What is SEO? The complete guide to SEO in 2024

✍️ Last modified on April 10, 2023

Here is the complete guide of natural referencing. If you want to know what the weird term SEO means? What can it do for you? How to tame it to make your business profitable or launch it?

Then you’ll find everything you need in this brand new SEO guide.

Ready to go?

So grab a notebook, a hot cup of coffee and lock your office door so you won’t be disturbed. If you read this complete guide now, you might get some ideas on how to generate your first money online…

How to define SEO?

Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Before I explain why SEO could help you generate additional income, you need to know what it is. What it’s for. Who uses it and what you can get with it.

Definition of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

This is the acronym for “Search Engine Optimization”. In other words, all the techniques and strategies to allow your site to appear as high as possible on search engines.

Let’s start with something concrete.

You want to create a site about Bitcoin because you are interested in crypto. But in order to get people to go to your site, you have to make it known.

Well, that’s what SEO is for. Attract visitors to your site from search engines(including Google).

Who uses SEO?

Most web professionals use it. Web agencies, writers, webmasters, influencers, etc.

To appear in the first search results on Google is a bit like the Holy Grail for all website editors. And SEO is the magic potion to achieve this.

So you can see why everyone is trying to use it. More or less well.

So with the right method and the right reflexes, you too can make the most of the game. Even if you are a beginner today.

What happens when you are first on Google?

It is the explosion. Not of the world, calm down Roland Emmerich. But it’s a traffic explosion. You finally have visitors(real ones!) who come to discover your site.

According to the Statista site, there are 80,000 queries typed every second on Google, or 6.9 billion per day. Can you see the fun?

Let’s take a concrete example.

The word “buy” is typed 21,000 times in France every month. If you are the first on Google when people type in that word, you will be able to attract some of those visitors.

Here are the most likely estimates according toCompete’s 2012 study:

• 1st place: 56% click-through rate among Internet users
• 2nd place: 15% click-through rate among Internet users
• 3rd place: 9% click-through rate among Internet users

And what do the other visitors do?

Either they click elsewhere(45% of Internet users consult the search results until page 3). Either they leave Google without clicking on a single site(yes, they are weird).

But concretely…

What’s the point of being first on Google?

Let’s go back to the example of your Bitcoin site. Once you create it, the only people who will go on it are your sister and your mom. They are proud of you! And that’s it. Nada, Peanuts. Nothing.

A bit like a store without a customer. Only ghosts will visit your site. And SPOILER… they don’t exist(until proven otherwise).

So you need to implement the King Midas strategy : turn the ghosts of your site into real visitors(through SEO), and turn those same visitors into customers(through marketing).

Admit it, it’s a slam dunk? And that’s how you will generate your first money on the Internet.

We don’t talk to you about earning 1 million euros in 15 minutes a day, we leave that to other gurus. But there is a starting point to everything. Even Lewis Hamilton has to shift into first gear before he can hit 330 km/h on the Baku circuit.

Once you have mastered SEO, you will be able to increase this additional income little by little. Until you replace your current salary one day. Then increase it further over time.

A real virtuous circle!

What is the difference between SEO and SEA?

SEO allows you to position yourself organically in a search engine over the long term and receive free traffic. The SEA is instantaneous, but limited in time(we will no longer be positioned if we stop paying our AdWords campaign).

What is ATS?

SEA is the acronym for “Search Engine Advertising”. It is the fact of paying Google to appear first on the desired keywords. And depending on the competition of the targeted keyword, you will have to pay more or less.

For SEA, you need a substantial investment and a product to sell behind it. This is not the case for everyone.

This is why SEA is rarely used by small businesses or amateur blogs.

The 5 differences between SEO and SEA

1 – SEO is free while SEA is paid

It takes work to get listed on search engines with SEO while it takes a bank card with SEA.

2 – ATS results are immediate

They also allow to know if a site can be profitable or not. For SEO, it will take some work and patience before you start appearing in the top search results. But this patience helps ensure that SEO advocates get more sustainable results in the long run.

3 – The ATS is ephemeral

Indeed, if we stop paying for an AdWords campaign, we no longer appear in the first Google results. With SEO, you stay and don’t spend a dime.

