What is Web Positioning or SEO?

Contents

1.What is SEO or Organic Positioning?
2.SEO history
3.How do search engines rank you?

• The content
• The keywords or Keywords
• The relevance
• Periodicity in publications
• Technical specifications 4.Bad practices in SEO positioning: What you should not do
• Manual Penalty:
• Algorithmic Penalty: 5.Paid positioning: SEM 6.Why should you do SEO? 7.Tools to measure SEO
• woorank:
• Keyword Planner Tool
• ubersuggest
• positionally
• SEMRush
• PageSpeed ​​Insights
• SEOMoz 8.Recommended books
• Positioning in Search Engines, written by Fernando Maciá, CEO of Human Level
• Positioning And Analyzing Your Website Traffic With Google Analytics, by Marie Prat and Ronan Chardonneau
• How to be first in google without paying, by Montserrat Peñarroya and Helena Casas
• The keys to mastering SEO: What you need to know to position a website in Google, José Noguera
• Content Marketing eBook

When we start working on digital marketing , many questions arise regarding the different techniques and concepts that must be handled in order to make a successful digital marketing strategy. Web positioning or SEO is one of the most important strategies when it comes to having good results in online marketing.

What is SEO or Organic Positioning?

SEO, for its acronym in English, stands for “Search Engine Optimization”. It is about optimizing your website for search engines through techniques and keyword studies and development of valuable content for audiences.

For its part, Wikipedia defines SEO positioning as “Search engine optimization, search engine optimization or web optimization. It is the technical process by which changes are made to the structure and information of a web page, with the aim of improving the visibility of a website in the organic results of the different search engines.

Gianluca Fiorelli, author of the I Love SEO blog and associate consultant at SEOmoz, says that SEO “is not just 'search engine optimization' (we don't optimize search engines), but rather 'search experience optimization.' Users are the main focus of true SEO, and that is something that Google itself preaches to all website owners (not just SEOs).”

Another simpler concept, but one that hits the spot, is that of Neil Patel. He assures that “SEO is the process of optimizing your content online. So a search engine likes to show it as a good result for searches for a certain keyword.”

In other words, SEO is the optimization of quality content so that the search engines of the different platforms find you more easily when a user needs to find information regarding the commercial sector where your company is located.

[Tweet “#SEO is the optimization of quality content so that the search engines of the different platforms can find you”]

SEO history

As the years have passed, search engines have evolved. Since when was Yahoo! in 1994, one of the first online search engines, the algorithms on which they work have been modified and it has become that being in the first places of the search results is a battle between the most strategic.

The term SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was used for the first time in 1997, and that is when work began on optimizing keywords on web pages. Google was born in 1998, led by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and with this birth Page Rank was also created.

The Page Rank is the ranking that this search engine uses to measure the "authority" of a web page. That is, the importance of one site with respect to another. This ranking was public for a long time and anyone could see it through many tools. As of 2016 Google hid it and now only they can see it.

From the moment Google was born, search engines began to organize themselves based on a ranking of results and in 1998, Jeffrey Brewer, from Goto.com, created the first advertising prototype based on PPC ( Pay Per Click ), a very big advance. when it comes to digital marketing.

As we can see in the following infographic, SEO positioning takes off from the moment Google is born and its power rank. From that moment on, all other search engines have been adapting to changes in the Google algorithm, taking it as a model.

How do search engines rank you?

The content
We are going to tell you the secret for Google to position you. The key to being in the first places is the content! But not just any content, it must be 100% original content and your own. Google penalizes duplicate content. So the first thing you have to know is that the content has to be 100% produced by you.

[Tweet "#Google penalizes duplicate content (i.e. copied from another site), so the first thing you need to know is that the content has to be 100% produced by you."]

Another important point is the length of your post. Previously, just by writing an entry with 300 words and the appropriate keywords, Google positioned you, but not now. For Google to place you on the first pages, your content has to be more extensive. Neil Patel , one of the most renowned experts in online marketing, ensures that the extension must be more than 2000 words.

The keywords or Keywords

The Keywords or keywords are like the map and the keys that you give Google to open the door of your portal. With them, Google finds you and knows what you are talking about in a certain article and thus can position you in the first places of the search.

Keywords or keywords have always been important, despite all the changes that the different algorithms have had, they will always be present. Why? Because they are why Google (or any other search engine) recognizes what our articles talk about or what our services are.

In short, they are the terms with which users do a search. There are two types of keywords. The general ones that are used by users who do not know exactly what they are looking for, for example, "trips" "cakes", etc.

