SEO on the Internet: increase the visibility of your site

SEO on the Internet, how does it work? At first glance, the mysteries of Internet SEO may seem inscrutable. And yet, understanding the language of search engines can have a real impact on the visibility and notoriety of your site. Whether you use Google like 92% of Internet users or whether you prefer Bing, Yahoo, Ecosia or Want, the problem remains.

Indeed, appearing on the first page of search engine results (the SERP) is a key issue when developing a digital strategy. It is from this good positioning that the increase in click-through rates and, ultimately, conversion rates will result. Do you want to learn more about the different ways to reference your site on the Internet? Follow the leader!

SEO on the internet: how does it work? Top 5 Traffic Sources

SEA, paid traffic that offers excellent visibility

The SEA (Search Engine Advertising) consists in proposing advertisements on the pages of results corresponding to the requests of the Internet users. Through an auction and pay-per-click system, any site owner can “buy” the keywords on which he wants to position himself. 

When an Internet user types these words into the search engine, the site appears in the first results, under the mention “announcement”.

Each search engine has its own advertising system, but Google’s program, AdWords, is the most famous. It gives the opportunity to appear on very competitive keywords in the SERP.

SEO or natural referencing, the assurance of a sustainable digital strategy

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to techniques aimed at optimizing a page or a website for search engines. This involves anticipating the search intentions of Internet users in order to better satisfy Google’s algorithms and stand out from its competitors. The objective of SEO is to promote a “good” positioning in the search results page, the ideal being to appear in the first five results.

SEO is based on three fundamental pillars, the conjunction of which ultimately ensures an excellent source of free traffic. First, the technical SEO, then the quality of the editorial content, finally the net linking.

To see more clearly, see this article:  increase your natural referencing.

“If you want to hide a corpse, hide it on page 2 of Google results, no one will ever find it. » Old adage SEO

Social networks, the enthusiasm of a very responsive community

Also called SMO (Social Media Optimization), this type of traffic is based on the membership of the billions of people who have an account on social networks. By following a link on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, visitors may be directed to another site. To do this, the commitment and scope of the target community must be substantial. A virtuous circle is created: the better the content, the more the audience shares it and makes others want to join it.

Either way, traffic from social media is a primary source of backlinks. Indeed, either the products or services offered already generate strong support, or neophytes discover them with a positive a priori.

Referral traffic, the opportunity to see your SEO on the Internet boosted by your peers

A third-party blog, in one of its texts, can add a hypertext link that refers to another external page. Site A thus indicates to its readers that site B has an article likely to interest them and encourages them to discover it. Therefore, the quality of the content present on your site makes it reliable and helps to obtain this juicy traffic. In addition, it generates a flow of qualified potential customers.

If you are looking to make yourself known to a new audience, launching backlink campaigns can greatly contribute to increasing the visibility of your site. Indeed, Internet users consider this kind of link as friendly advice provided by a site or a blog in which they place their trust. In addition, Google also takes referral traffic into account, since the more backlinks a site receives, the better its positioning improves.

Emails, the best way to reach a qualified prospect

The impact of an emailing campaign is considerable: this simple technique consists of obtaining new customers and retaining them by contacting them by email. According to McKinsey, an international strategy consulting firm, it would be 40 times easier to obtain new customers through this channel than by using social networks.

In addition, the recipient of an email will be more willing to buy and spend on the site concerned than another Internet user. According to Disruptive Advertising, an American Internet marketing service, spending would be 138% higher.

You therefore easily understand that this marketing strategy is extremely effective, while remaining inexpensive and easy to implement. Indeed, since the potential customer (prospect) has taken the step of giving his email address, a kind of tacit connivance is established. Therefore, a personalized newsletter with exclusive content and the use of relevant CTA (Call to Action) can be very persuasive.

To deepen the subject, discover the good practices of email marketing

The best source of free traffic: natural referencing

Why is natural referencing the best source of traffic?

SEO aims to produce natural organic traffic, unlike SEA. Natural referencing represents the best source of traffic, because the results are sustainable. Of course, this requires preliminary substantive work as well as active monitoring, but the impact of an SEO web editor often pays off. Indeed, his work brings enormous value because it is based on increased knowledge, semantics and pedagogy. As a result, the conversion rate is rapidly growing noticeably.

The three pillars of natural referencing in search engines

Technical SEO

Technical SEO consists in optimizing the ecosystem of your website in order to facilitate the work of the robots which “crawl” the pages to analyze them.

There are 7 main areas to focus your attention on:

1. Optimizing your robots.txt file lets robots know which pages on your site they can index.
2. The format of your URLs should only be based on keywords and avoid accents.
3. The creation of your sitemap using an XML sitemap file to make navigation easier for robots.
4. HTML markup to sort and prioritize the information on your site as well as to format the text of a web page.
5. Securing your site with an address starting with “https”.
6. Verification of the weight of videos and the size of images in order to speed up the loading time of your pages.
7. Redirection to an active page when the message “page 404” is displayed, announcing that it no longer exists.

Editorial content

If the form is essential for search engines, the substance is just as important. Indeed, writing quality content is the best way to meet the expectations of Internet users with the help of professional Wikipedia writers, and therefore of the robots who will decide whether or not to highlight your page. To write an interesting and relevant article, mastery of syntactic, spelling and typographical rules must be impeccable.

In addition, to optimize the content of the page, the observance of several steps prevails.

First of all, identifying the keywords on which you want to position the pages of your site is absolutely fundamental. An effective SEO strategy plays on the balance between the most frequently typed queries and the possibility of appearing at the top of the SERP. To highlight the site of a campsite for example, several keywords must imperatively be selected: tent, mobile home, open air, nature, tourism…

Then, you have to write articles in which you will use these keywords. Be careful, however, not to repeat them excessively: Google can spot and penalize this type of over-optimization which affects the quality of general content. In addition, to be indexed, a page must contain a minimum quantity of 300 words.

Finally, once the pages are online, regular monitoring is essential to check the evolution of traffic on the site. If necessary, make changes for best results.

Net linking

Net linking consists of multiplying the links pointing to your website. Fundamental in natural referencing, this technique is very effective in promoting the promotion of pages on the Internet. Indeed, these links, by sending back to your site, generate new traffic. But that’s not all: the more backlinks which are part of the net linking strategy there are, the more visibility your page has on search engines. Thus, the popularity index of your site depends greatly on the quality of the links that refer to it.

Various methods help to develop net linking: link exchanges with other websites, partnerships with those who send you the most traffic… Again, quality content will guarantee you natural backlinks over the long term. Finally, ensuring regular monitoring to verify that these links are still active remains a step that should not be overlooked.

SEO on the internet is the keystone of all visibility and authority on search engines. It is essential to understand how it works and the different sources of traffic it brings. On the one hand, building an intelligent and sustainable digital strategy requires the combination of several types of SEO.

Thus, by diversifying the visitor acquisition channels, you ensure the sustainability of the flow on your website. On the other hand, in natural referencing, the balance between good HTML markups, optimized editorial content and an ingenious backlinks campaign promises good positioning on the web.

You now have an overview of all the techniques that will help you appear in the first results of search engines! Do you want to go further by learning SEO techniques? To do this, follow the training of Lucie Rondelet. Or do you prefer to entrust this important phase of development? Call on a web editor on La Redact du Web!