What is SEO?
Most business people say they don’t know much about SEO. And why should they? I don’t know any of the complexities involved in building a house, in running a yoga class or lighting the room for a photography shoot – just to pick some random subjects of which I know next to nothing about.
People know SEO has something to do with websites and getting them seen more on Google. They might know that SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimisation”.
In this article I’m going to unravel some of the mysteries of SEO using some lessons learnt from my garden.
SEO is made up of two components. There is on-site SEO and there is off-site SEO.
On-Site SEO and Good Plant Stock
When I’ve been buying plants for my garden I’ve realised that the plants that do better, in the long run, are the ones that I’ve bought from reputable suppliers.
Yes, I’ve bought some plants from the corner shop and I’ve bought plants from the supermarket. I’m not saying every one of those has died but what I have noticed is that the plants that I’ve got from a garden centre or nursery survive longer and flourish more.
I don’t know much about how plants are bred but from what I can see it’s rather scientific. The plants I buy from nurseries and garden centres have come from better breeders who cover all of the elements required to grow beautiful plants.
On-site SEO is the same and should be integral to any new website. I can create a website without thinking about SEO and the site might visually look OK but it’s not going to attract people to it.
A website with good, manual on-site SEO is like a rose bred from good stock:
- The rose will be floriferous
- The website will attract people to it
A good plant from great stock is equivalent to a website that has had manual on-site SEO techniques “bred into it” so to speak.
Off-Site SEO and the Earth
I’ve also noticed that the plants in the garden do better if I prepare the earth before I sow the plant. And these same plants go on to flourish further if I water them, feed them and keep the weeds at bay.
Friends come round and tell me that I must have green fingers. I’ve only just started and know very little about gardening really. I’m only watering, feeding and weeding when I can. But what I am doing is tending to the soil that the plants are in.
Off-site SEO is what is done elsewhere on the internet so that more people see your website when people search on Google.
You can think of off-site SEO like tending the soil you put your plants in.
If I don’t get plants from good suppliers and I don’t tend the soil the plants will not flourish and probably die sooner than they should.
If I don’t create a website with on-site SEO and I don’t look after the off-site SEO the website will not attract as many people as it should. And that’s also the reason why some websites don’t get any traffic at all.
With websites it is possible to have excellent on-site SEO and just OK-ish off-site SEO and the site will still do well.
Conclusion
To conclude, here is the short answer to the question “What is SEO”?
“SEO is made up of two components: on-site SEO and off-site SEO. On-site SEO deals with how the website itself has been built and off-site SEO is how well a website is nurtured on the big world, wide web.”
