What is SEO and what is it for? Learn how to apply the strategy
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2024 10:36 am
SEO isn’t just about showing up on Google – it’s about being found by the right customers at the right time. For brands looking to stand out in the digital landscape, having a website that builds authority and turns visibility into strategic opportunities is essential. SEO is an indispensable component of a successful marketing strategy.
What is SEO?
SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) is a set of strategies used to improve the visibility of a website in search engines , such as Google. The objective is to position pages among the first organic results, without paying for ads, attracting more qualified visitors.
This practice involves optimizing content, improving the website's germany whatsapp database structure, and strengthening the brand's online authority. SEO is essential because most purchasing journeys begin with a Google search, and being in the top positions increases visibility, credibility, and the chances of conversion.
Google Home Screen
Being well positioned in search engines, especially Google, is an excellent strategy for attracting qualified traffic. This is because most users rarely go past the first page of results when they do a search. The click-through rate for the first organic position is around 40% , and this rate decreases as the position drops.
The first organic position also attracts many more clicks than the paid ads displayed above it. This demonstrates the power and credibility of a good position in organic results, as users prefer to trust pages that have achieved this position naturally.
In addition to visibility, which attracts more visitors to the website, it is its performance that converts these visits into real business opportunities. And this is where SEO makes a difference, as it improves positioning and prepares the website in terms of user experience, relevant content and technical structure.
History of SEO
The history of SEO begins with the first websites, back in the 1990s, when the internet was very different from what we know today. Back then, websites were simple text documents, connected to each other by basic URLs.
If you want to take a peek at what it was like, you can visit the world's first website , which is still online exactly as it was created.
As new websites emerged, it became clear that there was a need to organize all this information so that people could find what they were looking for. That's when the first search engines emerged , such as Archie, Excite, Yahoo, AltaVista and WebCrawler. These pioneers paved the way for our beloved: Google.
The Role of the Yahoo Directory
The Yahoo Directory was like a giant catalog of the Internet, where websites were carefully ranked by human editors. It was a much simpler version of the search engines we know today.
It played an important role in the history of SEO because several other search engines used it as a source to check the credibility of websites before ranking them. Therefore, ensuring that a page was listed there was a priority for any website owner who wanted to be found.
Back then, there was already a concern about being found online. Website owners made a point of submitting their pages to Yahoo because they understood the importance of being visible to their audience. This effort was one of the first steps in SEO, showing that, even at the beginning of the internet, there was already strategic thinking about the need to be found.
The first recorded use of the term SEO
The first recorded use of the acronym SEO dates back to 1997, but the idea of search engine optimization is much older , emerging even before the creation of Google.
With the emergence of directories like Yahoo, which functioned as the 'yellow pages' of the internet, many business owners began to feel uncomfortable with the position of their websites, which were not well classified in these catalogs.
This led them to try to understand what could be done on their sites to improve this ranking.
Hands holding the letters SE O.
How search engine optimization was done in the 90s
In the 90s, optimization was largely a trial and error practice. Professionals and website owners began experimenting with keywords to rank their pages in directories.
Back then, to get a good ranking, you just had to repeat keywords several times throughout your pages, which resulted in a real keyword SPAM fight.
The creation of Google
In 1996, students Sergey Brin and Larry Page began work on a search engine called Backrub , which was unique in its ability to rank websites based on their relevance and popularity.
Shortly thereafter, Backrub became Google , registered in 1997.
The creation of Google marked a significant change in the history of SEO, as the engine worked differently from the others. Its algorithms classified websites based on several criteria, taking into account content, quality and relationships with other websites, changing the way optimizations were made.
Malicious SEO practices and how they were responsible for major changes
In the early days of Google, website ranking was much simpler, basically based on keywords and backlinks .
This is when malicious practices began to emerge to improve the ranking of some websites. One of the most commonly used was keyword stuffing , which consists of overusing keywords by placing them excessively throughout the pages.
Another practice was backlink SPAM , where webmasters would simply place links to their sites in every possible place, such as comment boxes on news sites or blogs. There was also the creation of “link farms”, sites created just to host these links.
These dishonest SEO practices are known as black-hat, and it was because of them that Google began to carry out several algorithm updates, with the aim of punishing such practices and making search results more refined and of higher quality.
Puppet, representing black hat SEO practices that manipulate algorithms.
What is black hat?
Black-hat is the name given to all practices that aim to manipulate the search engine algorithm to favor a website. These practices violate the guidelines of these engines and are punishable.
Algorithm changes to combat black-hat
Google transformed the SEO landscape by cracking down on black-hat practices . Its algorithm updates aimed to eliminate keyword stuffing and SPAM rankings by making the results page more selective when ranking websites.
Therefore, to achieve good positioning and attract more organic traffic, SEO practices had to become increasingly strategic, focusing on quality and meeting users' needs .
It was in 2003, with the release of its first major Florida update , that Google put an end to sites abusing black-hat practices . Since then, each major update has increasingly refined search results.
How does Google work?
Google operates in three stages: crawling, indexing, and displaying results. First, Googlebot crawls the web by following links to discover new pages. Then, these pages are indexed, or “stored” in the search engine. Finally, Google displays the most relevant results for users’ searches, taking several factors into account.
Understanding each of these steps is important to understanding how SEO strategies can make a well-optimized website stand out.
