If you’re new to Internet marketing – or, heck, even if you’ve been in the game for a while – you probably know that the answers to SEO questions can be a little… confusing.
Google modifies its ranking algorithm on a daily basis and only occasionally discloses the changes made. Depending on who you ask, some of their 200 or so ranking signals are more important than others, but even so, it’s a guessing game.
It’s a bit like throwing darts at a roulette wheel. The tray doesn’t move. But the figures keep changing.
The aim of this article is to elucidate some common SEO knowledge by diving headlong into 33 of the most frequently asked questions about search engine optimization. We’ll go from the basics to some of the more complex questions – and hopefully, by the end of this article, a not-so-confusing picture of SEO will emerge!
Let’s dive in. If you want to go full circle, each of these links will take you to a different SEO FAQ.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. You engage in SEO when you’re trying to get a page to rank higher in a search engine’s SERPs ( search engine results pages), the ultimate goal being to increase organic (unpaid) traffic to that page.
You can probably make an argument for one or the other; but the reality is that both are essential to success. The same goes for SEO and PPC (pay-per-click). You can’t build domain authority, organic brand affinity and a true, fully-formed online presence without SEO. Similarly, you couldn’t granularly target prospects by demographics, behaviors or keywords without PPC.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just one of the disciplines encompassed by SEM (Search Engine Marketing). SEM includes PPC and SEO.
If it’s in the search engine, you can safely assume it’s search engine marketing!
There are a ton of great resources out there if you want to learn SEO. If you’re short of cash, check out the blogs we’ve put together for you. We’ve also put together an excellent guide to the basics of SEO. Otherwise, splurge on a book like The Art of Seo, or on Udemy or Lynda’s courses.
Again, you might find a good argument for each of these answers. Ahrefs is ideal for competitor content and backlink research; Moz Pro’s Content Explorer is ideal for finding unrelated mentions; and SEMrush is ideal for tracking rankings and visibility. All three share many overlapping characteristics.
It’s more a question of preference than anything else. Spyfu, AWR Cloud and DeepCrawl are also well worth a visit.
