What is SEO?

“Hello, Oksana! Despite the difficult situation with ranking algorithms (many sites that were not promoted correctly, were banned), it is possible to hold positions in the Top10 Yandex for 75% of requests and for Google for 77% ”.

This is a quote from a letter that the SEO expert sent to one of my clients.
In my opinion, this quotation and this particular example very well demonstrate the situation as a whole that has developed in Russia now:

• this situation is unstable, the market is in a fever
• SEO specialist cannot control the situation
• the user who pays for it doesn't understand anything in SEO matters

Why did this situation arise? Recently, a lot has changed in terms of promotion on the Internet and in the work of search engines. Many users who use SEO, state that the old methods of promotion are not so effective. Starter Search Engine Optimization Guide
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Indeed, if there used to be SEO specialists who could be approached and get a result with high probability (even without working on content, and resorting to “black” methods of promotion, a whole market was built around it), now many of these methods are simply does not work.

And I, as a business consultant, are often asked what to do now in order to bring my sites (or other resources) to the top positions of search engines.

How do I see the solution to this problem? First of all, to everyone who uses SEO promotion for their Internet resources, independently understand the question of what SEO is and what the mechanisms of its work are and take advantage of the information provided in this article.

I myself, when I began to understand the issues of SEO-promotion, faced a lack of information, and it was mostly of an advertising nature.

Therefore, in this article I would like to structure the collected material and clarify the understanding of what SEO is, what the historical background of the current situation is, what the current state of affairs is and of course, what effective methods of promotion exist.

This article will be interesting, I hope, both Habrahabr users and other users interested in the issues of website promotion in the network.

In this article, by search engines, I will mean the main systems in which the majority of users work - Yandex and Google .

So, let's begin.

What is SEO?

On request “what is SEO” in search engines a lot of information will be released (mostly advertising). Some resources, when answering this question, quote each other, some give their own definitions of SEO, but this does not add clarity to the question.

What is especially interesting: some resources even write not “SEO” in English, but “SEO” in Russian, introducing some confusion in understanding the issue. This abbreviation is not deciphered in any way, since it is in Russian letters the English combination of letters, respectively, it does not carry any meaning.

Wikipedia gives the following definition of SEO:

Search engine optimization (Eng. Search engine optimization, SEO) - a set of measures for internal and external optimization, to raise the position of the site in the results of search engines output for specific user requests, in order to increase traffic (for information resources) and potential customers (for commercial resources) and the subsequent monetization of this traffic.

I agree with this definition. But for an unprepared user, information from Wikipedia may seem a bit complicated and confusing. I will give a definition that I give when I explain this question to my clients:

SEO is any action aimed at putting your website or any other resource of yours in top search engine positions to attract visitors.
Here I extend the concept of SEO. This is not only direct promotion of your site, but also indirect attraction of visitors to your site by posting your materials on other Internet resources.

So, I highlight two types of SEO:

• Direct SEO is directly the promotion of your own site, when the search engine gives a link to this site in the results at the request of the visitor.
• Indirect SEO is the promotion of your company by placing your materials on other Internet resources in order to subsequently attract visitors to your website. The result of the search results in this case does not lead to its own website, but to someone else’s, from which visitors can come to you if they are interested in the information.

If the way direct SEO works is clear enough - search engines themselves write guides about it, various specialists and companies offer direct SEO services, then additional explanations are needed regarding indirect SEO.

How does indirect SEO work:

1. You place an informational article (informational, not advertising) related to the product of your activity, on any relevant Internet resource (forum, community, online publication).
2. Your article can go to the top positions of the search results for certain requests.
3. The user enters this resource, reads your article.
4. If a visitor is interested in your information and you, he can become a visitor to your site (follow the link from the article to your site if the intern resource allows you to post links, either by company name, or by name and last name).

A living example is my article “What is CRM-systems and how to choose them correctly” , which I posted on Habrahabr. It ranks second after Wikipedia in Google search results for the query “What is CRM” or just “CRM”. Many of my clients found me precisely because of this and other articles posted on Habrahabr, they went to my website and contacted me personally. This is an indirect SEO, but still it is SEO. I get visitors to search engines, although not directly through my site.

Without history nowhere

In order to better understand what SEO is and how the current situation has developed, we need to dive into the history of the issue. When the search engines first appeared (from Russian it was Rambler, Mail, Yandex), the impact of the sites on the issue was great, as the sites themselves were not as many as they are now, and the search engines themselves were not yet so developed.

What time was it? It was a time of experimentation. The Internet (in its modern sense) was only in its infancy. Accordingly, many practices have not yet been developed. Search engines were then one of the sources of information. They have not been so strongly developed and have not yet dictated their conditions to the market.

