General SEO Articles
The fundamentals and wider strategy that apply to every website. Read the guides below, or see the SEO services.
About General SEO
General SEO covers the fundamentals and wider strategy that apply to every website, from how search engines work to planning, measuring and keeping up with change. Start here if you are new to SEO or want the big picture before going deeper into a specific area.
You will find guides on:
- How search engines crawl, index and rank pages
- The main types of SEO and how they fit together
- How to get started and which myths to avoid
If you would rather have a specialist handle it, see the SEO services.
Key Terms In General SEO
- SEO
- Search engine optimization: improving a website so it appears higher in unpaid search results and attracts the right visitors.
- SERP
- A search engine results page, the page of results shown after someone searches.
- Organic traffic
- Visitors who arrive from unpaid search results, as opposed to paid ads.
- Ranking factor
- Any signal a search engine may use to decide the order of results, such as relevance, links or page experience. Exact weights are not published.
- Keyword
- A word or phrase people type into a search engine. In SEO it also means the topic a page is meant to be found for.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Does SEO Stand For?
SEO stands for search engine optimization, the practice of improving a website so it performs better in unpaid search results.
Is SEO Free?
You do not pay a search engine for organic rankings, but SEO takes time and skill, which you invest yourself or pay a specialist for.
Can Anyone Guarantee A Number One Ranking?
No. Search results are not controlled by any one person, so be cautious of anyone who promises a guaranteed ranking.
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