business digitization

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

• Optimization for search engines (e.g. Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Baidu, etc.).

• Objective: improve the position that a website occupies in the search results of Google and many other search engines and directories.

• Organic (i.e. non-paid) positioning.

Search Engines

• Search engines work like large libraries and store millions and millions of pages and content, index them, order and classify them and show you the best results for your searches.

• A search engine's algorithm makes its calculations and evaluations to decide which results should appear first, sharing space with the ads of companies that have decided to invest resources to position themselves among the first results (through SEM) through programs such as Google Ads.

Results Pages (SERPs)

• SERPs ("Search Engine Results Pages") are the results offered by a search engine.

• The elements that can be found in the results are:

  • Web pages: They correspond to the web pages indexed by Google.

  • Local companies: They are located thanks to the results of "Google My Business".

  • Images: Google doesn't just index websites, it also works with the images they contain.

  • News: Google filters the pages of any news source on the web.

  • Maps: Offers geolocated information (e.g. the closest Italian restaurant, etc.).

  • Videos: Google also indexes the videos that appear on the web and filters the results with its YouTube platform.

  • Books: "Google Books" is Google's service for searching for books.

  • Applications: Known as ASO ("App Store Optimization") positioning, for mobile applications ("apps"), used in the App Store, Google Play Store, etc.

  • Products: "Google Shopping" is Google's service for searching for products (from previously registered sellers).

  • Sponsored links: Coming from "Google Adwords" ("Google Ads"), Google's online advertising platform.

  • Featured snippets ("answer boxes") or "position zero": Position zero on Google is a featured snippet that appears at the top of the results of a universal search. This fragment tries to provide instant answers to the user's questions that are not found in their "Knowledge Graph".

Search Types

• Informational search. Most common type of search (approximately 80%). They are those searches through which users try to find out, regardless of whether it is about their nearest bookstore, the most recommended artificial intelligence course or the best way to prepare chicken curry. They are searches with a variable value, depending on the topic and the depth of the keywords, but they give rise to opportunities as diverse as generating traffic, discovering brands, obtaining links and obtaining leads.

• Brand search. It is one that arises when the user knows what they want to visit, but without knowing its web address. They are those that are carried out through the name of brands, products or specific websites. This type of search will benefit the product or service that is being searched, being indifferent to the rest. Approximately, they account for 10% of total searches.

• Transactional search. Transactional searches are those that are performed to complete a transaction. They do not have to be directly sales, and could be subscriptions to newsletters, downloads of resources and any other type of leads. These searches account for another 10% of total searches, having a very high value for those lucky destination sites.

SEO Positioning Factors

• Keywords. SEO works with "keywords" that will be used as a guide for the search engine to understand the content of a website or category. These keywords will have to be related to the theme of the page, otherwise the search engine will not understand the information.

• Reputation. A good reputation is generated when you begin to meet all the requirements that a web search engine asks for to position correctly: quality and original, differentiated content that responds to user demands.

• Words in the links. Content matters. For this reason, SEO is responsible for seeing if there is quality content and if it attracts and responds to user searches.

• Authority. Search engines take into account the popularity of a website and, therefore, all the information it contains. The more popular a website is in a subject, the more relevant information it is considered to have. But it is important that you understand that if you have authority in Digital Marketing, Google will hardly position you for other types of content.

• Importance of the web within the search engine. This depends on several elements that make up on-page SEO and off-page SEO.

Types of SEO: On-page vs. Off-page

• On-page SEO: All those actions aimed at improving the positioning of a website that are carried out within the same web page:

  • Keywords.

  • Loading time.

  • User experience.

  • Code optimization.

  • URL format.

  • The meta tags.

  • The metadata.

  • <alt> in images.

  • Internal links.

  • Web structure.

  • Etc.

• Off-page SEO: All those techniques that happen beyond a website with the aim of improving its positioning:

  • Quality content.

  • Backlinks in appropriate comments on blogs, forums or news.

  • Register in quality directories.

  • Collaborate with other pages in exchange for putting "follow" links.

  • Contact experts to share content.

  • Etc.

