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An Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

Searching Google for SEO

By (Web Strategist)
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SEO Basics for Beginners

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving how pages of a web site rank in the natural or organic results of search engines.

Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media Studios communicates that ranking high on search engines by emphasizing that "Google doesn't’t rank web sites, it ranks web pages." As a result, incorporating SEO best practices for each web page on your site can increase search volume and traffic quality.

It's been documented that a web site appearing within the first few listings on page one of a search engine's results will get more clicks when compared to a web site that's not ranked as high.

A Note on AI Search and the Future of SEO

With the rise of AI chatbots and generative AI in search results, many marketers are asking a new question: "How do we optimize for generative engines?" This practice is sometimes called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).

In a recent presentation, Google's Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, addressed this directly. His advice was simple: don't get distracted by new buzzwords and search trends. He emphasized that the fundamentals of creating great content for people remain the key to success.

Sullivan's core message, which Google has repeated for over two decades, is that if you focus on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content, you will succeed. Search systems, whether it's traditional Google Search, AI overviews, or other LLM-based tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are all designed to find and reward useful content.

This sentiment is echoed by industry leaders like renowned SEO consultant Aleyda Solis, who notes that while search interfaces evolve, the fundamental need to connect users with the best information remains, ensuring SEO's role is not going anywhere.

Trying to optimize your web pages for a specific AI is the wrong approach. The goal is to optimize for people.

If you do that well, your content will be valuable to all search platforms, now and in the future.

This article is designed to teach you those people-first fundamentals. This guide you are about to read establishes those basics for you. Apply the SEO basics by creating great content and AI agents and LLMs will also crawl your well written web pages.

Search Engine Crawlers

Currently, the search engine ecosystems based on usage are Google, Microsoft, Verizon media, and Ask.

This pie chart shows the search engine marketing share of all home and work desktop locations in the United States by percentages as of summer 2025 (data source comScore).


Search engines use crawlers, called robots (bots), based on algorithms to find pages on the web. Crawler-based search engines operate like automated software agents that find web sites.

Search engines crawl web sites by following links across pages and analyzing each page’s HTML and other code. Modern crawlers evaluate far more than just meta tags and visible text, they process:

  • Head elements: titles, meta descriptions, canonical tags, and structured data (e.g., JSON-LD) that help define the page’s purpose
  • Technical signals: mobile-friendliness, load performance, accessibility features, and secure connections (HTTPS)
  • Rendered page content: text, images, video, and interactive elements as seen by users in their browsers, including mobile and desktop views

For example, a bakery’s homepage might feature a headline about their sourdough, a photo gallery of fresh loaves, and an embedded order form.

Browsers like Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, and Opera render this content for visitors, making it available through visual layouts, media, and interactive features. For search engines, well-structured HTML paired with high-quality, relevant, and accessible content ensures both human users and bots understand your page’s value.

Here’s how those concepts break down when we look at what search engines see versus what your visitors experience:

Comparison of search engine goals and user intent - SEO introduction table
What Search Engines See What Users See in Their Browser
HTML structure - headings (<h1>-<h6>), paragraphs, lists, tables Formatted text with clear headlines and readable sections
Head metadata - title tags, meta descriptions, canonical tags Tab/browser title, snippet in search results
Structured data (JSON-LD, microdata) Rich results like star ratings, prices, or event dates in Google
Alt text & captions - image descriptions Actual images, photo galleries, infographics
Internal & external link structure Clickable navigation menus, buttons, and hyperlinks
Page load metrics & mobile-friendliness Smooth browsing experience, responsive design
File names & URLs - keyword relevance in slugs Address bar URLs they can share or bookmark
Server & security signals - HTTPS, speed Browser padlock icon, fast-loading pages

As bots scan your web page's content, specifically text, these automated crawlers simultaneously try to follow links on the page. SEO expert Neil Patel believes that a critical factor to improve search engine optimization is to include a "...sheer variety of words" on your page.

Most of the links that search bots will find on your web page will be to other pages of your web site. These types of links are internal. The other links that a bot may find are external. These are links that point to another web site's page.

The ultimate goal of search engines is to crawl, index web pages, and then rank your content.

Googlebot

Google uses two crawlers to index web content:

  1. Googlebot Smartphone: Simulates a mobile user and is the default crawler for most websites.
  2. Googlebot Desktop: Simulates a desktop user and is used less frequently.

Since Google now prioritizes mobile-first indexing, the majority of crawl requests come from Googlebot Smartphone. This means your site’s mobile version, not the desktop view, is what gets indexed and ranked. To ensure optimal visibility because of mobile-first, your content should be responsive, fast-loading, and semantically structured.

