Your SEO Guide: How Does a Search Engine Work?

Search Engine Optimization is very complex with a lot of moving parts that all depend on the movements and patterns of the beast itself, the search engine.

Your SEO Guide: How Does a Search Engine Work?

A search engine (such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) has a main goal of providing the most targeted information for people who are doing Internet searches. I like to think of it as the “purest” search. If Google gave you the “purest” information, it wouldn’t be diluted with extra information or details that are irrelevant to what you want.

How Do I Improve My SEO?

A search engine takes everything very technically. So, to make a search engine work for you, you have to explain things to it pretty point blank.

To do this, you want to make a path for the search engine so it can easily “crawl” through your materials. Linking web pages together, getting links from other websites, using pictures, bolding text… these are all ways that you can show a search engine that you are able to offer the “purest” information to a searcher.

Building up your SEO ranking takes a lot of work. Not only do you have to show a search engine that a particular web page is relevant to someone searching something, but you also have to show a search engine that you aren’t a scammy site.

For example, I could hear from someone that Restaurant X has the best french fries ever, but if I look up Restaurant X and it has terrible reviews, I won’t go there. The two pieces, the good food and the good reviews have to work together. Make sense?

So, just like you can build your visibility up on a search engine, you can also tear it down. If a search engine doesn’t trust your content or like the steps you are taking to try to move up in a ranking (and, yes, search engines can tell when you are trying to cheat the system), you actually can hurt your SEO ranking.

This is why it is important to work with an SEO expert. Reach out to us if you need help with your SEO.