What is SEO?

When talking about SEO or organic positioning we can refer to:

Page rank or page authority in search engines.
Set of techniques and strategies to obtain a better page rank in Internet search engines.

The first meaning of seo web positioning is very often used to refer to page rank or page authority. An example of a very common phrase in SEO/SEM articles is “improve the SEO positioning of the page”, “I need a good organic positioning”, among many other similar ones.

But this is not the correct meaning, since the objective of SEO positioning is precisely to improve page rank or page authority.

Web positioning or SEO strategies

There are many organic positioning strategies. Among them, it is worth mentioning:

Create content optimized for search engines: the more relevant and quality content our site has, the better page rank we will obtain in search engines.
Keyword research or keyword analysis: it is about finding the most relevant and profitable keywords for the content we publish, based on their availability and search volume.
Friendly URL’s: both search engines and users appreciate URL’s that are easy to understand and directly related to the content of our website.
Linkbuilding: get links from other Internet pages (external linkbuilding) and improve the internal linking of our domain (internal linkbuilding).
Semantic SEO: give a “meaning” to our content, i.e. go beyond keywords and specify what each of the web elements of our site means.
Internal optimization of the site: search engines value more efficient, well-structured and easy-to-use websites, according to the best practices and standards of web development.

As we will see shortly, these tasks tell us what is the job of the SEO, i.e. the specialist in charge of carrying out SEO positioning strategies in the company.

what is the SEO job?

The SEO’s job is to define and implement organic positioning strategies. In other words, to investigate how to make a website rank better in search engines, to define the steps to be taken to achieve it, and to apply the necessary SEO techniques thereafter.

It usually deals with several tasks related to both on-page SEO and off-page SEO of the website. Some of them are:

Creating search engine friendly content: keyword analysis, writing articles, formatting the content properly, inserting images or other resources, etc.
Optimize existing content: update content with new information, links and resources, improve keyword density and the hierarchy of titles and subtitles, among other activities.
Improve page structure: adapt the code to the most current standards of HTML5, CSS and unobtrusive Javascript, as well as reduce “invisible” technologies for search engines: frames, Ajax and Flash.
Optimize website performance: use web analytics tools to improve the aspects that do not allow the increase of visits, acquisitions and conversions.

Not always a single person is in charge of positioning on Google or other search engines, but the roles are shared between SEO, copywriters, web developers and the online marketing expert.