I also found a time when the sites were called by ear, or transmitted direct links, and their names were entered immediately into the address bar. Today, even if the name of the site is known, it, as a rule, is still entered into the search engine. Some today do not even know what the address bar is, and in almost all browsers it is not just an address bar, but a search one.

How did the ranking of the issue take place? Search engines took into account the following data:

• page structure (so-called meta tags, headings, keywords);
• the number of links leading to the site.

The more links led to the site and the more technically the page was framed - the more likely the site was in the top search engine positions.

Why did it have a decisive importance before? Because the search engines have not yet had such capacities as they are now, and so sophisticated ranking algorithms were not invented. For example, Yandex search as of the 98th year worked only on three computers .
Search engines to some extent were forced to "trust" the creators of sites.

And that was when the speculation and manipulation of search results began. There were various “gray” and “black” methods of promotion (link exchanges and various tools for meta tags, etc.). You could buy thousands of links on thousands of sites and find yourself in the tops of the issue.

Then the search engines began to actively develop. And now the ranking algorithms of these search engines have been improved so much that it can be said that the number of links and the structure of the pages are not as important to them as they used to be.

Google and Yandex say in their recommendations that you don’t need to be puzzled by the internal structure of the site and how the page for search engines looks like; first of all, you need to think about how visitors will read it. Search engines began to look at sites from the point of view of the visitor and increasingly approach the human understanding of content.

I want to clarify a few points. The fact that the structure of the page is not so important for search engines now does not mean that you do not need to fill in headings, descriptions, etc. This must be done, but not from the point of view of the search engine, but from the point of view of the visitor. Search engines display site names and meta descriptions as search results, so they must be present on every page.

I would also like to draw attention to one nuance. Yes, meta tags are not so important for search engines right now, but do not confuse meta tags with the description of other information. On the page, in addition to text, there are still various elements: photos, videos, etc. These are more complex formats for indexing. Search engines can not calculate yet what is contained in the video or photo. They can calculate it only if we create a text description for this kind of content. Therefore, such descriptions should be added to the site (with the help of alt-text). This helps search engines better understand what images and videos are on your site, which in turn increases the likelihood of them appearing in search results for pictures and videos.

Just like the page structure and the number of links, for search engines it does not matter on which engine the site is created. Some sources claim that the platform on which the site was created (be it a CMS platform or a designer) is “SEO friendly”. Of course, these are the marketing moves of the CMS itself and the designers who say that the site created on their basis will be better ranked by search engines than sites written on other systems. This is not true. The site engine has virtually no effect on site promotion. Why? Because the search engine is not interested in what the site is written on, it may not even know it.

What really matters most in the site platform from a search engine perspective:

• The speed of the site and opening pages. The platform must provide high speed. The faster the site opens, the better first of all for the user. And if you have achieved from any cumbersome CMS speed faster than that of some rastiarennogo framework - then the platform has no fundamental importance.
• Mobile version of the site. We must not forget that now mobile versions are gaining momentum. Your site engine must either support the mobile version or use a responsive design.

Returning to the history of the issue, I summarize: the ranking principles that have acted earlier are not so effective. SEO should now be considered as part of a marketing strategy. Now, paradoxically, digital life is getting closer to reality. If earlier sites had to report their content (using meta tags, etc.), now search engines have learned to do it themselves. They took a lot of work on themselves. This is why meta tags are no longer so important to search engines. And if earlier information about yourself was placed in a magazine, book, catalog - now the same happens with respect to Internet resources - it is necessary that the content of the site be visually pleasing and informative, as in a real magazine. This is part of a marketing strategy.

SEO = search engines

You need to understand that SEO and search engines are inextricably linked. SEO without search engines just doesn't exist. You do everything only for the search engines to notice your material, understand it, rank it and give it out in the first places of its issuance at the request of visitors.

How does the search work?

Let's take a look at how the search process is organized.
Search engines have so-called spiders, which follow links on the site to the depth of each page.
These spiders index the site, that is, they save everything that they “read” into an index into their database. And when a visitor enters a query in the search box, the search engine searches for information in his database, and not on sites.
It is necessary to know: the search engine is looking for information in its database.

From here several conclusions follow:

1. If the search spider has not yet passed through your site, it means that it did not save information about your site in its database - accordingly, it will not issue such a site as a result of a visitor’s request.
2. And vice versa, if the search engine indexed your site, it means that it will display it in the search results. At what place is another question.
3. If, for example, your article you just posted has not yet been indexed by a search engine spider, and someone has copied it, and its site is indexed faster than yours, then this article for search engines will belong to the site that copied the content, not you. As a result, the competitor will be higher in the search results, and the original may not get into it at all, since duplicates are simply ignored by the search engine. What needs to be done to protect against this is a separate issue, and we will not consider it in the framework of this article.