Tracking
The first step in the process is crawling, when Google discovers new web pages and downloads them. It does this using so-called “crawlers” or Googlebots , which are automated programs that use algorithms to determine which sites to crawl, how often to crawl, and how many pages to fetch from each site.
What is SEO?
SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) is a set of strategies used to improve the visibility of a website in search engines , such as Google. The objective is to position pages among the first organic results, without paying for ads, attracting more qualified visitors.
This practice involves optimizing content, improving the website's germany whatsapp database structure, and strengthening the brand's online authority. SEO is essential because most purchasing journeys begin with a Google search, and being in the top positions increases visibility, credibility, and the chances of conversion.
Google Home Screen
Being well positioned in search engines, especially Google, is an excellent strategy for attracting qualified traffic. This is because most users rarely go past the first page of results when they do a search. The click-through rate for the first organic position is around 40% , and this rate decreases as the position drops.
The first organic position also attracts many more clicks than the paid ads displayed above it. This demonstrates the power and credibility of a good position in organic results, as users prefer to trust pages that have achieved this position naturally.
In addition to visibility, which attracts more visitors to the website, it is its performance that converts these visits into real business opportunities. And this is where SEO makes a difference, as it improves positioning and prepares the website in terms of user experience, relevant content and technical structure.
History of SEO
The history of SEO begins with the first websites, back in the 1990s, when the internet was very different from what we know today. Back then, websites were simple text documents, connected to each other by basic URLs.
If you want to take a peek at what it was like, you can visit the world's first website , which is still online exactly as it was created.
As new websites emerged, it became clear that there was a need to organize all this information so that people could find what they were looking for. That's when the first search engines emerged , such as Archie, Excite, Yahoo, AltaVista and WebCrawler. These pioneers paved the way for our beloved: Google.
The Role of the Yahoo Directory
The Yahoo Directory was like a giant catalog of the Internet, where websites were carefully ranked by human editors. It was a much simpler version of the search engines we know today.
It played an important role in the history of SEO because several other search engines used it as a source to check the credibility of websites before ranking them. Therefore, ensuring that a page was listed there was a priority for any website owner who wanted to be found.
Back then, there was already a concern about being found online. Website owners made a point of submitting their pages to Yahoo because they understood the importance of being visible to their audience. This effort was one of the first steps in SEO, showing that, even at the beginning of the internet, there was already strategic thinking about the need to be found.
The first recorded use of the term SEO
The first recorded use of the acronym SEO dates back to 1997, but the idea of search engine optimization is much older , emerging even before the creation of Google.
With the emergence of directories like Yahoo, which functioned as the 'yellow pages' of the internet, many business owners began to feel uncomfortable with the position of their websites, which were not well classified in these catalogs.
This led them to try to understand what could be done on their sites to improve this ranking.
Hands holding the letters SE O.
How search engine optimization was done in the 90s
In the 90s, optimization was largely a trial and error practice. Professionals and website owners began experimenting with keywords to rank their pages in directories.
Back then, to get a good ranking, you just had to repeat keywords several times throughout your pages, which resulted in a real keyword SPAM fight.
The creation of Google
In 1996, students Sergey Brin and Larry Page began work on a search engine called Backrub , which was unique in its ability to rank websites based on their relevance and popularity.
Shortly thereafter, Backrub became Google , registered in 1997.
The creation of Google marked a significant change in the history of SEO, as the engine worked differently from the others. Its algorithms classified websites based on several criteria, taking into account content, quality and relationships with other websites, changing the way optimizations were made.
Malicious SEO practices and how they were responsible for major changes
In the early days of Google, website ranking was much simpler, basically based on keywords and backlinks .
This is when malicious practices began to emerge to improve the ranking of some websites. One of the most commonly used was keyword stuffing , which consists of overusing keywords by placing them excessively throughout the pages.
Another practice was backlink SPAM , where webmasters would simply place links to their sites in every possible place, such as comment boxes on news sites or blogs. There was also the creation of “link farms”, sites created just to host these links.
These dishonest SEO practices are known as black-hat, and it was because of them that Google began to carry out several algorithm updates, with the aim of punishing such practices and making search results more refined and of higher quality.
Puppet, representing black hat SEO practices that manipulate algorithms.
What is black hat?
Black-hat is the name given to all practices that aim to manipulate the search engine algorithm to favor a website. These practices violate the guidelines of these engines and are punishable.
Algorithm changes to combat black-hat
Google transformed the SEO landscape by cracking down on black-hat practices . Its algorithm updates aimed to eliminate keyword stuffing and SPAM rankings by making the results page more selective when ranking websites.
Therefore, to achieve good positioning and attract more organic traffic, SEO practices had to become increasingly strategic, focusing on quality and meeting users' needs .
It was in 2003, with the release of its first major Florida update , that Google put an end to sites abusing black-hat practices . Since then, each major update has increasingly refined search results.
How does Google work?
Google operates in three stages: crawling, indexing, and displaying results. First, Googlebot crawls the web by following links to discover new pages. Then, these pages are indexed, or “stored” in the search engine. Finally, Google displays the most relevant results for users’ searches, taking several factors into account.
Understanding each of these steps is important to understanding how SEO strategies can make a well-optimized website stand out.
Tracking
The first step in the process is crawling, when Google discovers new web pages and downloads them. It does this using so-called “crawlers” or Googlebots , which are automated programs that use algorithms to determine which sites to crawl, how often to crawl, and how many pages to fetch from each site.