On the other hand, there are the specific keywords, which are more elaborate searches and are the ones that your potential potential customers do. This is because they are already clear about what they need, for example “trips to Roraima Venezuela”. If your business is a travel agency and you have this destination, this client will surely take a look at your page.

For this reason, you should do a study (using the Google tool for keywords) and choose the words that best relate to your brand and product and leave them fixed on your website, in addition, complement it with Content Marketing to have more chances of being found. In this video Matt Cuts explains how Google search works.

https://youtu.be/BNHR6IQJGZs

The relevance

Suppose your business is buying and selling real estate in Argentina. Let's take the case that a potential client searches on Google for “best areas to buy a house in Buenos Aires”.

Google's "spiders" go through all the websites analyzing the content and put the sites that talk about this topic in the first search results, prioritizing those that it judges have better content.

[Tweet “#Google “spiders” go through all websites analyzing content and put sites that talk about this topic in the first search results”]

We call Google "spiders" to the small robots that go through all the web pages examining each content . They love new and quality content, every time you post they visit you, examine your content, and then position you in a user's search place.

So how relevant is the content you are writing to your audience? Is what you are writing really what your target audience wants to read? Relevance is, in a nutshell, the quality of your content compared to that of other websites that work on the same topic as you.

Google takes relevance very seriously, so if you haven't yet sat down to study what your potential customer wants to read and what kind of searches they do, it's time for you to take a few hours to start doing it.

Periodicity in publications

While it is true that content is the king of search engine optimization, another very important point is the time you allow to pass between publication and publication.

Neil Patel says that “ When you publish new content on your website, Google gives your website a score. Over time, this score fades and your site will then require more new content .”

Technical specifications

There are other more technical specifications like the ones we share below, which you should also take into account:

• the urls

Yes, URLs are super important, and more important is that you include keywords in them . You should also take into account that you cannot create them with long phrases, the shorter the better, and they should not contain articles such as "el" "lo" "la", etc. Each word must be separated by a hyphen (-).

• Name in the images

Although many people do not take it into account, it is important that when you upload the images to your blog post, you name them and that this name is a keyword . In this way, Google will be able to classify them correctly and thanks to this they will be able to find you more easily.

[Tweet "Although many people do not take it into account, it is important that when you upload the images to your blog entry you put the name"]

- How fast your page loads

Google also takes into account the loading time of your web page and the usability of your website, that is, that it is a web portal that is easy to navigate.

- Mobile Compatibility

It is important that your page adapts to the format of smartphones, tablets, etc., because Google ensures that more than 50% of the search is done from these mobile devices.

Bad practices in SEO positioning: What you should not do

There are a series of bad practices that search engines penalize, in the case of Google they have very clear rules and if you break them, you will not save yourself from being penalized for long, among them we have:

Overly optimized content: All excesses are bad and if your website is too perfect, search engines don't like it because for them it means that you work too much on SEO and not on what your audience really needs.

Duplicate content: This is really an error, not only because Google penalizes you, but also because your users are interested in reading content of your authorship and that helps them solve a problem, they do not want to read the same thing on all websites.

Excess advertising: It is not bad that you have a few banners on your page, but do not go overboard. The most important thing for Google (and it should be for you too) is the user experience , and it's not pleasant when every click brings up an intrusive banner.

Hidden content: Google knows everything, so if you have content on your website that your users cannot see, but it is full of keywords and links just to position yourself, wait for your sanction to come.

SPAM comments: Eliminate spam comments on your blog posts, because you can get a penalty thanks to them.

Keyword stuffing: The keywords have to be naturally in the text, because if Google detects that you are using them in an intrusive way in your writing, it penalizes you without thinking about it. This is called “keyword stuffing”.

Too many external links: It is not bad that you exchange links with other blogs on the same topic, but if Google detects too many external links, it will believe that you are selling them.

In this image they explain what it is:

As in everything, someone creates the rules and someone else creates the trap. Google penalizes these bad practices. How? There are two types of penalties, manual and algorithmic.

Manual Penalty:

This penalty happens in two ways, either someone sent a spam report on your page or some alarm signal about bad practices has been detected on your website, then a search engine agent reviews your site and if it is true, they apply the penalty automatically. Handbook. They then send you a notification through Search Console. If you are sanctioned manually, it is much more expensive and difficult to get out of that sanction.

Search Console is a free tool from Google that "helps you monitor and maintain your website's presence in search results" and also allows you to monitor whether your website is complying with Google's rules.

