SEO is a strategy or set of tactical operations designed to gain and grow organic traffic (often termed free traffic) from a search engine. Read the rest of our “What is SEO?”.
How does SEO work?
SEO works by building the best solution to a search query. Often posed as a Question/Answer scenario, because people are typically looking for a solution or answer to a question. People could be looking for a solution on how to buy something, and what the best solution/product or vendor is.
There are many signals and hints – in fact over 200 – that Google uses to store, index, and rank web pages. We made a small list of things that people have said or written about SEO:
| Signal/Hint | Meaning |
| Domain Age | How long a domain has been registered, how long the current registration is and how long its been indexed by Google |
| Backlink | Do follow backlinks help Google understand how important a web page is to others, in a sort of popularity contest. But the number of links, the weighting authority of the page linking to another and the relevance all play a role in how strong that signal is |
| PageRank | The original score of each page and domain on the web per the original “Google” patent filed by Larry Page and Sergei Brin while at the University of Stanford |
| Domain Authority | A term for ranking a domain between 0 and 100 developed by Moz (formally SEOMoz) |
| Image Optimization | Use of meta data and other techniques to rank images – very important for image libraries, stock image publishers, companies who sell products based on diagrams, ecommerce, political parties, hotels and others |
| Authority | The authority a page has on a particular term |
| ARhef text | How and what a link says about its target |
| Video Optimization | Optimizing a video for Google and/or YouTube search |
| Schema | Schema provide rich data to Google – like flight arrivals and departures, movie timetables, recipes, distances, reviews etc |
See Also: How do you pick an SEO expert?, What tools does an SEO use?, What does SEO Stand for?
