SEO Fundamentals

A term that has come up very often on the digital scene in recent years is SEO. But it is very likely that it does not mean anything to you or at least that you do not know exactly what it represents. Result, you do not have a good SEO.

In this seo guide for beginners as well as more advanced, we will define what SEO represents for "Search Engine Optimization".

SEO or natural referencing, definition

SEO brings together a set of techniques allowing your website to gain maximum recognition from search engines (Google, Bing, Ecosia, etc.) in order to be in first position on search terms .

This definition allows us to clarify an important thing: without search engines, there would be no SEO. Second important thing: SEO can change at any time because search engines define the rules. Third thing: SEO brings together a set of optimizations to bring to your site.

Search engines have their champion: Google and its powerful algorithm, nearly 92% of the search engine market share in France is held by this digital giant. This places it in a leading position in its sector. With this quasi-monopoly of the American giant, SEO has evolved enormously in recent years.

The Google algorithm is changing with updates such as Panda which has started to penalize bad content and Penguin which has penalized keyword stuffing. This consists of adding keywords to your site in an anarchic way to try to get back to specific queries.

We can add Hummingbird in 2013 which promoted semantic search to better understand and respond to the search intent of Internet users. Or in 2021, special attention paid to Local SEO and UX.

These updates have evolved SEO in such a way that nowadays it is impossible to have a digital growth strategy without real knowledge in this field. To emphasize the importance of SEO, you should know that nearly 60% of traffic is concentrated on the first three sites displayed on SERP 1 (the first page of search engine results). The interest that your pages are well indexed is important for the visibility, your traffic and the engagement on your web pages.

SEO has also metamorphosed and is no longer about inserting keywords randomly at the end of your page. Nowadays, to have an optimized site, you have to rely on four pillars.