4 – SEO requires effort from you

You need to produce content or modify existing content to stay current. This is important to satisfy Google.

5 – SEO rewards in the long run

It allows you to create a site that may become a recognized brand in its field. This will increase your credibility with visitors and therefore your profitability.

The SEA is more used in a short-term perspective or in search of immediate profitability.

After discovering these 5 differences, you may be wondering…

How to spot sites using ATS?

As you can imagine, a site that is first on a query thanks to SEA is not necessarily of better quality than another. He just paid(sometimes very expensively) to have his place. But one does not prevent the other(anyway).

You can find them through the mention “Ad” on Google, like for example :

As you can see here, the first 3 results of the query “training earn money on the internet “are sites that have paid to appear. And if you’re a naughty boy or girl, you can have fun clicking on each site.

Because each click is paid for by the site that chooses to use ATS. Still, try to stay on the right side of the force young SEO Padawan. Better for your karma it will be.

There are no ads on all searches. Webmasters are mostly fighting for very profitable queries like fortune telling, investments, insurance comparators, etc.

Can SEO and SEA be coupled?

Yes, perfectly. It’s even a very good idea if you ask us. The ATS will allow you to:

• attract visitors on keywords where you are not yet referenced via SEO.
• to highlight even more the pages of your site that are the most profitable.
• to attract visitors as soon as you launch your site to see if they like it.

You can even do the parasite technique…

You’re interested, right? We’ll explain it to you in one image:

Pure delirium, you will understand. Aweber is an autoresponder service for publishers of niche site publishers . And when you search for that brand on Google, you come across an Active Campaign SEA ad in the top spot.

If you want to know everything, it’s Aweber’s #1 competitor. They also offer an auto-responder service. And they come and take the first place from them… by simply paying. Real evil geniuses.

Let’s get back to good old SEO and…

Google ranking factors

To appear in the first results of Google requires to follow a good old recipe. A bit like a chocolate cake. But before you start baking, you need to have an idea of how the oven works!

How does the Google search engine work?

We reassure you right away, we are not going to do anything complicated. Imagine a gigantic database. Well, that’s Google. Welcome to the matrix.

And to feed itself, this database sends thousands of small robots that will analyze the web. They enter all the sites and browse the web following links that lead to other links, etc.

And once the robots have passed, Google considers whether or not your content is worthy of being in the first pages or not. This evaluation is almost daily, since the robots scan the web 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Does a robot that tells you it will come back mean anything to you? In short. So you’re wondering…

How to know the Google criteria?

There is no official answer given by Google. This is not a mystery(yes). The American site backlinko had fun listing more than 200 criteria taken into account by Google. Knowing that some are more important than others.

To get an idea of this, you can follow Google’s announcements, the discussions of its spokespersons or even the nuggets transmitted by the French SEOs.

Yes, there are SEO manias like Olivier Andrieu, Fabien Raquidel or Thomas Cubel. They do not hesitate to share their experiences, tests and knowledge with everyone via their social networks.

So…

What factors influence search engine positioning?

They can be classified into two categories:

Internal factors

These are all criteria that you have control over since they depend on your website.

This includes the quality of content for the visitor, its originality, the semantic quality of each text for Google, the speed of loading pages or the structure of your site.

External factors

These are all the criteria on which you have no ( or little ) control since they depend on others.

We can mention the fact of receiving external links to your site. Your popularity on certain platforms such as social networks, or the quality of the sites that talk about you.

We won’t go into detail now, but in the sections to come. Let’s go step by step young Padawan.

To help you better understand this Google monster, we’re going to reveal…

The three pillars of natural referencing

If you have played Zelda, you already know what a triforce looks like. If not, imagine a triangle. Normally, 99% of you should pass this exercise.

The others have already given up reading, RIP.

Each side of this triforce corresponds to a very important point for your referencing. This is a bit like the magic recipe of Panoramix to get the first places on Google:

• Quality content: this concerns both text and images. The idea is to offer unique, original content that appeals to the reader and the search engine.