Algorithmic Penalty:

This is much easier to fix than the previous penalty. With this you do not receive any type of notification and it happens when the algorithm detects that you are breaking the search engine rules and automatically penalizes you, the penalty can be 10 positions less in the ranking, among others.

Paid positioning: SEM

There are two ways to be in the first places of the search, one is the SEO that is totally organic and free and the other is paying Google to place you first in the search, and we call this SEM ( Search Engine Marketing) .

These are paid ad campaigns on search engines . How does it work? It is an auction where the first portals that offer the most for the keyword are positioned first, this is calculated -in the case of Google- through Google Adwords.

Depending on how much competition the word you are opting for has, it assigns a price and based on this price, a bid is established for each click you get on the link that you affiliate to that word. The more competition the word has, the higher the cost.

We return with the example of the real estate rental and sales company in Latin America, and your keyword is “rentals in Santiago de Chile”. Google, depending on how many times that word is searched, assigns a price to it, let's say that in this case it was $0.5, and your budget is $40, every time someone clicks on your link, $0.5 will be deducted from that budget .

The secret of SEM is to find the words with the highest number of searches, but with the lowest price, in this way you will greatly optimize your budget.

Why should you do SEO?

There are many reasons why you should do SEO, and here we list the main ones:

Visibility: The main reason why you should do SEO is because you increase the visibility of your website and thus increase the visibility of your brand or product.

Web traffic: As a result of the increased visibility of your website, you will increase the number of people who enter your website daily, which translates into greater possibilities of attracting new customers.

One step ahead of your competition: If you do SEO you will go one step ahead of your competition, because your potential client is more likely to find you before your competition.

You increase your sales: Although this is not immediate, it is clear that by being more exposed, more people will know what you are doing and what you offer and the number of qualified leads that may be interested in your business, which translates into a significant increase in your sales and brand recognition.

Tools to measure SEO

It is necessary that once you make the decision to start optimizing both your content and your website with SEO, you use the tools that help you with the work. You can always do it step by step with the tools that the search engines themselves give you, but the time to invest will be greater.

Woorank:

With this tool you can instantly analyze your website and detect 129 aspects that you must take into account for SEO positioning in search engines.

Keyword Planner Tool

This tool helps you search for keywords and rank them by number of searches. It also gives us alternative keywords to help us choose the best ones when writing a new blog post.

Ubersuggest

It also helps you find alternative keywords that will help you plan and execute your content marketing strategy. In this video they explain how the tool works.

Positionally

It helps you to see what position each keyword has in Google by country. That is, google.com.ve or google.com.ar, will help you position yourself internationally.

SEMRush

With this tool you can get an insight into your competitors' strategies in display advertising, organic and SEM search, and link building. In addition, it allows you to cross, combine and visualize the data, in addition to the analysis of the keywords, all in a single tool.

PageSpeed ​​Insights

It helps you measure the speed with which your website loads. A very important factor when it comes to positioning yourself at least in Google.

SEOMoz

This tool facilitates the work of any Digital Marketing manager, as it allows you to see how the ranking of the Keywords is going. Monitor which Google rules you are breaking and you can also see the mentions that other websites have made about yours, among many other features

Recommended books

If you want to continue reading about SEO and other topics such as Content Marketing or Social Networks that are important for you to start this challenge with everything, we leave you with some book recommendations.

Positioning in Search Engines , written by Fernando Maciá, CEO of Human Level

Amazon reports that this latest edition “ collects the latest updates in relevance algorithms, changes in search engines and the emerging role of social networks in online visibility.”

Positioning And Analyzing Your Website Traffic With Google Analytics, by Marie Prat and Ronan Chardonneau

In two volumes they explain how to analyze the data through Google Analytics and also how to use this data for your SEO positioning. In addition, it teaches us how to adapt to the constant changes in the Google algorithm.

How to be first in google without paying, by Montserrat Peñarroya and Helena Casas

In this book they teach us to position our website organically, that is, without paying a penny. From how search engines work to understanding how Google orders search results.

This book presents a real tutorial in very simple and easy to understand language on how to make your blog generate as many leads as possible.

The keys to mastering SEO: What you need to know to position a website in Google, José Noguera

It is the ideal guide to start. This book teaches you from A to Z what you need to know to make an SEO positioning strategy.

Content Marketing eBook

Learn about the current challenges you face when developing SEO strategies and how Content Marketing has become the new SEO.

As you can see, considering an SEO positioning strategy is quite a challenge. On many occasions you will need the help of professionals in the field and be constantly analyzing the results of each of the steps you take.