Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine.

SEO refers to the improvement of unpaid results (known as "natural" or "organic" results), and excludes the purchase of paid placement.

SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, adding content, modifying HTML, and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links is another SEO tactic. By May 2015, mobile search had surpassed desktop search.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, the computer programmed algorithms which dictate search engine behavior, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. SEO is performed because a website will receive more visitors from a search engine the higher the website ranks in the search engine results page (SERP). These visitors can then be converted into customers.

SEO differs from local search engine optimization in that the latter is focused on optimizing a business' online a presence so that its web pages will be displayed by search engines when a user enters a local search for its products or services. The former instead is more focused on national or international searches.

Optimizing Visibility in Search Engines

It is common practice for Internet search users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search Play Slideshow results page is essential for directing more traffic toward the site. The higher a website naturally ranks in organic results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user.

SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine. SEO is typically a set of "white hat" best practices that webmasters and Web content producers follow to help them achieve a better ranking in search engine results.

Optimizing Organic Search CTR

SEO is also about making your search engine result relevant to the user's search query so more people click the result when it is shown in search. In this process, snippets of text and Metadata are optimized to ensure your snippet of information is appealing in the context of the search query to obtain a high CTR (click-through-rate) from search results.

SEO may also be called search engine optimizer when using automated tools to assist with the optimization process.

Free SEO web tools

1. Google PageSpeed Insights
Check the speed and usability of your site on multiple devices

2. Moz Local Listing Score
See how your local business looks online

3. Keywordtool.io
Hundreds of keyword ideas based on a single keyword

4. Google Analytics
Complete web stats and search insights

5. Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster Tools
Constant website analysis, alerts, and error reports

6. Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker
Comprehensive link analysis

7. Moz Link Explorer
A complete overview of your website, pages, and links

8. Google Keyword Planner
Know what people search for

9. Google.com in an Incognito Window
Discover auto-fill opportunities

10. Google Trends
See the relative search popularity of topics

11. Ahrefs SEO toolbar
Instant SEO metrics for web pages and Google searches

12. SEO Web Page Analyzer
Get a full on-page analysis of your website

13. SERP Simulator
Preview how your web pages will look in Google’s search results

14. Schema Creator
Customize how your web pages appear in the search results

15. SimilarWeb
View site stats for any domain

16. SERP Robot
See your ranking position for up to five keywords

17. XML Sitemaps
Build a sitemap

18. Browseo
See your website the way a search engine sees it

19. SEO Site Checkup
Audit your website for on-page and technical SEO issues

20. Yoast SEO
Suggestions for search engine optimizing your blog posts

21. LinkMiner
LinkMiner is a Chrome extension that lets you check any web page for broken links on the fly. It’s useful for finding broken link building opportunities.
22. Google Business Review Link Generator
Create a link for customers to review your business on Google

23. Copyscape
Check for duplicate content

24. Robots.txt Generator
Easily generate an all-important robots.txt for your site

25. Structured Data Testing Tool
The Google Structured Data Testing Tool is an easy and useful tool for validating your structured data, and in some cases, previewing a feature in Google Search.

26. Answer the Public
Answer the Public fetches Google autocomplete queries in bulk and divides them into various lists. That’s very useful for uncovering the questions people are asking in Google.

27. Beam Us Up
Beam Us Up is a free SEO crawler. It’s a great alternative to Screaming Frog. However, it’s only available for Windows.
If you’re a Mac user, don’t forget that Screaming Frog will crawl up to 500 web pages for free (with limited functionality).

28. Keyworddit
Keyworddit extracts keywords from Reddit. Just enter any subreddit (e.g., /r/bigSEO) and it’ll pull out a list of a few hundred keywords plus monthly search volumes.

29. Hunter.io
Hunter.io finds all email addresses related to a website in seconds.
(*It’s free up to 100 requests per month)
Install the Chrome extension for quick access, or use the Google Sheets add-on.
Other similar tools for finding email addresses include FindThat.Email, Voila Norbert, etc. We tested nine of these tools in our guide to finding email addresses

30. HEADMasterSEO
HeadmasterSEO is a simple tool for bulk checking the status codes for a list of URLs.
It can reliably check between two and six million URLs on most computers.
If you prefer a web-based application—and only wish to check up to 100 URLs—try HTTPstatus.io.

Click here for Starter Guide

Google’s “Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.”