• Popularity: this is the fact that other sites mention yours, having visitors who come back to read your new articles or proving its legitimacy.

• Technique : it’s my nemesis. Everything that concerns the ergonomics of the site, the design or the code of your site to make it work perfectly well.

If you respect this SEO triforce, you will already be ahead of the others. This will increase your chances to be first on Google.

And now you’re going to find out how to do it in practice in this new part:

The basics of natural referencing (SEO)

Each sub-section that you will discover reinforces one of the triptychs of the SEO triforce. We won’t go into all the details, that would deserve a complete guide for each of them.

And we reassure you right away, you’ll have a guide for each of the upcoming subparts!

But we’re going to give you an outline anyway so you can know which direction to go in. Being on the right track is the guarantee of arriving at the right destination, or at least the right station!

Let’s start with…

Keyword research

Before knowing how to search for a keyword, you need to know…

What is a keyword?

It’s simply the query you want to place yourself on. Let’s start with something concrete: think of the site on Bitcoin.

You’re probably going to want to appear in the top results of Google for :

• buy Bitcoin
• mine Bitcoin
• Bitcoin trader

You do not care to appear on “Pontarlier pas cher”. Dedicated to all the Francs-comtois.

It has nothing to do with your site. In addition, Google would lose its users who would think that the search engine is completely broken! In short.

What you should also know is that each keyword has a monthly search volume. Basically, everyone is typed X times in a month in France.

For example:

• buying Bitcoin is searched 21,000 times a month in France
• mining Bitcoin is searched 7,200 times a month in France
• Bitcoin trader is searched 5,400 times a month in France

It is therefore necessary to make a list of all the keywords on which you want your site to appear. And depending on the type of word, you’ll get there more or less easily.

This can be explained by the…

Concept of long tail and short tail

The long tail in SEO includes several words which makes it a very specific query. The short tail in SEO consists of only a few words(or even one) which makes it a general query.

Let’s keep the example of Bitcoin:

• “Bitcoin” is a short tail query: it has a high search volume. Potentially more visitors for your site. But above all, more competition.
• “Buy bitcoins with Paypal” is a long tail query: few people type this query on the Internet. On the other hand, there will be little competition so more chance to finish first for your site.

The secret of a good SEO is to target both long term queries(to get visitors faster) and short term queries(to get MORE visitors in the long term).

But then…

Where to find keywords?

When you type a query in the search bar, Google always tries to complete it with suggestions. These are all key words.

At the bottom of the search page, you have what are called “related searches”. These are also key words.

Of course, there are websites that allow you to find keywords and their search volume. Ubersuggest, Ahref, Semrush or Yoodainsight are good examples.

Most of them are not free, but it is vital if you want to save time! Take your urchins out of your pockets Billy!

But how do you know if a keyword is interesting or not? For this, you must take into account…

The research intention

To put it simply, there are 2 types of keywords:

• Informational keywords: the visitor is looking for an answer to a question or knowledge. For example, how long does it take to mine a bitcoin?
• Transactional keywords: the visitor is looking to buy a service or a product. For example “Where to buy Bitcoin”.

The page that highlights a transactional keyword will bring you money more easily. For informational keywords, it will take good marketing to turn a curious person into a buyer. But it is possible. And it allows you to attract more visitors to your site.

You also need to think about the visitor’s intention in relation to the keyword. This is very important especially in what he expects to see.

Let’s take the example of an Internet user who is looking for a guitar tutorial to play “Come as you are” by Nirvana. There’s nothing easier to pick up a girl. And it’s easy to learn!

In short. He will probably prefer a video tutorial to learn, it is much easier. Visuals help a lot in learning to play an instrument. So if you make a written tutorial, Google might not necessarily put you forward.

This is something to keep in mind when optimizing your SEO. Let’s move on to the other base:

Technical SEO

This aspect can quickly become indigestible. We will therefore try to be as simple as possible without using incomprehensible jargon.

The first thing that is important is the speed of page loading. The average attention span of an Internet user is 7 seconds(even the goldfish does better with its 9 seconds!). You might as well say that waiting is the worst thing you can offer her.

