Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization is one of the areas of website development that separates the wheat from the chaff. As competition for digital visibility is fierce, the best brands are ensuring their digital footprint through search engine optimization.

What is search engine optimization?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality of a website and driving the right kind of traffic to it. The aim of optimization is to ensure that a website and its individual sub-pages consistently rank as high as possible in search engine results pages (SERPs). Well-done search engine optimization will be rewarded with higher and higher rankings in search results.

Organic search results are those that the search engine displays immediately after paid advertisements. The higher your page is ranked, the better it will be ranked by search engines. Optimization therefore aims to influence how these so-called natural searches appear in search engines.

Search engine optimization is necessary for all businesses

To be precise, search engine optimization is a must for any business that wants to achieve the best digital visibility in organic search results and stay ahead of the pack. At the turn of the millennium, various tricks might have been used to stay at the top of the search results, but nowadays these so-called “black hat SEO” tricks are being penalized. Global and ever-intensifying competition for the best visibility and the constantly updating ranking algorithms of search engines require an active approach to optimization. Although the Finnish language offers some protection, the competition has also intensified significantly over the last five years.

Finns make more than 30 million searches a day on Google’s search engine alone. Most of them, up to 90%, only read the first page of search results and up to 60% of them are directed to the first three organic search results.

Search engine ads account for less than 15% of all clicks. It is therefore extremely important to aim to be in the top three search results, for the keywords most relevant to your business. With better search engine visibility, your site will attract more relevant visitors and at the same time your site will be more user-friendly. This allows for a better customer experience, resulting in more conversions from page visits.

Website development has changed dramatically in the last couple of decades. Flashy visuals no longer get you very far and most are already using content marketing to grow their digital footprint. Search engine optimization is a visibility-building tool that you need to pull out of the box if you want to compete with the best. Although optimization is often perceived as technical, even difficult, the reality is that you can go a long way by getting the basics right (assuming that the supporting building blocks are in place, such as page engine optimisability).

SEO is a guarantee of a quality website

Because the image of search engine optimization is so technical – even a little mysterious – it is a little-known fact that a well-optimized website is actually a lesson in building a quality website. This argument has a simple justification. Search engines are now so intelligent that they can, among other things, examine and interpret not only the technical competence (syntax) of a website, but also the usefulness and popularity of its content.

Search engine optimization can therefore be seen as a method of delivering the best possible online service to your visitors, rather than a technical tweak. As there are hundreds of different factors that influence search engine visibility, it means manipulating a site in a very diverse way. Optimization is therefore not just a mechanical fine-tuning of meta-data, but at its best it is about a clear content strategy and technically up-to-date solutions with the shortest possible response time to page loads, for example.

Optimization requires multi-skilling

Because search engines can rank websites based on hundreds of different factors, influencing them requires a very broad understanding of modern website design. Optimization is usually thought of as the “proofreading” of formal syntax, where the correctness of the HTML of a page is checked and adjusted. However, this is only one of the areas of expertise required.

A smooth user experience is one of the things that affect visibility. Service design and UX design are some of the ways to influence this. So even if someone who understands search engine optimization can point out areas for improvement, there is often a need for skills that the optimizer does not have. This is why modern optimization is a team effort, where every aspect of building a website is covered.

The basic functions of a website serve as the basis for optimization

Search engines scan many things on your site, and some of them are fundamental: things that should be taken into account even before the site goes live. For example, different content management systems may limit the ways in which optimization can be done. In principle, however, the most widely used page engines are safe choices.

Another influencing factor is the site load speed. For example, Google measures mobile and desktop loading speeds separately. In addition to the page engine, loading speeds are affected by server infrastructure, cache servers, and the level of optimization of javascripts and images. It is clear that if these have to be manipulated afterwards, the task may be bigger than anticipated. It is therefore advisable to think about building a website with a longer lifecycle in mind, so that the basic factors of optimisability are taken into account from the start.

Search engine optimization requires persistent work

One of the biggest myths about optimizing your site is that a one-time scan would be enough. SEO – like other aspects of a site – will slowly deteriorate if there are no ongoing practices in place. Once the groundwork has been properly done, optimization can be continued with the desired level of input, for example by shifting the focus areas. However, the work is rewarding because each optimization makes the site a little better and more user-friendly.

It is therefore useful to learn the ins and outs of search engine optimization, even if your job title has nothing to do with it. For example, if your profession is content creation, content optimization will be an integral part of your everyday life. Similarly, a good UX designer cannot work very effectively without an understanding of conversions and the design and implementation of intuitive user paths. For example, web analytics is a tool for gaining more insight into the data-driven development of a website.