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If you are an advanced user, you may not discover anything new, so do not waste time if it is what you are looking for.

But if you are at the beginning, no matter how many tutorials you read and information you receive, you will not be able to do a good SEO job if you do not understand what all this means, how things have changed and what may await us in the future. If you manage to understand, lay the foundations and focus your efforts on the essential, everything else will serve to improve, otherwise, it will only confuse you.

To make an analogy, it is as if I gave you a trick to make fractions. Maybe you will, but if you don't understand the basics, which is adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, it will be difficult for you to know that it is a fraction.

Yes, the path that I propose is longer and more tedious! (Come on, life itself!), But it is the same path that I and many other people who are experts today have followed. And deep down, that's SEO. A medium-long term path, full of much trial and error, evidence and conclusions.

Decide what is the right path for you!

We are going to learn the key SEO concepts for any business or website.

Definition of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

It consists of the process of improving the visibility of a website in the main search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

The top-ranked sites generate the most visits and traffic. There are studies that show that the Top 3 take more than 50% of the existing traffic for a search. Imagine what this can mean for a company or a website!

SEO also has a great Branding value because users associate the position of the website as a brand value. The higher the positioning, the better! It is synonymous with relevance and authority in your market.

It takes into account two fundamental values . How search engines work and how users search. From this it follows that it is essential in an SEOtask to serve all the information relevant to the search engine on a tray and on the other hand, it is essential to find out how users interact with the search engine, when they make queries.

Who is SEO for?

Although apparently SEO is necessary for everyone, the truth is that it does not serve all in the same way or in other words, each company uses SEO with different strategies.

An institutional website, an e-commerce site or a blog use Seo differently, since their objectives are also different.

Seo has great advantages and uses for almost all types of business, however, there are a couple of details that we must keep in mind:

It is necessary that there are searches for a product or service if we want SEO to be useful , otherwise, if nobody searches for it, SEO is useless.

It should be part of the usual marketing tasks . We should not use it as a single strategy.

There are no guarantees of positioning , since regardless of our work, we completely depend on the decisions and changes that are made in the search engines. It is estimated that Google changes its algorithm almost daily and therefore, we always depend on what they consider good or bad.

In any case, if we use common sense, let's think that Google has no intention of annoying anyone. What it intends is to offer its clients (users) the best possible information and it is on this basis that they focus their efforts , improving their algorithms with experience.

Although innumerable techniques and resources are used in SEO, the truth is that if certain logical guidelines are met, it is very difficult not to obtain positioning .

This can also make us think that relying exclusively on SEO to get traffic can be a long-term problem, that is, we cannot put all the cards of our business solely and exclusively in SEO , which on the other hand is very common. Always remember that we completely depend on how the wind blows in Google, Bing or Yahoo and therefore, at any time, things can change and what works today will stop tomorrow. What is positive today can be negative tomorrow .

How does a search engine work?

Understanding this is essential to be able to map the right strategy with the website in the medium and long term.

There are those who dedicate themselves to look for each change in the algorithm and follow fads and trends that someone publishes as if that were something definitive. And maybe it is now, but it could stop being at any time.

If you only bet on these methods, perhaps you will get results more or less quickly, but it may happen (you will not be the first or the last) that tomorrow you completely lose your position.

If you understand and do what a search engine needs, it will be much easier for you to create your long-term strategy and not be afraid of updates that may be made over time.

You must understand that:

Search engines aim to satisfy the need for information . It is their main objective! From this it is clear that our objective must be to satisfy those needs.
The results are updated automatically using algorithms . So when the algorithm changes, it immediately affects the positions, depending on the new variables and the importance or relevance they give to each one.
Today the results are a mixture of websites, images, videos, etc ... Before, search results were simply links and keywords. Now it is necessary that our strategy adapts to each and every one of them.
Search engines take into account hundreds of variables for the positioning of a website . Many of these variables are either not actually known or are ambiguous speculation. For example, even today it is not really known what is the value that Google gives to social networks in terms of positioning. There are experts who say that the weight is too much and others who say that it is little.
Trying to run after all these variables is a futile race . On many occasions they will only confuse you and make decisions based on assumptions, which is always a big mistake.
What you really have to think about is using common sense , that is, think about how to make the information available to Google and users on a silver platter and fundamentally create a good experience for your visitors . So you can always create your long-term strategies and not thinking about Google and if they can penalize you for something.

Search engines work on three main processes

1st Tracking

Through robots or spiders that systematically browse the internet looking for relevant information day after day. Although the truth is that, only between 40-70% of the indexable Internet is tracked.

That is why it is essential to maintain a good web structure and frequently take care of telling Google to stop by our website (Search Console) , because there are news ... and obviously when it is new, "invite" them to come and meet us.

2nd Indexing

After the crawl the indexing work begins, with all the information that the robot has found. An analysis of this information is produced and stored so that it can then be classified.

With all this immense database, Google decides how a website positions with respect to the keywords of user queries and through algorithms they give us the “points” that will make our website appear in one or another place in the search ranking. .

3rd Searches

In this step, the user seeks to satisfy a need for information . The job of the search engine is to interpret that need to offer the best possible information to that user. In this way, said user will be happy and will use the search engine for other queries again.

What is the importance of positioning yourself in Google?

It is true that it is important to position yourself in all search engines , since they all represent a market share of millions of users.

However, it is no less true that positioning yourself in Google is essential for any SEO strategy and particularly important for several reasons.