For this, there are “plug in” to improve this aspect of your site. One example is Autoptimize. But there are also themes(graphic style) optimized for that like GeneratePress for example.

The second point is toinstall your site in the Google Search Console. You can follow the referencing as well as the errors of your site via this tool. It’s free and very convenient!

The third point is to facilitate the crawl of your site to the Google robots. To do this, you must allow access to robots, warn Google when a new page is online with a sitemap, etc.

Everything is done easily, we reassure you! Come next…

On Page SEO

The first thing to keep in mind is:

The structure of the site

It has to be consistent, like a menu in a restaurant. We don’t eat the appetizer after the dessert. Well, SEO is the same.

Taking our example of the Bitcoin site, here is an example of “good structure”:

Example of a Bitcoin blog structure:

• Home : Bitcoin
  • Silo 1 (category): Buy Bitcoin
    • Sub-silo 1 (article): Buying Bitcoin with Paypal
    • Sub silo 2 (article): Best site to buy bitcoin
  • Silo 2 (category) : Miner Bitcoin
    • Sub-silo 1 (article): How long does it take to mine a bitcoin
    • Sub silo 2 (article): Mining bitcoin with your pc

It may not be the most perfect structure, but it is consistent. And for your site, it must be the same.

The Title Tag

This is what appears in the Google search results as you can see in this image:

It must include the targeted keyword and make the reader want to discover your page! A mix of SEO and marketing in the end. The example above is perfect for getting people to click. Do you know why?(Silently raging cat fanatic).

The Meta Description

This is the small text you see below the Title Tag on Google search results.

Here again, you must mention the keyword you are targeting while making the user want to read your site. Some people don’t put anything, so Google displays the beginning of the text as it is the case on this picture.

Hn semantic tags

It is simply the structure of each of your pages. It must be consistent. Kind of like when you were in philosophy with the :

1. Thesis
2. Antithesis
3. Synthesis.

Everything must be structured and in a certain coherence.

We start with an H1, there is only one since it is the title. Then several H2s that break down what you want to say on the page. And if you want to go further, you can use H3 and H4 for example.

The structure of the URL

If you don’t know what it is, look at this picture:

As you can see, that’s what it says at the top of your browser. And this address changes every time you go to another page.

It should not be too long and specify which keyword you are targeting.

By reading the URL above, one suspects that the targeted keyword is “paris worst place”. There’s not a lot of research on this one, but there’s a nice opportunity for buzz. Long live the province.

Content of the page

We are talking about text, images or videos. It should be airy and pleasant to read, preferably for your visitors.

You can use bold or italics to tell Google what you think is important. These can be words or phrases that are semantically close to your keyword.

Regarding images, they must be described in a few words in the alt tag. The targeted keyword or its synonyms must be used in their titles.

Feel free to flatter the content of this page in the comments. It’s always good for the ego. And spoiler… it helps with SEO!

Internal meshing

Finally, it is important to link your content together through internal linking. These are simply links that point between your pages(preferably in the same theme or sub-theme).

Google is a database fed by robots that surf the web from link to link. By linking your content, you will have more chance that Google will quickly detect your page and eventually index it.

THE UX

This point is obviously important since the person who will offer you profitability is the visitor. He will make the final purchase decision. Google has nothing to do with it.

It is therefore necessary to offer the best user experience ( UX ) possible. His navigation on the site must be fluid and the content must be of quality. Aesthetics and design play a role in this.

To evaluate the UX, you can analyze the bounce rate which indicates the percentage of people leaving your site after having discovered a page on it. It should not be too high overall.

Imagine, you’re hitting on the woman of your dreams. She agrees to come to your place for a drink. And then, bam! As soon as she arrives at your door, she leaves without saying a word and without explanation. Well, that’s the bounce rate. You’ll remember this, Billy.

Now that you know everything you need to know about SEO On Page let’s move on to its twin brother:

Off Page SEO (Netlinking)

The first question is to know…

What is netlinking?

It is simply when a site A links to another site B. The Internet can be compared to a gigantic spider’s web where everything is linked. The netlinking is the web that will ultimately link two entities together.

What is the purpose of netlinking?

