If you run a website on the internet, there’s no way you haven’t heard of the term “SEO”.
Have you ever wondered what it actually means but never actually get an answer? 
Well… no worries!
Let’s find out!

What is SEO - Search Engine Optimization?

"As defined by Neil Patel, a well known entrepreneur, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of taking steps to help a website or piece of content rank higher on Google."

In simple terms, this refers to the organic search results (not paid) that appear on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) when someone runs a search query. 
While a user is likely to search for something and visit the link with the most relevant content, usually on the top, SEO helps you to appear on the first page which means that there is a higher chance of people visiting your website or checking out your piece of content than if it ended up on the second, third, or any other pages.
I mean, think about it, how often do you navigate to the latter pages? Not that often right?

Same goes with your target audience or your consumers. They are more likely to scroll through the first SERP and if they don’t find the right content, they might run another search query. 
This is why SEO is important.

But how does it work?

How does SEO work?

Assume that you’re heading to the library to borrow a book.
To put it simply, that is how SEO works too. 

Search engines such as Google and Bing use bots, which are known as web crawlers, in order to crawl pages on the web. A bot downloads and indexes content from all over the Internet. The crawlers will collect information about the pages and put them into an index. The index being the giant library as mentioned in the above example.
Next, algorithms will analyze the pages in the index, and by considering hundreds of ranking factors, the order in which pages would appear on the SERP for a search query will be determined. 

Adding to our previous example, this means that the librarian has read all of the books under your preferred genre and suggests you the best book which meets all your requirements. 
Except for the fact that unlike the whole library process, search engines take less than a second to generate search results.

Also you should remember that unlike paid search ads, you cannot pay search engines to get higher organic search rankings. 

Why is SEO important for Marketing?

You might wonder why SEO is so important. But here’s the thing!

Apparently, it is estimated that Google processes approximately 63,000 search queries each second while an average person conducts between three and four searches each day. This means that there are close to 5.6 Billion searches per day translating to approximately 2 Trillion global searches per year.

This is why SEO is a fundamental part of Digital Marketing. 

It has also been estimated that 81% of retail shoppers conduct online research before making a purchase.

Considering that search is often the primary source of traffic for brands, ranking above your competitors will give you a better impression with your customers or audiences. 
Not only will this help you generate more traffic, this will also help you in looking reliable and trustworthy while also achieving a greater brand recall than your rivals.

Conclusion

Optimizing your content for search engines is not something that can be done overnight. And just adding some keywords won’t help you either.
In order for you to get higher rankings on search results, you need to conduct keyword research first. You also have to remember that there are many Dos and Don’ts to SEO. 

With the right knowledge on it, you will be able to get higher search rankings like a pro!