Understanding SEO

For many businesses- from the smallest of one man operations to the largest of multinational corporations with thousands of employees- SEO or search engine optimization is an important if not misunderstood marketing channel. In an attempt to demystify the SEO Voodoo, West Loop SEO is providing its potential customers and fellow marketers with a quick and easy understanding of what SEO is and how to make sense of this marketing channel.

One of the biggest misconceptions many clients have regarding SEO is related to how ranking on Google actually works. To be clear, there isn’t a “guy” a la the wizard of Oz pulling strings to make results show up. You can’t call Google to get a result fixed. There is no way to email Google to get your ranking adjusted. Where you rank is where Google thinks you should be and frankly, outside of hiring an SEO or handing SEO implementation yourself where your website ranks is where your website will continue to rank. Ranking is all done via a very complex algorithm, one that I am convinced Google doesn’t even fully understand. The algorithm is updated daily and occasionally large scale updates roll out. These bigger updates are generally referred to as algorithm updates or come with a specific name and these bigger updates often shake up ranking results in a significant way. However, results fluctuate daily and are rarely static.

With rankings in mind, understanding ranking and what your SEO professional means when they mention rankings is also important. Ranking refers to where a webpage on your website ranks on a search engine result page or SERP. This is usually a number that ranges from 1 to 100. Where 1 is as high as you can rank and 100 is as low as you can rank. Ranking data will almost always be the rankings reported from Google’s search engine. This is because almost all search engine traffic comes from Google. Around 80% of search engine traffic comes to Google with 10% going to Bing and the rest of web traffic going to smaller search engines such as Yahoo, Duck Duck Go (don’t believe the hype Duck Duck Go will never be a serious competitor to Google), the Russian search engine Yandex, and China’s search engine Baidu. Keep in mind, these traffic percentages can fluctuate regionally. Baidu for example will likely have a higher market share in China as some of Google’s functionality and results are more tightly regulated to meet CCP digital rules.

However, while ranking will almost always be tied to Google, it’s important to note that Google is not the only important search engine. We mentioned Baidu, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go, and Yandex but other massive websites such as Amazon and Youtube also have search engine functionality and as a result, can report their own rankings. While Amazon and Youtube might not be relevant to every business, those in the ecommerce space or those creating video content will want to know how they are performing on those two platforms as those two platforms are the most important for users looking to access that type of content. These numbers will differ from what is reported on Google as they are not the same platform but Google does offer video search and shopping results.

While millions of man hours have been dedicated to creating content on how to rank, one thing to know is that ranking often takes time. You do not just create content and rank on page 1 the next day. Much like the tortoise in that famous race, slow and steady often wins the race. It takes time and patience. SEO is not paid advertising. You will not see your results at the top of Google instantly. Ranking and a strong digital presence usually takes anywhere from 30-90 days to see any significant change and even then, it could take longer depending on the terms you’re targeting and how active your competition is. Additionally, one can think of SEO like the Olympics. To compete you have to be the best of the best but even the best athletes in the world aren’t guaranteed to win the bronze, silver, or gold. You have to work at it, put in the time, put in the effort, and see it through to the end.