It’s like a recommendation that gives more strength and authority to your site. And this is a fundamental criterion to appear in the first results on Google.

Of course, if your aunt links to you from her site, the power gain will be very moderate or even minimal. But if it’s Le Monde that links to you, buckle up because you’re in for a nice increase in visitors!

So…

How to get links to your site?

You can get them naturally if you already have visitors and they like your content. Some sites might come across yours and link to you. It’s getting rarer, but it happens!

The second method is to dress up as a ninja and do some “ninjalinking“. This consists of registering on forums or commenting on blogs with a link to your site.

It takes finesse to slip through the cracks of the admins who hunt down this kind of practice. But it still works today.

You can buy or exchange them. Yes, everything can be changed! There are platforms like AccessLink or Nextlevel that allow you to do this.

Officially, Google is against this kind of practice. But in reality, everyone goes through this process since it is necessary to get the first place on Google.

How to evaluate the power of an external link?

To put it simply, a link can be in no follow or do follow. If it is in no follow, it does not transmit power. On the other hand, it can still be interesting if it sends visitors to your site.

Next, we talk about Citation Flow (CF) and Trust Flow (TF ), which each have a score out of 100. To discover it, you can use a site like Majestic for example.

The Citation Flow is the number of links that point to the site in question. The Trust Flow indicates the reliability of the external links of the site.

The higher the score, the more interesting it is. And there shouldn’t be too much of a gap between the two if possible. There are of course subtleties, but that will be the subject of a future article young Padawan.

How to optimize your own netlinking?

To strengthen your netlinking, you can link to links that already point to your site. This will strengthen the Trust Flow of these sites, and therefore yours as well.

Smart lynx!

You can also optimize the link anchor. Instead of putting the address of your site, you can put the site from a keyword. For example like this:

Here Yvonne(10€ that his name is Gerard in real) has anchored his site on the expression “hotel surrey new york”. That is, when you click on the blue part, you will go to his site. It is a way to show Google more precisely what your site or the page on which the link redirects is about.

But this is clearly playing with fire. Google doesn’t like it. So, we strongly advise against it if you are just starting out!

So, you’re probably wondering…

How to optimize your SEO ?

This question deserves a full guide(and you’ll get it in the next few weeks!). But we’re going to provide you with some thoughts that are important to consider.

They will help you whether you are a beginner in niche publishing or already own several sites.

The first thing is to…

Anticipating the future

From this point of view, just look around you. More and more people are getting connected speakers(ok Google!). They love this kind of little technological gadget.

And inevitably, it has an impact on the referencing.

People don’t talk like they write. As a result, they use voice search, which disrupts SEO. Generally, these people expect a specific answer to a given question.

It is therefore recommended to have a succinct and clear answer to have the chance to appear in the first results in the future on this type of request.

You’ve also seen theexplosion of the video medium. YouTube has become its own search engine. It has 2.2 billion users worldwide. It is therefore vital to integrate them in your articles and on your website.

Finally, we can also talk about local referencing which is the future according to several French SEOs. It is still a gold mine that has not been fully exploited. An opportunity for you?

The second thing is to…

Optimize your site’s technique

According to the Médiamétrie study, young people spend only 1h10 in front of the television per day. Before, this score was much higher. But they have not left their screens since it is the phone that recovers 4 hours of their attention time per day!

It is therefore vital for you to have a site adapted to the mobile format. To give you an idea, one of our sites is visited 91% by users on their phone!

We can also mention the case of HTTPS. To avoid talking too technical, it is simply a mention indicating to the user that your site is secure. According to Wikipedia, it “theoretically guarantees the confidentiality and integrity of data sent by the user“.

In reality, it looks like this:

If your site does not use this HTTPS certificate, you lose the benefit of the security padlock to have this :

A nice “not secure” mention that will scare away visitors to your site. In addition, you’ll gradually lose places in the Google rankings! This is an important aspect to address.

It is also recommended to…

Optimize the content of your site

This is probably THE most important point for two major players in SEO:

• the visitor who should find your content interesting and browse your site to learn more.
• and Google which must estimate if your page answers the request on which you wish to be placed.

