranking. This includes building links, social media optimization, and reputation management.

Off-page SEO can be time-consuming as it involves searching for opportunities to generate signals and promote your website. However, it is a crucial technique as it helps to improve the E-A-T of your website. It is important to note that if you do not comply with Google's webmaster guidelines, your website may be penalized for using link schemes.

With the decrease in forums and blogs in Vietnam, optimizing Off-page SEO has become more challenging for newcomers. Experienced SEO professionals may have established systems that allow them to develop and maintain their rankings more efficiently.

If you do not have sufficient resources to build backlinks, you should focus on optimizing social media platforms. The power of social media, if harnessed effectively, can help your website to rank higher.

5.7 Analyze and measure SEO effectiveness
Once you've implemented SEO strategies and waited for an optimal amount of time, your website should start receiving more signals, both on-page and off-page. To analyze and measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts, you can use various SEO tools, but two of the most important ones are Google Analytics and Search Console.

Google Analytics provides valuable insights into user behavior when accessing your website. You can learn about the number of visitors, their demographics, the average time they spend on your site, the number of pages they view, and much more.

Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, is a favorite tool among SEO professionals. It allows you to analyze the performance of your website and detect and fix errors such as duplicate title tags and descriptions. Moreover, Search Console provides information about the source of links pointing to your website and many other useful features.

5.8 Optimize for mobile devices
According to statistics on internet usage in Vietnam, more than 61 million people use smartphones to access the internet. This number is really large and if you are the owner of a website, you certainly cannot help but spend time optimizing your website to be more mobile-friendly.

In addition, with Google now prioritizing indexing on mobile devices, the process of optimizing websites to be more mobile-friendly has become one of the very important criteria.

There are many ways to make your website more mobile-friendly:

  • Use the same link but create a website interface on your own computer and on your own phone.
  • Use 2 different paths for desktop and mobile interfaces.
  • Using the same link and interface on a computer that is elastic when entering other mobile devices (Responsive)

Usually, Responsive technology is chosen by the majority of webmasters to optimize websites more friendly to mobile devices because of the flexibility of this technology as well as the technology is really compatible with almost all mobile devices. motion.

In addition, you can also pay attention to AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) technology that allows to optimize the overall performance of the website. AMP is also a technology recommended by Google for webmasters to apply to their websites.

Simply put, if your website uses AMP technology, then if users use mobile phones to search and see your website. Then the loading speed of your page will be extremely fast, creating a great experience for customers when accessing your website.

Currently AMP technology is great, but unfortunately when using this technology, our website will not be able to have functions such as comments or the ability to collect customer information and shopping cart functionality. use.
Therefore, optimizing for mobile devices often webmasters will use Responsive technology as the main. There are a handful of news sites that use AMP, but not much.

 

5.9 Optimizing user experience
Optimizing user experience is an important factor in ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs), especially since Google's introduction of RankBrain in 2015. RankBrain uses machine learning to understand the user's search query and identify results that best match their intent, making it essential for website owners to prioritize user experience.

To optimize the user experience on your website, consider the following factors:

  • Dwell time: This refers to the amount of time users spend on your website during each session. The longer the dwell time, the better the user experience is considered to be. To increase dwell time, focus on creating engaging and relevant content that keeps users interested.
  • User search intent: Understanding what users are searching for and tailoring your content to match their intent is crucial for providing a good user experience. Conducting keyword research and creating content that matches users' search queries can help with this.
  • Click-through rate (CTR): A high CTR indicates that users are finding your website's content relevant and appealing. To improve CTR, focus on creating compelling titles and meta descriptions that accurately reflect the content on your website.
  • Bounce rate: A high bounce rate can indicate that users are not finding your website's content engaging or relevant. To decrease bounce rate, ensure that your website's content matches users' search queries and provides value to them.

While there are other technical factors to consider when optimizing user experience, focusing on these four factors can greatly improve your website's performance on SERPs.


6. Who needs SEO?


Anyone who wants to reach customers through search engines needs SEO. Whoever you are, as long as you have a website that shares useful articles, or you have a website with a lot of impressive photos and videos, or you own a business location and you want a lot of people. If you know yourself better through search engines, SEO is the job you need to do right away.

The people who use SEO most often are:

  • Business owners who want to grow their business through search engines.
  • Managers, sales staff who are looking to increase sales
  • Those who directly manage the website are day and night wanting to promote their website to more people


7. Tools to support SEO?


There are many software tools that support the SEO process, in this article I would like to introduce to you some popular tools, from here you can develop and learn more other supporting software.