Google's Search Algorithm

Many factors influence how a search engine algorithm works. Take Google, nobody knows the mathematical formula it uses to return search results for a user that has performed a search query.

Google goes to great lengths to keep this a secret. A New York Times interview revealed that Google, "has been cautious about... speaking with the news media about the magical, mathematical brew inside the millions of black boxes that power its search engine."

The interview spotlights Amit Singhal, a master engineer at Google, who discusses Google's “ranking algorithm”, the behind-the-scene formula determining the web pages resulting from a user’s query. The interview reveals;

"Mr. Singhal has developed a far more elaborate system for ranking pages, which involves more than 200 types of information, or what Google calls “signals.” PageRank is but one signal. Some signals are on Web pages — like words, links, images and so on. Some are drawn from the history of how pages have changed over time..."

Nicholas Carr learned that Google, "...carries out thousands of experiments a day...and it uses the results to refine the algorithms that increasingly control how people find information and extract meaning from it."

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO is about getting links from other web sites that point back to your site.

This is known in the SEO community as link building. Links back to your web site are similar to getting votes. As a result, links pointing back to your web pages are considered a positive signal from Google.

And since content is king, the same great content you're providing users who find you through search will also attract web publishers and bloggers. Who in turn may reference your content by linking to your web page from their web site.

On-page SEO

This approach to optimizing your pages is all about control.

Wikipedia elaborates about on-page SEO by stating that "optimizing a web site primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines."

If you update your site with a code editor or through a Content Management System (CMS) then you're doing on-page SEO. This also applies to web site editors, blogging platforms, and wikis.

For any web site looking to get optimized for the search engines, both on-page and off-page SEO should be considered with the full benefits of ranking well.

The next few sections cover some basics and best practices you can apply to your web site through on-page SEO.

You will need to access each web page's HTML, properties, or settings through your content management system, blog, wiki, or web editor.

On-page SEO will be the focus for the rest of this SEO guide.

Meta Title Tag

The title tag is commonly what appears on the search engine results pages. The title tag is found in the HEAD portion of your web page's HTML.

For example, the title tag used for the SEO Introduction you're currently reading looks like this:

<title>Search Engine Optimization Introduction - Learn SEO</title>

The words within the <title> tags are the title that is seen at the top of your web browser window or tab on a web page.

Use concise keywords in the title of each page of your site. So when your page appears in the search engine results, potential visitors skimming the SERPs may gravitate towards your site's listing by clicking on it.

Keep title tags brief because Google shows about 50-60 characters on search engine results. So you don't want your title getting cut off and appearing incomplete in the SERPs.

And this is very important, each page of your site should have a unique title tag.

Meta Description Tag

Just as important that each web page's title tag of your site is unique, it's strongly recommended that a unique description for the meta description tag be used as well.

The description tag is also found in the HEAD portion of your web page's HTML below the title tag. A blog, content management system, or web editor will probably have a field you can edit through a settings option.

The character count of the page's description should be around 150 and no more than 160 characters.

Many times, this description tag shows up on the search engine results page beneath the title tag.

And from a web site marketing perspective, this can be an effective method to market your idea, service, or product to appear on the search engine's results page.

Not to mention, if you have a well-written description, it works like a free ad on Google or Bing that may attract a potential user, client, or customer to click on your SERP listing.

Here's the meta description tag used for this Search Engine Optimization Introduction article you're reading:

<meta name="description" content="A Search Engine Optimization Introduction serving as a beginner's guide to SEO. Learn about search engines, algorithms, on-page SEO, and keyword phrases."/>

ALT Text for Images

Another ranking factor that Google considers important is the ALT image attribute or ALT text. Utilizing this attribute can be an opportunity for better search engine rankings.

The ALT text attribute needs to have descriptive text conveyed by a short phrase for each image on a web page.

Using ALT attributes are critical for accessibility, especially screen readers and assistive web technology.

Best Practices for Writing Better Content

Using Keywords and Phrases

Ultimately, your goal is for your site's web pages to be found by potential clients, customers, or users from all search engines. Regardless of your audience, you want each page to have a focus, like a main topic with several sub-topics.

Andy Crestodina blogged in 3 Key Steps to SEO Fitness that your web page's keyword phrases should be a healthy mix of, "plural forms, synonyms, acronyms, and abbreviations."

Do not go overboard with your targeted keywords. Keyword stuffing is frowned upon by the SEO industry and search engines. Google or Bing may consider your site as web spam and impose a penalty. As a result, your web pages will not appear in search engine results.

Content policies from Google inform webmasters and content creators that "keyword stuffing refers to the practice of loading a web page with keywords...in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results."

