Basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Name: Basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Author: Rick Hart

Learn how search engines work and how to rank highly in search results

Preview the first lesson free — get full access to all 6 lessons.

Course: On-Demand

(bright music tones) If you're selling through a website, you and search engines have a common goal, pleasing customers, In the search engine's case, it seeks to provide the best search results it can. Otherwise, the searchers will move on to a competitor. How does a search engine get its search results? It all starts with the page. Search engines rank pages, not websites, ut a good page often leads to a good website or blog. Before it judges a website is useful, the search engine expects to find enough pages that imply quality and a website that continually adds new pages tells search engines that the website is alive and growing. Google analyzes every website it finds using electronic scouts or bots, sometimes called spiders, that crawl the internet. A search algorithm checks the HTML for hints about what is important on that page, the focus and intent. The algorithm looks for that information in HTML code elements, like title tags, head tags, subheads, and the URL of the page. These elements provide information about the content of the page, but the analysis doesn't stop there. Google looks for links to that page on other websites and blogs. Google understands that a link to a page is like a vote that says, "This content is good enough "that I want to tell my website visitors about it." The page has authority in its market. These links back to your website from other blogs and websites are called backlinks. Search engines also look at a page's usefulness. If Google determines that a page solves a problem, answers a question, or provides helpful information, the search engine believes that page offers value for its users, the searchers. The goal of any search engine is to be able to judge a page as a human being would. Algorithms keep getting more human-like over time. Google uses what it learns as it builds its rankings. For example, Google tracks how long someone stays on a website. If someone leaves quickly, it means the searcher probably didn't find what they were looking for. And if a searcher only views one or only a few pages on a website, that means the website is less valuable. When someone stays on a website for a long time, views a lot of pages, and follows links to key content, Google determines that the website offers value. It'll want to rank that website highly in its results, and particularly, the page that brought Google there in the first place. Ultimately, Google tries to understand the intention behind that search. What question is the searcher trying to answer or what problem is the searcher trying to solve?

Intermediate Provider : Rick Hart 6 Lessons · 14m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

One of the important concepts for understanding search optimization is the concept of keywords. The keyword, or search phrase, is the key ingredient in the search engine’s analysis of a web page and its subsequent ranking of a page in its results. Search engine optimization requires an understanding of how to use keywords on a page and how search engines interact with those keywords when determining their results. Successful SEO is the result of a combination of creating great content and getting search engines to notice that content.

Search engines are the main source of free traffic to a website or blog. Until you understand how search engines work, you can’t learn the tactics for drawing search engines to your site and the methods to rank highly on search results. In this course, we’ll discuss how search engines determine those results and why search engines care so much about making sure those results are valuable to searchers.

What You'll Learn

Understand search engine optimization and how search engines work
Understand keyword relevance and how to use keywords on a page
Determine market authority
Analyze search engine results and Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
Explore how search engine algorithms function as a moving target
Examine Google's market dominance in search

Key Takeaways

Keywords, or search phrases, are the key ingredient in how a search engine analyzes a web page and ranks it in its results.
Successful SEO results from combining the creation of great content with getting search engines to notice that content.
Search engines are the main source of free traffic to a website or blog.
Understanding how search engines work is necessary before learning the tactics to draw them to a site and rank highly in results.
Search engines care about making sure their results are valuable to searchers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this course?

The course covers how search engines work, keyword relevance, market authority, algorithms, Google's market dominance, and Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Its learning objectives are to understand search engine optimization, understand keyword relevance, determine market authority, and analyze search engine results.

Why are keywords important in SEO?

The keyword, or search phrase, is the key ingredient in the search engine's analysis of a web page and its subsequent ranking of that page in its results, so SEO requires understanding how to use keywords on a page and how search engines interact with them.

Why do search engines matter for my website?

Search engines are the main source of free traffic to a website or blog, and until you understand how they work you can't learn the tactics for drawing them to your site or the methods to rank highly on search results.

What skills does this course help build?

It supports skills including Search Engine Optimization, Advanced Search Engine Optimization, Off-Page Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Submission, and SEO Certification.