How does a search engine decide what to give to a visitor?

There is a lot of information about the ranking algorithm, there are many experts who write books about how the search engine provides information on request - but ... this is just a guess. Why?

The way the search engine gives information to the visitor upon his request is a commercial secret of each search engine. No one knows for sure what the results principle is.

Google once joked that for ranking pages hires pigeons that randomly select pages.

Of course, the question arises why search engines do not say how to create such a page so that its search engine understands very well. This is done so that it is not possible to manipulate the issue. If users, specialists, web developers know how the site is ranked, how the search engine works, they will be able to adjust and manipulate the output, which is not in the interests of the search engine.

What can be done?

1. First, you need to follow the recommendations to promote the search engine in which you unwind. Recommendations in different search engines are different, but in general they are similar.
2. Secondly, you just need to create interesting content and create it a lot. As I wrote above, you can create articles that must meet certain principles (which we will discuss below in the section “Legal SEO”)

What is impossible to do?

Unable to buy a place from a search engine.
I have heard more than once about the presence of mythical acquaintances in the administration of any search engine, or that the company is so steep and large that it can buy a place in the search results - no, this is simply excluded.

Website promotion methods

Traditionally, white, gray and black optimization is distinguished, but I would still select the following promotion methods from the point of view of search engine rules:

• legal SEO - promotion methods aimed at meeting the resource requirements of the search engine and to ensure that the visitor receives relevant information
• Illegal SEO - methods that do not meet the requirements of the search engine and aimed at manipulating search results.

Illegal SEO

Illegal SEO from the point of view of a search engine includes, for example, the use of doorway pages and cloaking. Doorways are web pages that are optimized for specific search queries and redirect users to other sites. This is inconvenient, since the first few search results can lead to the same pages or resources that are not of interest. Cloaking - the user is given one page that is easy to read, and the search robot is another page that has been optimized for any queries.

In fact, now illegal SEO goes into oblivion, because anyone who tries to deceive the search engine is easily calculated. In addition, competitors are not asleep, who are also moving towards SEO. If your competitors find that you are moving to “blackmail”, they can write a complaint to the support service, and the search engine will simply lower you in issue or ban it altogether.

Illegal methods of promotion, which search engines are actively struggling with now are SEO exchanges and links to irrelevant pages. There are practically no such exchanges abroad, there are several in Russia. They sell links on their sites to attract the so-called reference mass. But what the advertiser needs is not always necessary for the site visitor. In other words, if I drive in a search query “SEO”, I want to see information about SEO, and not the services of various companies and specialists.

Search engines are now quite successfully struggling with this , because the level of visitor trust in the search engine falls because of irrelevant results.

Why is it not recommended to use illegal methods of promotion? In the case of exposure in the use of “black” methods and legal methods of promotion can be wasted, the site will be reduced in the search results, or banned altogether.

Legal SEO

What are some legal methods of promotion? I will cite effective methods from the practice of my and my clients that meet the recommendations of Yandex and Google.

1. Create unique content. It is necessary to create such content that will be useful and interesting to visitors. Articles must carry information value for the visitor and have a certain amount. It should not be small, but detailed detailed articles of at least 7-8 thousand characters that reveal the essence of the issue as deeply as possible.
2. Try to constantly add new content. This does not mean that you need to post blog entries every day, no, let it be once a week (or at other intervals), but let it be good, high-quality materials.
3. Stay on relevant sites with moderation. Articles should be located on relevant resources that inspire confidence in search engines. If I post an article on a technical topic on the forum about cosmetics, no matter how good it is, it will never be indexed as well as if I posted it on Habrahabr. This needs to be understood.

In search engines such parameter as trust to a site is very important. Accordingly, if there is moderation on this site (as, for example, on Habrahabr), there will be much more confidence in this site. Accordingly, the material that will be placed on it will be ranked well by search engines.

What methods of promotion are questionable

In my experience and that of my clients, some promotion methods that are presented as a panacea have dubious benefits.

• The impact of social networks in SEO promotion has not been proven.

If you post your article on a social network, for example, and have bought thousands of likes, this will not add to your page weight when ranking. Thousands of likes are not equal to a thousand links to your site. And search engines have been filtering this for a long time using complex recognition algorithms that negate these manipulations.

I have a client who maintains his blog on Livejournal and Facebook. The client is promoted with the help of paid tools, and within the framework of the social network it has a certain success and brings its results, but none of the posts in the search engines come up with targeted queries.