And take heed, Wordstream warns us about over-optimizing a web page with the dangers of keyword stuffing.

Google states that, "filling pages with keywords...results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking."

Topics and User Search Intent

Your web page topic should focus on providing users with unique and compelling content that utilizes keyword phrases within context.

For example, this web page topic you have been reading is a basic guide to search engine optimization. A reference to get you started on SEO.

You will note that the topic "SEO" and "Search Engine Optimization", appear many times on this web page, but naturally throughout this article in different variations. There are also many sub-topics and sub-sub-topics branching from the main topic.

Try to create comprehensive content that thoroughly answers a user's query using natural language and related questions. Google, with algorithm updates like BERT and MUM, prioritize understanding the meaning and context behind a search. Writing content with semantic search over exact keyword matching will nudge Google to notice your page content better.

E-E-A-T

In determining page quality, Google looks for four things about the content creator, this comes down to E-E-A-T, which stands for:

  • Experience
  • Expertise
  • Authoritativeness
  • Trustworthiness

This is a core principle from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines used to assess content quality.

By you publishing great content, users will want to share and promote it on social media.

In addition, other webmasters, content creators, bloggers, or influencers may be inclined to link to your information-rich page from their web page or blog, which would have a positive impact on your site's SEO through link building.

Semantic Markup

You've planned your content and identified relevant keywords to include, but that's just the beginning. To ensure your web page is discoverable by search engines, it's crucial to implement semantic HTML markup.

Semantic HTML is about structure and meaning. By using tags like <header>, <article>, <section>, and <footer> appropriately, you help search engines understand the context and hierarchy of your content. This improves your site's SEO and enhances accessibility for users.

Semantic markup isn't limited to headings and paragraphs. Incorporate elements like <nav> for navigation menus, <aside> for supplementary content, and <figure> with <figcaption> for images and captions. These tags add clarity and purpose to your HTML, making your content more engaging and easier to index.

The Web Style Guide states that semantic HTML applied to your website's content is essential for search engine visibility. The Foundations of User Experience Design authors Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton explain that semantic markup heavily impacts your site's search appearance by listing the following reasons, as it addresses:

  • Information architecture
  • Efficient web coding
  • Universal usability
  • Maximum display flexibility

Using semantic HTML markup helps with search engine optimization and accessibility.

Technical SEO: Core Web Vitals

You need to keep learning! Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing and iterative process. You need to return to your content periodically to improve, test, and in some cases adapt it. The other major pillar in SEO for you to explore is the technical side.

Technical SEO involves site speed and mobile-friendliness through page experience signals, which include Core Web Vitals. Those specific metrics are:

  1. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures loading performance
  2. INP (Interaction to Next Paint) measures overall responsiveness to user interactions
  3. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) measures the visual stability of a page

These page experience signals that Core Web Vitals addresses is now a more direct part of ranking considerations by Google.

Learn more about Google Search Console, a free Google service, that tests your site's Core Web Vitals in this free top SEO tools article.

Summary

This article provides basic concepts to understand search engine optimization and how to improve web page ranking through organic results of search engines. It explains that Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of web pages in a search engine's unpaid results.

Striving for that number one spot on Google's results can make a world of difference in the traffic volume that your web site's pages can receive.

Top ranked results generally earn the most clicks.

Google doesn't rank web sites, but instead ranks web pages, so incorporating SEO best practices for each page on your web site can increase search volume and traffic quality.

The article also mentions that appearing at the top of Google's search results can make a huge difference in traffic that your web site's pages can receive. Additionally, it covers search engine crawlers, the importance of including keyword variety and content topics on your pages, search intent, semantic HTML markup, including the role of internal and external links in SEO.

Additional SEO Reading, Tools, and Resources

Must-Have SEO Books for 2025

Dive into these top SEO reads.

  • The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization is the most comprehensive SEO textbook updated for 2025. Master a wide range of topics from technical audits to AI-driven search strategy with guidance from industry leaders. Read on Amazon →
  • SEO for Dummies is a classic guide breaking down SEO into bite-sized lessons anyone can follow. Peter Kent’s no-nonsense style makes it easy to understand both on-page and off-page SEO, even if you’re starting from scratch. This book is perfect for beginners and small business owners. Read on Amazon →
  • SEO 2025: Learn Search Engine Optimization with Smart Internet Marketing Strategies is updated for Google’s latest algorithm changes and AI search tools. This forward-looking guide covers everything from ranking in Google and Bing to showing up in ChatGPT and Gemini results. Includes exclusive video tutorials and a step-by-step checklist. Best for readers who want cutting-edge SEO strategies. Read on Amazon →

* As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no cost to you. These links help keep resources on this site free for everyone.

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