A much-talked-about concept related to the Internet is SEO. SEO is named first wherever there is a discussion about business, online visibility, brand recognition, or customer attraction. In this article, we tell you about the history of SEO, How it works, how important it is now, and what it will bring about in future. So let’s get the ball going.
What is SEO?
The so-called SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. But what do we mean by search engine optimisation? Well, it refers to a number of on-page and off-page techniques you can apply to improve your website’s ranking in order to bring it to the first page of Google. Why should you bother getting your website to the first page? Because that’s the only place, your content can be seen. To understand this point better, it’s essential to learn a little about websites and the niches they cover.
There are over 1.88 billion websites on google now (please keep in mind that there are sometimes several hundred pages on a single website). On the other hand, there are about 2500 Niches one could write about. A Niche is a specific area or category in which a certain group of people are interested. For example, health is a niche with sub-niches such as dental care, skin care, heart disease, cancer, etc.
The content of a website can be specifically related to one niche or a sub-niche such as skin care, or it could cover several niches like lifestyle, health, digital marketing, sports and so forth. Let us, for a moment suppose that every website in the world covers one niche only and that there are equal numbers of websites covering a certain niche. Now, how many websites around the globe cover a given niche?
The number of websites divided by the number of niches we have will reveal that there could be 752000 websites covering the same niche. Amazing, ha? So, how does google list these websites and in what order does it show them to the viewers? In a word, SEO. To clarify this, let’s ask Google what SEO is and see how many pages it suggests. So, this is our question “What is SEO?”.
As you can see, Google suggests 23 pages related to our search. Given that each page contains ten URLs at least, we can conclude that according to Google, 230 websites have answered our question. However, we usually check the first five or six websites listed on the first page to get our answer. It means that websites listed on the other pages will receive little if any, attention. What makes one website rank first and another rank 230? The answer is simple.
These websites have been listed based on the quality with which they have been optimised for search engines, meaning that the website ranking first is highly SEO friendly while the one ranking 230 is poorly optimised for search engines.
How Did SEO Come to Existence?
Soon after the World Wide Web was launched in 1991, thousands of websites appeared on the internet. Eventually, people realised that some sort of order and structure was inevitable, and that was when Larry Page and Sergey Brin built the biggest search engine known as Google in 1997. By then called BackRub, Google would examine the content of every website on the internet and categorise them according to its algorithms.
This would allow Google to find the most relative results to the viewers’ queries in a few seconds. So, in order to fall under the right category, the content of a page, and for that matter, a website, had to have certain features. Otherwise, it would appear in search results for a somewhat different niche. Proper keywords, Internal and external links, headings and subheadings, and article length were just a few features that would make a content SEO-friendly.
What is the primary function of SEO Today?
SEO is still maintaining its primary function. It runs more traffic into your website and makes grounds for you to sell your product or opinion. What makes it different from what it first was is that it is more complicated than two decades ago. It is estimated that over 540000 websites are launched every day. Considering the number of websites we already have, one could imagine how difficult it is to take a website to the first page of Google.
Several factors impact the way your content receives attention. The quality of your content, the links you embed in your content, the amount of new information your content provides, and how professionally it’s been written are among such factors. Yet, without proper optimisation for search engines, all your efforts would be in vain.
Will SEO Remain a Trustworthy Technique in The Future?
The amount of credit SEO has received during the past two decades tells us that it’s going to remain with us for years to come. No serious issue has been found with it. The minor problems it might have are being worked on. Also, with every new update, search engines get to assess sites’ content quality more accurately. In addition, no subsequent technique has ever been suggested. Considering Google algorithms, three points should be kept in mind concerning SEO in the future.
Visual content will be of a greater value
This is actually happening right now, but it will be of even greater value in the future. Apart from the written content, today’s SERPs include videos, maps, pictures and graphs as well. This is the case because Google does its best to improve user experience, and users usually prefer learning from visuals to learning from reading alone. Let’s suppose that two contents address precisely the same issue. Content A has several visuals, while content B doesn’t have any. Even if content A has been written more professionally, content B will be preferred by search engines as it has addressed the topic from several aspects. It is safe to say then optimising for search engines will mandate using a variety of visual elements in every content we post on our website.
Exact-matched keywords will no longer be of use
Long gone are the days when stuffing a text with several keywords would bring the text to the top of search results. Assessing the degree of relevancy between a page’s title tag and its content along with the embedded links has enabled the search engines to make correct sense of the content and rank it accordingly. With every update, Google is becoming more and more intelligent. As a result, it has learned to recognise the meaning and intention beyond queries. Consequently, content optimisation in the future should be more than ever intention-oriented and less keyword-oriented.
Faster Site Speed will be a must
In 2010 Google launched Core Web Vitals to better assess loading speed and clicking response. The aim was to ensure that users find the answer to their queries as soon as possible. Google then announced that site speed had become a ranking factor, meaning that the quicker a site loads, the better. Since then, proper site speed has been an inseparable part of SEO. However, what we may consider good site speed today, will not count the same in the near future. As more people begin to surf the net, more traffic will be inevitable. Consequently, only websites with a higher loading speed and click response will receive enough credit from Google.
Conclusion
SEO has been around for over two decades now. It’s become one of the main contributors to online visibility and, consequently, more sales in one form or another. Explaining the concept of SEO, this article elaborated on how SEO came into existence, what value it holds, and what it might bring along in future. Therefore, in order to keep your website in line with Google algorithms, the right way to go is to contact a reputable SEO agency around you and ask for their support and supervision. This has two advantages. First, it will ensure that your website is highly SEO-friendly and second, it will save you tons of time and money. If you’re located in Australia, you may consider contacting Team-X professionals.
Team-X Cyber Solution provides the best SEO services in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Darwin, Auckland, Brisbane, and Wellington.
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