Types of SEO: Black Hat vs. White Hat

• Black Hat SEO. It tries to improve positioning but in a risky way, providing short-term benefits but not being advisable to obtain positive results in the medium or long term. Search engines (e.g. "Google Search") usually penalize these types of practices, reducing the website's position in search results. "Black Hat" techniques are pursued by different Google algorithms such as Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, etc.

• White Hat SEO. Comply with all search engine rules and work as ethically as possible to position your pages in the SERPs. Search engines usually reward these types of practices, improving the website's position in search results.

Black Hat SEO Techniques

• Cloaking. It is a content over-optimization technique that works to show a type of content to the search engine that is different from what is shown to the user.

• Spinning (spin articles). It is a technique that modifies web articles using automatic software that changes words for synonyms and which turns out to be low-quality content.

• Hidden text. As its name indicates, hidden text tries to make invisible words that are repeated more than necessary with the same background color of the page. In this way, they go unnoticed and the user cannot recognize them.

• Comments on blogs. Write worthless comments. Most of the time it consists of distributing comments indiscriminately that don't really contribute anything.

• Buy expired domains. Buy domains that have expired but retain their authority or create a PBN ("Private Blog Network").

• Keyword stuffing. It is the excessive use of keywords that normally appear in meta descriptions, paragraphs, lists of numbers or words and in anchor text.

• Page hijacking. This is the hijacking of a web page. Its actions consist of creating a page identical to another and making the search engine believe that the copy of the website is the original.

• Buy and sell links. It consists of buying and selling links from high-ranking pages to position yourself better.

• Link spam. This technique consists of creating many blogs and performing the "linkbuilding" technique (in this case, placing massive "links" that point to the website from other websites, blogs, etc., all artificially).

White Hat SEO Techniques

• Link baiting. This technique is based on offering good content to make the user fall in love. If something makes the internet user spend time on a website, it is eye-catching content that is differentiated from the rest.

• Spread creativity. It can be difficult but it is a matter of knowing what makes the difference. Creativity is one of the qualities of a website that generates the most engagement.

• Publish information before anyone else. The SEO professional is also there for that. Detect current topics and trends and predict which topics will be the most prominent. In addition, it is advisable to find topics that users have searched for on the internet and for which there is little published information.

• Generate debate. Making some noise brings traffic to the website. Many users enjoy debating and sharing their opinions on different topics of interest that have previously gone through the SEO filter.

• Accompany with multimedia content. The web is not only text and visual content is increasingly successful. For example, a post accompanied by images has much more power than text alone. Some types are images, photos, infographics, presentations, audios, podcasts, videos, graphics, animations, downloadable materials, e-books, etc. There is a trend to incorporate Gen-AI (generated by artificial intelligence) content.

• Content curation. It is very important that, to generate quality content, the content is filtered, grouped and selected to share it with the audience.

• Facilitate tracking for search engines. There is no magic method that helps you be first in the list of results, but there are techniques that improve visibility, such as improving the HTML structure of meta descriptions and microformats. You can also help Google by placing a link to your content for it to discover or explicitly ask it to crawl that page from the "Google Search Console" tool.

• Content adapted to mobile phones. Online browsing carried out through mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) is already greater than that carried out through desktop equipment (PCs, laptops, etc.). That is why we already talked about "mobile first" design and usability (gives priority to mobile devices) and with it the need to apply specific designs and adapted loading strategies to improve the user experience on this type of devices.

Advantages of SEO

• Attracting free or low-cost traffic.

• It is one of the most loyal sources of long-term traffic.

• Obtaining qualified traffic from the use of keywords.

• We will inspire confidence in potential users: improving our reputation.

• Improving the quality of our website.

Disadvantages of SEO

• These are techniques that require training, time and effort.

• Results may take several weeks to see.

• The impact of SEO techniques on Google varies as does the search engine's algorithm. We must be willing to update content and make constant improvements.

• Just as we work on SEO, our competition will: reaching first place will never be guaranteed.

• The results that are positioned by paying for ads (SEM) will always be above, although our positioning will be organic (SEO).

Whether you are self-employed, an SME or a large company, at U2-LAB™ we help you with everything you need, at all times, from the beginning of the project to its completion and beyond, so that you have peace of mind and can dedicate yourself to what really matters: growing your business/company and offering your clients services of the highest quality, effective and efficient.