7.1 Free SEO Support Tool

  • SEOquake: It is a free SEO extension that can be installed on your browser. It provides a variety of SEO metrics such as keyword density, number of backlinks, and social media metrics for any webpage that you visit.
  • Google Analytics: It is a free web analytics service that allows you to track and analyze website traffic. With this tool, you can monitor the number of visitors, traffic sources, bounce rate, and many other metrics.
  • Google Search Console: It is a free tool that helps you monitor your website's performance in Google search results. You can see the keywords that bring traffic to your site, identify crawl errors, and submit sitemaps.
  • Ubersuggest: It is a free SEO tool that provides keyword research, backlink analysis, and site audit features. It also provides insights into your competitors' top-performing pages and keywords.
  • Yoast SEO: It is a free WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your website's content for search engines. It provides features such as content analysis, XML sitemap generation, and meta tag optimization.
  • MozBar: It is a free browser extension that provides various SEO metrics for any webpage you visit. It includes features such as keyword research, link analysis, and on-page optimization recommendations.
  • Screaming Frog SEO Spider: It is a free desktop tool that crawls your website and provides insights into various SEO metrics such as broken links, page titles, and meta descriptions.

7.2 Tools to support keyword selection research
Keyword research is an essential part of SEO, and there are many tools available to help you find the right keywords for your website. Here are some popular keyword research tools:

  • Google Keyword Planner: This is a free tool that allows you to find keywords related to your business and see how often they are searched for on Google.
  • Ahrefs: A paid tool that provides comprehensive keyword research, including search volume, keyword difficulty, and related keywords.
  • Keywordtool.io: This is a free and paid tool that provides keyword suggestions based on your initial keyword input and can also show data on search volume, competition, and CPC.

7.3 Website Analytics Tool (Audit Website)
Website audit tools help you identify technical issues and SEO errors on your website that may affect your search engine ranking. These tools can provide recommendations on how to fix those issues and improve your website's performance. Some popular website audit tools include:

  • Google Search Console: This free tool provided by Google allows website owners to monitor their website's performance, check for indexing and crawling errors, and track search traffic data.
  • SEMrush: SEMrush is a paid tool that offers a variety of features, including website audits, competitor analysis, keyword research, and more. Its website audit tool provides a comprehensive report on a website's technical issues, SEO-related problems, and other factors that affect its performance.
  • Ahrefs: Ahrefs is another paid tool that offers a wide range of features, including website audits, keyword research, competitor analysis, and more. Its site audit tool provides a detailed report on a website's technical SEO issues, including broken links, missing meta tags, and more.
  • Screaming Frog: Screaming Frog is a desktop-based tool that crawls websites and provides a detailed analysis of technical SEO issues. It helps identify broken links, duplicate content, missing meta tags, and other issues that can affect a website's ranking.
  • Moz Pro: Moz Pro is a paid tool that offers a suite of SEO tools, including site audits, keyword research, link analysis, and more. Its site audit tool provides a detailed report on a website's technical SEO issues and offers actionable recommendations for improvement.

7.4 Backlink Analysis Tool
Backlinks are one of the most important factors that affect a website's SEO performance. Therefore, having a tool to analyze backlinks is essential for any SEO work. Here are some popular backlink analysis tools:

  • Ahrefs: This is a comprehensive SEO tool that offers a lot of features, including backlink analysis. Ahrefs can help you find out which websites are linking to your competitors, identify broken backlinks on your website, and more.
  • Moz Link Explorer: Moz is another popular SEO tool that offers a backlink analysis feature called Link Explorer. This tool allows you to see which websites are linking to your site, track your link building progress, and more.
  • SEMrush: SEMrush is an all-in-one SEO tool that also offers a backlink analysis feature. With SEMrush, you can track your backlink profile, analyze your competitors' backlinks, and more.
  • Majestic: Majestic is a backlink analysis tool that allows you to track your backlink profile, see which websites are linking to your competitors, and more.

7.5 Keyword Rank Checker Tool
Keyword rank checker tools are important for tracking the ranking position of your website's keywords on search engine results pages (SERPs). Here are some commonly used keyword rank checker tools:

7.6 Online SEO support platform
This item needs a fixed monthly budget, suitable for well-resourced SEO companies or for SEO PROs

  • SEMRush
  • MozPro

The tools to support SEO are many, if possible, experience all the tools to be able to choose your companions on the way to learning and doing SEO.


8. Conclusion

In conclusion, this article has provided an introduction to the fundamental concepts of SEO, including keyword research, on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and technical SEO. We have also discussed the importance of content creation and the role of social media in SEO.

Furthermore, we have shared some popular tools and platforms that can support the SEO process, such as keyword research tools, website analytics tools, backlink analysis tools, and keyword rank checker tools.

SEO can be a challenging and complex task, but with the right knowledge and tools, it can be a rewarding and effective way to attract more users to your website. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please do not hesitate to leave a comment or contact me. I am always here to support you on your journey to learn and master SEO.


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