• Placing information about your company (with a link to the site) in various online catalogs and databases does not improve the position of the site in search results

Often businessmen resort to the services of placing information about the company with a link to the site in hundreds of online directories. This does not work, because these sites have very low search engine confidence, this is irrelevant information, and for a search engine simply placing the link in hundreds of directories means nothing.

But there is one exception - this is when you place on your site information about the client company with whom you worked. This is a very important point. On your site will go people who are looking for your client. Suppose if I work with the LLC Vektor company and wrote a small review in the customer description on the site, my site will appear in the search results when prompted by Vector LLC. This contributes to an increase in traffic, even if indirectly. Such a link will be quite competitive.

• Posting of a different kind also does not work when ranking.

Posting on various forums, communities and social networks is another recent trend. Posting is the possibility of open commenting on various materials on the Internet and posting links in such comments. Essentially, posting is a parasitism on foreign materials. Such links will most likely not be taken into account when ranking the search results.

SEO vs SEO

Many are interested in the question: advertising vs. SEO (Yandex Direct, Google Adwords vs. SEO). What to choose: contextual advertising or SEO-promotion. I will not recommend any of these types, as both of them are effective in competent work. I just give you what advantages and disadvantages of this and other methods of promotion.

Advertising. Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

• Quickness of placement - you place your ad, it passes moderation, and in case of approval and availability of payment, it immediately goes to the tops of search engines.
• Manageability - you can control the price and decide when and where to advertise.
• Targeting - search engines allow you to use settings such as minus words, region, etc.
• Predictability - you can say for sure that your ad will appear if the search engine has approved your ad. You can be sure that the search engine will show a specific number of ads. And if you spend more money, then you get more bids.
• Free content - your ad will appear regardless of the content on your site, respectively, the site you will not have to change to promote it through contextual advertising.

Disadvantages:

• Contextual advertising leaves no trace - after you stop paying, no trace of your site remains in search results. Some believe that paid advertising will help promote a site for subsequent SEO-promotion, but this is a delusion.
• It is relatively expensive. Some will object to me that there are low-frequency queries. This is dedicated to whole courses and webinars. But now there are fewer and fewer opportunities to advance through the woofers, because if you work in a competitive market, your competitors have the same thoughts as you.
• Such advertising is well “cut” by various advertisement cuts, baner cutters, etc. For example, I practically do not see ads, because my AdBlock just hides it.

SEO. Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

• Do not “cut” AdBlock. No counter-advertising blocks cut the issue of sites that are advanced through SEO. Search engines will always give out such materials, and there is no possibility to hide them.
• High conversion due to trust. If you posted an article, and it came out in the top of the search engine, then the visitor, by clicking on it, reading it and going to your site, will be more prone to it than if he clicks on the advertisement. The visitor in this case will have a higher level of trust in you. One thing is when I click on advertising and I understand that they can write anything they want, and another thing is when I read the article, I received valuable information, and the level of trust in such a site and such information is correspondingly higher.
• Long term positions. No one can, of course, guarantee how long your material will last in the top, but it will not disappear without a trace from the search results, even if its positions drop.

Disadvantages:

• Poor predictability. No one can guarantee you that the article will be released in the top search results. Of course, you can definitely achieve this if you follow some rules, but there are so many that it is very easy to lose something. In addition, the material should be very carefully prepared and placed on high-quality resources.
• High price. SEO has a very high price compared to advertising in Direct, for example. Good SEO is worth a lot of money. To prepare a good article, good content, you need much more time than just placing the link in the same Direct.
• Usually requires alteration of the site. Your site must meet certain requirements. If the site is inconvenient, then its search engines will not rank high.
• And of course, such materials do not immediately appear in the search results. For this to take time, patience is needed.

Conclusion

What conclusions can be drawn from the above? The time when you could manipulate the issuance of search engines, is gone. Now search engines began to change their algorithms, they are becoming more and more clever. Accordingly, it is more and more difficult to deceive them, and it is also more and more difficult to adjust to them. Therefore, it is better to take the path of least resistance, legally promote your resources and follow the recommendations of search engines.

If earlier websites had to be technically correct for search results and it was possible to ignore the consumer and his interests, now search engines urge the creators and owners of sites to think like a site visitor. This may sound trite, but it’s worth starting with. It is necessary to create content for users, not for search engines.
UPD After the release of the article I was asked several times why I did not write about the technical side of SEO. You can read about the semantic core, internal page optimization, snippets and much more by following the links.
Starter Search Engine Optimization Guide
Yandex recommendations for creating websites