The SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an art that consists in optimizing a web project and its surroundings for search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo…). More frequently called SEO (natural referencing), its goal is to increase the understanding, the quality, but also and especially the visibility of a website in the results of search engines.
In general, natural referencing is only the sum of on-site (on-site) and off-site (off-site) optimizations. Then, only the search engines decide whether we are eligible to be properly visible or not in their results. Of course, there are a number of things to do around these optimizations such as monitoring, audits, planning, etc.
Referencing is a very particular science in the sense that its use only encourages the engines (or rather their algorithms) to index, position and/or evaluate us correctly.
It should be noted that natural referencing is not only the fact of being referenced (in the sense indexed or classified) in the results, it is a pure tic of language.
From a global point of view, a SEO strategy operates on natural traffic, that is to say traffic resulting from unsponsored and natural search engine results.
Commonly, it is the first three places of natural results that occupy the majority of traffic. Some studies even indicate that almost 90% of traffic is generated on the first page, with more than 60% exclusively on the first 3 results. In other words, if you’re at the bottom of the first page or a few pages down on one of your company’s queries, you get a very small amount of natural traffic. That’s why SEO is important.
Natural SEO offers you the possibility to correctly position your pages on several key words or phrases that convey a targeted traffic, that is to say in relation to your company and what you offer. Users consult your site through targeted queries that direct them to the content they want. This then allows to increase (by their satisfaction) your visits, your sales, etc…
In addition, it should be noted that today positioning is not the only important criterion to observe in terms of referencing. Indeed, as we have seen before, a natural SEO strategy can improve the environment of a site, which means that your popularity will also be optimized. You will benefit from the direct traffic of search engines, as well as the indirect traffic of social networks/social media or backlinks that point to your site.
In the early 2000s, natural SEO was much simpler than it is today. In fact, it was enough to have a content filled with keywords, links (among others), a good domain name and we received mass visits no matter what we did. It was a pretty permissive time because there were few checks or penalties from search engines.
Today, the web has evolved a lot. With the advent of sanctions for bad practices and filters (Google Panda, Google Penguin or others), optimizing a website and its environment has become much more difficult and time-consuming. Indeed, many companies have been penalized by search engines because of the use of techniques that do not comply with engine rules.
In other words, referencing today requires much more will, effort and time, but it only presents risks if you want to take risks with techniques at the limit (or more) of the rules of the engine. In all cases, it is clear that a number of search engine optimization problems remain unresolved and that only experience can help.
As we have seen above, natural referencing is based on an optimization principle. However, there are many rules to follow and it is therefore necessary to avoid excessive over-optimizations or risky practices resulting in sanctions, misunderstandings or more.
To avoid bad choices and accidents, the best way to do this is to be prepared while following up regularly. To do this, it is necessary to make a complete inventory of the website and then to realize a flexible strategy according to the objectives, budgets, means of the company.
Most SEO experts work on SEO points/criteria organized around three main axes:
The technical part corresponds to the optimizations related to the general operation of a site. There are several areas such as system administration, web development, web design, ergonomics, etc. These optimizations allow you to put yourself on a good working base to be able to present the added value of a site. In short, we are preparing the plane.
The second axis is content. It can be text, images, a video, a product page, etc… The objective here is to create added value. By analogy, we could compare each content with a product from a store window. This part is therefore essential in order to improve its long-term visibility (no products/choice = no store).
Finally, the third part called Popularity is almost based off-site. It allows to show/present the added value and know-how. All this in order to acquire and retain the maximum number of Internet users for your project. This axis is very important because it helps to avoid drowning in the mass.