1º It is the main search engine worldwide . Concentrate most of your efforts on positioning yourself on Google. With this you will also indirectly achieve positioning in the other search engines.

2nd Except in Russia and China (Yandex and Baidu), its market share is exceptional . More than 90% of searches, especially in Spanish-speaking countries.

3º We all look for information about products and services. From curious to users who are determined to buy any item. The potential market is huge.

4th Google advertising is not invasive . The need for information means that users are looking for us and therefore they are actively interested in seeing our results.

5º Generate brand image and depending on our positioning, the user can perceive us as something to take into account.

6º Qualified traffic is obtained , that is, users interested precisely in the services or products that we are offering.

What are the differences between organic and sponsored results?

You almost certainly use the search engines and you will be familiar with the interface.

What I want now is to explain in more depth the differences between the two .

Sponsored results, or ads, are those that appear above or to the right of organic results.

They are managed from Adwords, which is Google's advertising system. Customers who advertise pay each time a user clicks on their ad.

The organic results are those that appear under the ads and belong to the free results that the search engine offers.

What are the main differences?

Well, the most obvious is that sponsored ones are paid and organic ones are free and you cannot pay to influence them .

Sponsored ads compete according to the Adwords auction system and organic ads rank according to Google's PageRank algorithm .

Advertisers have full control over the Adwords ads, the landing page, for which searches they want to show the ads, the geographical area where they will be shown, the type of audience and a long etc of possibilities.

In organic results, this level of control does not exist since it is Google who decides with its algorithm where and how they will be displayed . Through Seo we can influence how those results will be displayed, but Google always has the last word .

Advertisements are displayed as long as a quote is available. The advertiser can manage a daily budget that will be adjusted each time clicks are received until they are exhausted. At that time they are no longer visible until the next day. Organics are always displayed permanently .

The ideal in a well-defined SEO strategy is to complement both options in order to obtain the greatest number of searches and clicks possible . But fundamentally it is necessary that you work the SEO to avoid having to be investing in Adwords in a systematic way. And if you do not plan to invest in Adwords, then I will not tell you!

SEO benefits and utilities

Seo doesn't have just one goal of getting clicks. In reality SEO is moldable to our business model, depending on the type of activity .

For example, Seo is not used in the same way in an e-commerce store as it is in a blog.

A store aims to sell products and uses a specific strategy to generate high quality traffic , that is, traffic that is really interested in the products they sell.

For a store it is preferable to have less traffic but of quality, than to have a lot of traffic that does not buy anything . It would be like having a cafeteria full of people who don't drink coffee. So they use concrete and concise keywords based on the products they sell .

Instead, other business models search a lot of traffic of any kind , for a large number of keywords, since they obtain their benefits through advertisements on their platform.

A blog also seeks to get the most traffic possible, but through content marketing , which allows them to achieve visibility, new customers, sale of products or courses, affiliations, etc. To do this they must contribute a large amount of content, value and update it frequently.

Brand image is also a benefit of SEO . Reputation and authority can endow a company with great notoriety, relevance and trust among users.

Seo is also used for Direct Marketing . This type of strategy is sought, for example, when it is not possible to interact with the potential customer completely online and one or more sections of the website are dedicated in order to capture data on those potential customers through forms so that a salesperson can then contact he.

The most common mistakes that occur in SEO

Do not combine Seo with the rest of the marketing actions

Treating Seo independently of other marketing actions is a more frequent mistake than it seems. Seo is one more part of the company's marketing strategy.

Lack of value proposition

We should not only want to position ourselves. We must also make merit for it. Google has to decide between millions of websites which should be placed in the rankings. For this you have to follow some fair rules and based on them you decide (remember that it is automatic).

A search result that is highly clicked by users, with a low bounce rate and a high dwell time, tells Google that the information you offer is relevant and interesting to users. That is why it is necessary that you work your content as much as you can, to compete and offer what others do not offer. You must add value to your "clients".

Use outdated and outdated techniques

For example, use massive generation of links in directories . Before this had a great weight in Google searches, however now it does not contribute anything.

So it is good to be updated and know what users and search engines need, to meet the expectations of both and avoid problems in the future.

Slow implementation of news

Google continually updates new possibilities and it's a shame not to take advantage of them as soon as possible. This makes us lose competitive advantage .

Performing bad practices (the worst of all mistakes)

It is very common to read tricks on many sites to try to deceive Google's algorithms. Doing this may cause it to work for you now, but at any time you can fall with the entire team. Remember that Google updates its algorithms almost daily, because it also knows perfectly well that they are trying to cheat it. For more inri, he also tracks that information, hehehehe, anyway!

If we avoid bad practices, we will not have to worry about the changes that are made continuously . We will ensure the positioning of our website or business in the long term.

How can we solve them?

Integrate Seo into your marketing strategy , in conjunction with the other actions you want or should take.

Stay up-to-date on SEO trends and the news that Google continually offers.

Build long-term value . Don't think of the now only, do it in the future too. Remember that Seo is like a marathon, it is a day to day, week to week job. If you want immediate results, you have Adwords.

Quickly implement (as far as you can) changes and improvements to your website as well as the news that Google offers for organic results.

And never, never, never! take risks with bad practices.

Obviously this is not an advanced tutorial. It is more thought for people who start in this incredible world and still have a long way to go. What I have tried is that you reflect and understand the whole operation of this conglomerate of things.

its my first blog

Saturday, March 28, 2020

What is SEO and how search engines work