SEO can be a confusing and dreaded term if you are not particularly technically oriented. Yet, it’s a term we encounter almost on a daily basis, especially if you run a small business, a marketing campaign or a website. SEO is a commonly used acronym for search engine optimisation. But what exactly is it? The techniques you may have heard about five years ago is not the same as optimisation techniques being in use today. It changes with the times, so it’s not easy to keep up with changing trends. Understandably, this makes SEO sort of a complicated mess everyone is trying to understand.
Though SEO can be sometimes complex and intricate, the overall process is not that difficult to understand. If you have a tech background in how search engine algorithms work, you will probably understand some of the esoteric SEO concepts better. But even if you don’t, there are plenty of easy ways to understand what SEO is and how it works. Read ahead to find simple explanations of SEO with analogies that will make the concept easy to understand for people with non-tech backgrounds:
1. SEO is the Stereotypical High School
Think of high school here in the manner Hollywood, and countless teen novels, portray it. If you have seen movies like Grease or Mean Girls, you know every high school has a hierarchy. At the top are the popular kids, the ones everyone else is always trying to impress. Everyone wants to hang out with the popular kids, and maybe even be a bit like them. Now, think of Google as the most popular kid in high school. SEO are the things the non-popular kids do to get Google to like them and hang out with them.
Google, however, is not down with hanging out with everyone. Google has certain criteria or requirements that deem someone (a website) worthy of hanging out (getting on top of search engine results). SEO is essentially the things the non-popular kids do to meet the standards of Google. When it comes down to it, SEO is just a big popularity contest.
2. SEO is a Chess Game
Chess, everyone knows, is a popular game that requires a significant amount of skill. Anyone can play chess, but you can play better if you gain more knowledge of the game and hone your technique. SEO works in a comparably similar manner. Anyone can conduct a simple optimisation, like adding a keyword. But the true masters of SEO have spent time understanding the concepts behind the process and improving the methods.
If you have already heard about “simple” SEO tactics like using keywords, adding tags, and building backlinks, keep in mind that there’s more to it than meets the eye. Using keywords on a blog will not instantly move it to the top of the Google search results. You need to step back and look at the whole board, so to speak, in order for SEO tactics to work as intended.
3. SEO is Dating
Well, SEO can be a bit like dating. If you have ever dated, you know how the process goes. You are looking for someone who appeals to your preferences, and at the same time you are trying to be appealing to someone else with your looks, personality and so on. This is the sort of relationship Google has with websites. Google is looking for sites that appeal to the algorithm according to a set of standards. And the websites are trying to do their best in terms of looks and content to appeal to Google. There will be a checklist that websites need to tick off before Google accepts them. The checklist is SEO. The same analogy applies for finding an SEO company. You should only use a company that is compatible with your company needs, as well as with Google’s requirements for indexing sites.