SEO stands for search engine optimization. What is search engine optimization? It is the process of taking steps to help a website or piece of content rank higher on Google.

The key difference between SEO and paid advertising is that an SEO strategy involves “organic” ranking, which means you don’t pay to be in that space. To make it even simpler, search engine optimization means taking a piece of online content and optimizing it so search engines like Google show it towards the top of the page when someone searches for something.

For example, when someone types “vegan lasagna” into Google, they’re likely looking for a recipe, ingredients, and instructions on how to make it. If you wrote an article about making vegan lasagna, you’d want people to find your recipe. For anyone to find it, you need to rank above all the other websites with recipes for vegan lasagna. It’s not easy, but that’s what SEO marketing is all about.

Let’s break it down even further: 89 billion people visited Google.com in May 2022 alone. That means you are missing out on a huge number of visitors if you aren’t optimizing for search.

To better understand how you can rank your content higher in the search engines, you need to first understand how search works. That’s the ultimate goal of this article. By the end, you’ll know the ins and outs of search so you can optimize your content to rank higher on Google and get more eyeballs on your posts.