Search engine optimization uses how search works to optimize a site for organic search results.
Like search engines evaluating content based on more than 200 ranking factors, SEO does the same. Search engines like Google publish best practice guidelines, and many professional SEOs share their findings from working on hundreds of sites.
These ranking factors are bucketed into a few types of SEO:
Off-page SEO, which defines your site’s online reputation. You’ll often evaluate your off-page SEO by looking at your external backlinks (what sites link to your website) and the authority or reputation of those backlinks.
On-page SEO, which emphasizes your site’s existing and future content. You’ll evaluate several areas here, including title tags, meta descriptions, keyword targeting, content helpfulness, and more.
Technical SEO, which focuses on your site’s accessibility. You’ll evaluate things like your site architecture, page speed, accessibility, internal linking, and other areas that often require collaborating with a developer.
Local SEO, which focuses on your site’s visibility in localized search results, like ‘bakery near me’ or ‘bakery in la’. You’ll evaluate a few areas here, including your local listings (think Google Business Profile), on-site content, and more.
Ecommerce SEO, which emphasizes your site’s product-based URLs. You’ll often evaluate your ecommerce SEO similar to your on-page SEO, with the addition of schema markup and Google Merchant Center.
Search engine optimization works by optimizing the above buckets to meet search engine best practices.
