How search works

How Search WorksBy Grace Adato

Table of Contents

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

What are SEO Terms?

What is a Search Engine Result Page (SERP)?

Why do SEO?

How do Search Engines Work?

What is Spam?

What is Search Engine Optimization?Search engine optimization (SEO) is essentially many different tactics used that are centered around helping websites appear at the top of a search engine. Most SEO work is done through the use of keywords and phrases that are relevant to your brand, on all platforms across the web such as:

Website(s) you own.

Social profiles (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

What are SEO terms

to know?

Keywords, queries, phrases.

Search Volume

Organic results

Search Engine Results Page

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Click-Through-Rate (CTR)

Keywords, queries, phrases

Words you “google” or use in a search engine to find what you’re looking for.

# of results Google has in their library that use those keywords. Bigger the number the more competitive.

Search Volume

The estimated number of searches a keyword or keyword phrase gets in 1 month, as defined by Google’s Keyword Planner Tool.

Organic Results

Also called natural, unpaid results on SERP.

Pages without “ad” are organic including images.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Paid Ads that appear at top or bottom of SERP, will be denoted with “Ad”.

Businesses bid like an auction to appear in 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th spot or whatever # of spots are available.

Clicks, Traffic & Click Through Rate (CTR)

Clicks: The number of times a user clicks on your result from the SERP results in traffic.

Clicks are only seen when Analytics tracking code is installed on a website you own, or with analytics dashboards provided by social platforms.

CTR is the percentage of people who visit a website.

Organic CTR & Traffic

A page higher in SERP, has better chance of getting a click. However, ranking does not guarantee traffic.

Pages in the #1 organic position usually get 30% of clicks.

The drops drastically for position 2, 3 andpercentage so on.Source: https://www.advancedwebranking.com/ctrstudy/

What is a Search Engine Results Page (SERP)?

• As many as 4 Paid Ads (PPC) at the top of a search result page.

• Product Listing Ads.

• Local results.

• News.

• Images.

• Featured Snippets.

• Knowledge Graph.

Google determines what to show on the page based on popularity and intent of the query used.

SERP - Highly Commercial QueriesA high commercial query means Google perceives the user wants to buy based on the keyword phrase (query) they used. Examples:

Hotels in [city]

Car insurance

The layout for a highly commercial query will include 4 paid ads and local results if the query also may need local results. You only see paid ads without having to scroll; then local results

SERP - Product Listing Ads (PLA)

PLAs appear at top of page or to the right

SERP - News and Images

News Images

Featured Snippet Example

A featured snippet appears when a website has accurately and completely answered the query.

Knowledge Graph Example

A knowledge graph displays more information, popular facts, about people, places and things

SERP Layout - Summary

One other factor not mentioned is personalization. Whether or not you are signed in to your Google account, your location and your search history also affect what you see.

The results that show up is not accidental. There are certain rules and best practices that Internet Marketing professionals use to help their pages get in the SERP. You must know how to “tell” search engines what is on your page.

However, for the simplicity of this presentation, we will not be diving in to those details.

Why Do SEO?Web pages that appear at top of SERPs for keyword phrases increase

brand awareness, qualified traffic and revenue.

94% of all clicksare estimated to be organic results, from a 2012 study.

In 2016, the SERP changed for highly commercial queries.

90% of clicksare estimated to be for page 1 of search results pages, from a

2012 study.

70% of queries

are estimated to be 3 words or more, from a 2011 study.

1 word phrases

Get more searches but fewer clicks

How Do Search Engines Work? The web consists of 6 trillion

pages and consistently growingPart 1

Crawling and Indexing

How Do Search Engines Work?

Part 1Crawling and Indexing

Google finds pages by crawling, which means they follow pages through links.

Then they sort the pages by their content and other factors.

This is called their “index” which is like a library.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Part 2Algorithms

They write programs and formulas called algorithms to deliver the best results possible in the SERP.

As you search algorithms get clues on what you mean or intend to find with your query.

Based on those clues they look in their index.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Part 2Algorithms

Then they rank the results using over 200 factors, and the algorithms constantly change to deliver the most relevant results.

Then the result take a variety of layouts, like the examples shown in previous slides.

Happens in ⅛ of a second.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Part 3Fighting Spam

Google is constantly fighting spam to keep results relevant.

Majority is removed automatically, others are evaluated manually; then Google takes action to remove.

What is Spam?Offensive, deceptive,

irrelevant, manipulative

Keyword stuffing or hidden content.

User-generated spam usually appears on guestbooks, forums or user profiles.

Thin content with little or no value.

Unnatural links - deceptive links built to manipulate SERPs.

ConclusionFor businesses, SEO is used to help their site(s) provide useful information to their customers & and attract potential customers.

SEO will continue to change and get harder, more pages to compete with and that includes spam, etc.

As Google’s algorithms get better, your website and marketing will have to as well.

Google’s #1 goal is to provide the best most relevant results to the searcher, and so should a business.

If you wouldn’t manipulate your customers to their face; then don’t do it on your site.