To make an interesting text, the recipe is simple: figures, anecdotes, a beautiful pen, an airy structure, correct spelling, etc.

For Google, it’s a different story!

It is his robots that will come to explore your page to judge whether or not it is interesting. And now we’re going to give you a terrible revelation: Google doesn’t understand your text!

Google turns your words into mathematical entities and makes a gloubiboulga to determine the ranking. And for that, it takes into account the semantics of the sites already referenced to see if you use the same words and how often.

Let’s take an example: If someone says clown, Big Mac, French fries and Happy Meal, you say? Yes Kevin? McDonalds! Yes, well done!

Well, Google works the same way.

We reassure you, tools(in French!) are available on the Internet to help you on this point. We think in particular of YourTextGuru which will allow you toimprove the semantics of your texts easily and quickly.

What to optimize your referencing without any problem!

And to finish this section, we would like to talk to you about our friend Jean Claude SEO.

Don’t be Jean Claude SEO

Before we explain why you shouldn’t follow Jean Claude SEO’s example, we have a few questions to ask you:

• Do you remember the number one company in video tape manufacturing?
• Did you continue to use Encarta after Wikipedia appeared?
• Did you know that Facebook is used mostly by 25-34 year olds?

The point is that EVERYTHING is changing.

Either you fight it, and you disappear(usually). Either you get on the bandwagon and adapt.

Referencing follows the same evolution today. And it is important to open your mind to all the new things. This can be the video format, the podcast or even the virtual reality that will eventually arrive.

Don’t be like Jean Claude SEO who clings to the techniques he used 10 years ago to be first on Google and doesn’t want to change anything. Adapt yourself, it’s the key word to be referenced on the Internet.

Natural referencing on social networks

Social networks have become the daily life of Internet users and especially mobile users. According to the Statista study conducted in January 2021, 75.9% of French people are on social networks.

Basically, everyone except children and the very old. Even worse, each user has an average of 6.8 social accounts!

It is therefore tempting to take advantage of this incredible source of traffic. And that’s what we’re going to see now:

Image referencing via Pinterest

When you have a Pinterest account, you need to populate it with images to make yourself known on this platform. But most importantly, you can also appear on search engines.

Take for example the query “homemade diet recipe”:

As you can see, a Pinterest image appears on the 1st page of Google results. And it’s perfect! You can link to your site on Pinterest which allows you to bring even more visitors on it.

And that, very few site editors implement it Billy!

The referencing of videos via YouTube

We just saw that it is possible to reference images via Pinterest. So you’re probably wondering if this is possible with YouTube videos.

Let’s do the test with the word “ibanez v50njp folk guitar”, it will make the strummers rage who only see in Ibanez a brand of electric guitar!

And indeed, YouTube videos appear on the 1st page of Google. There are even several of them. This means that Google really appreciates video content for this kind of query.

If you want to make a site about guitars, it would be interesting to see on the other keywords if you often have videos. Because you could be 1st with SEO on your site and 2nd with your own video on YouTube.

This will ensure that you are the boss of every request!

Referencing on TikTok & Instagram

So we see you coming. “Yeah your boomer platforms are fine for 5 min. The future is Instagram, well I mean Snapchat, well no TikTok”. Yes, you are right.

However, these are not social networks that are referenced on Google(for now). So don’t start on this platform if your goal is to be in the first results on Google.

On the other hand, you can use the traffic vacuum method. Concretely, there are 22 million users per month in France on Instagram. Tiktok manages to gather 4 million daily users! So you can create your own account on these platforms and try to bring more visitors to your site.

This is a good strategy to not be 100% dependent on Google, because as Claude-May Waia Nemia said, “Psychological and physical dependence is a dangerous enemy for the social perfection of a city.”

We think we have succeeded in showing you what SEO is, how to tame it and especially what it can bring you. If you want to stay in touch with Les Makers we invite you to complete the form below.

This will allow you to receive an email to know as soon as a content of this kind has been published on the site. Don’t worry, you won’t be spammed, it’s impossible for us to write this kind of article every day!

As a bonus, you will receive many exclusive tips to launch your first online business idea and earn your first money online.