Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be confusing, and the language used to describe it - even more so!

Whilst ever evolving, SEO activity is highly logical and can be thought of as a checklist of what a website needs to have and do to appear in organic search results. 

To help we have split on-site and off-site activity into 3 core groups - the ABCs of SEO…

Architecture

Architecture is the technical structure of a website. It is what sits behind the design and functionality – like how pages link to each other. To understand a website's structure, Google uses spiders (arachnophobes, don’t panic!) which are bots that crawl a site's code. 

If a site is lacking technically, this will affect where it appears in search. Poor architecture can signal that a site is not the right result for a searcher because it may be old, out of date or difficult to use. 

Backlinks

A backlink is a link from one website to another. Years ago, it was simply the quantity of links that mattered – but now Google’s spiders are smarter, and they can see where links come from. Now, the quality of a backlink is what is really important. 

Links from other relevant, high quality sites signal to Google that a site is seen as a trusted source – meaning it should appear higher in results. Getting quality backlinks takes time and effort but, in the end, is worthwhile. Backlinks are still one of the most important factors in determining rank and organic visibility.

Content

You’ve probably heard the saying ‘Content is King’ – and although we don’t think it's the king of everything, it plays an important role in SEO. Content could be a product or blog page – and for it to be deemed ‘high quality’ by Google it needs to provide visitors with the answers they are looking for.

Quantity is important, but as with most things – content quality outweighs this in the end. Google’s spiders crawl content and look at how users interact with it. If engagement is low, it can signal that the content is not what users are looking for – and can therefore, reduce a site's organic search visibility.