Everybody who's used the internet for work-related purposes has come across the term SEO. Although we're constantly reminded of its importance, very few people know what it is.

According to the pros at myseosucks.com, SEO is vital in driving quality and quantity traffic to your website. It's a well-known fact that internet users choose a website from the first three or four search engine results pages (SERPs). Without using the right optimization methods, you'll end up at the bottom of google searches and never get visitors to your site.

Therefore, it's essential to know what it is and how it works.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is defined as increasing your website's visitors' quality and quantity through organic search engine results. To understand what this means, we need to break it down:

• Quality of traffic refers to attracting visitors interested in your website's products or services.

• As soon as you succeed in drawing the right visitors to your site through the SERPs, the quantity of traffic becomes relevant; more is better.

• Organic results are traffic generated by SERPs which you don't have to pay for.

How Does it Work?

We all know how search engines work. You type what you're looking for in the search box and press enter. The search engine then conveniently provides you with a long list of websites. The question is: "How does this work?"

Every search engine has a crawler sent out to gather info about all the content it can find on the internet. Content could be from a business' official website, news and media, blogs, social media platforms, and even customer reviews (like for instance, what folks say about law firm Diamond and Diamond reviews on Yelp).

This data is then used to build an index, which is fed through the program to match it to your search parameters. This algorithm is based on several different factors. These features are:

• Domain-level link and authority: This includes the PageRank, quantity, and quality of links, etc.

• Page-level and link: This is the Page- and TrustRank, anchor text distribution, amount and standards of link sources, etc.

• Page-level keyword and content - Refers to the content's topic modeling scores, quantity, relevance, etc.

• Page-level keyword and agnostics - Pertains to the content length, uniqueness, readability, load speed, etc.

• Domain-level and brand name - This relates to the off-line usage of the brand or domain name in the media, press or news, entity association, etc.

• Query data - Involves traffic, usage, and user signals from browsers, clickstreams, toolbars, etc.

• Social metrics - This refers to the quality and quantity of social media posts.

• Domain-level and keyword usage - This involves the use of exact and partial keyword matches, etc.

• Domain-level and keyword agnostics - Include the domain name length, TLD extension, HTTP response time, etc.

There's a delicate balance involved with making your website SEO friendly. The content has to be both understandable to search engines and attractive to visitors. Thus, optimization comes in many forms and relies on more than one factor. It includes everything from informative title tags and meta descriptions right through to using proper keyword density.

SEO Technology

Browsers continuously update and improve their search engine algorithms. Thus, to stay ahead, your SEO tactics have to adapt and evolve in response to those changes. However, simply knowing what it is, isn't enough.

Although many DIY manuals are available on the internet that do work, it's strongly suggested to employ a professional's services. An SEO expert will ensure that your website receives the visibility and traffic that you deserve.