Let’s be honest—if your site isn’t on the first page of Google, it doesn’t exist.
That’s where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in. It’s not some marketing jargon; it’s the backbone of online marketing, positioning websites to move up the search ranks and reach the right audience at the right time.
This blog deconstructs precisely what SEO is, how it works, and why on-page, off-page, and technical SEO are essential to improve rankings and achieve success with digital marketing.
This ‘What is SEO?’ blog discusses the following topics:
Let’s begin with an introduction to SEO.
What is SEO in Digital Marketing?
Search Engine Optimization(SEO) marketing is the process of taking measures to gain organic traffic from search engines. Simply put, organic traffic is the opposite of paid traffic, i.e., the users who view your content are not referred by any paid promoters. Rather, the viewership is attributed to the content’s backend structure, the website layout, and the frontend user-oriented content.
After understanding SEO’s meaning, this ‘What is SEO?’ blog goes on to discuss the SEO fundamentals and its principles.
Components of SEO
There are nine major components of SEO that helps make a great website, and they are as follows:
- Design
- Marketing
- Content
- Keywords
- Links
- HTML
- Blog
- Popularity
Based on the algorithms, user location, and the above components, search engines will show the desired website. Every search engine will have these components. Nobody can guarantee that your website will show up in the golden triangle of search results, but generating content keeping these in mind will definitely help in getting it noticed.
So far, in this ‘What is SEO marketing?’ blog, you have come across SEO basics, its principles, and components of SEO. Now, you will gain insights into how you can step up your game in this field.
How SEO works?
Using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools, a website can be made to rank higher on platforms like Google by making it easier for search engines to crawl, index, understand, trust, and value your content. Search engines use crawling to look through your website and indexing to store and arrange your pages in their database so they show up in search results.
To determine which pages are most relevant to display for a search query, search engines consider a wide range of ranking factors. Some key factors include:
- Keywords: These are phrases that users enter into the search bar, like “best smartphones under 20000.” Search engines tend to pay a lot of attention to phrases that show up in titles, headings, and even in the content of a page. Furthermore, including relevant keywords helps a search engine make a relevant judgment.
- Backlinks: Backlinks are external references to your page that point to other widely recognized and trustworthy websites. Credibility can be increased by using relevant pages, such as a tech blog with links to your product review. Trust is very important.
- Original (AI-free or high-quality) content: Search engines do not like anything that is auto-generated or duplicates something that already exists. This is why original content that is free of AI or any other automated measuring tool tends to rank higher.
- User Experience (UX): This describes the initial impression that a user gets from a page. This includes how easy it is to scroll through a webpage, how quickly it loads, and whether or not the features are compatible with mobile devices.
In order to properly apply these factors, SEO is broken down into various categories, which we will discuss in the next section. These categories include technical SEO, off-page SEO, and on-page SEO. You have a good chance of ranking on the first page of search results if you follow these SEO guidelines correctly, outperforming other blog entries and websites competing for the same keywords. This improves your chances of successfully reaching your target audience and increases visibility and organic traffic.
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Types of SEO
This is a comprehensive list of the most important SEO techniques for online marketing that any marketer or website owner should know about. Learning these will enable you to drive more traffic, improve rankings, and remain competitive.
1. On-Page SEO
- Includes optimizing content, headings, images, and internal links.
- Applying the proper kinds of keywords in SEO to address user intent.
- Employs HTML tags, meta titles, meta descriptions, and header tags like h1, h2, h3, and so on.
- Enhances readability and user interaction.
2. Off-Page SEO
- Includes creating high-quality backlinks from other trusted websites.
- Boosts social signals and brand mentions.
- Helps to improve search engine trust and domain authority.
- Builds the credibility and trust that people have in your website.
3. Technical SEO
- Improves responsiveness on mobile devices and page loading speed.
- Resolves crawl errors, broken links, and duplicate content.
- Uses XML sitemaps, robots.txt, and structured data (schema markup)
- Secures site access through HTTPS.
4. Local SEO
- Makes your site optimized for location-based searches, ideal for businesses with a physical presence.
- It involves creating and optimizing your Google Business Profile.
- Maintains NAP (Name, Address, Phone number), secures local backlinks, directory listings, and positive customer reviews.
- Target keywords with location modifiers (e.g., “plumber in Mumbai”).
5. E-commerce SEO
- Optimizes product titles, descriptions, images, and reviews.
- Applies transactional keywords that are product-specific.
- Improves search capabilities, filters, and site architecture.
- Emphasizes user experience, cart optimization, and page speed.
6. Voice Search SEO
- Optimizes for voice assistants such as Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant.
- Employing natural, conversational language and question-based keywords.
- Pursues long-tail keywords and featured snippet opportunities.
- Organizes content with FAQ sections.
7. Video SEO
- Streamlines video titles, descriptions, tags, and thumbnails.
- Includes closed captions and transcripts for accessibility as well as SEO.
- Uses schema markup to increase the visibility of video content on search engines like Google and YouTube.
- Links videos with fast-loading players as well as rich snippets.
8. Content SEO
- Prioritizes high-quality, original, and valuable content.
- Includes the right kinds of SEO keywords (transactional, navigational, and informational).
- Complies with E-E-A-T guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
- Practices internal linking, topic clusters, and timely updates.
9. International SEO
- Complies with local search engine policies (e.g., Google, Baidu, Yandex).
- Used with hreflang tags to display the page’s appropriate language or region.
- Develops geo-targeted content and URLs.
- Optimizes site speed and site structure for international performance.
10. Mobile SEO: Why Mobile Optimization Matters
- Optimizes websites for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
- Follows mobile-first indexing, where Google ranks based on the mobile version of the site.
- Focuses on responsive design, fast load times, and touch-friendly navigation.
- Improves readability with proper font sizes, compressed images, and clear content structure.
E-E-A-T in SEO
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. If you didn’t already know, this is how Google assesses content quality and decides which pages are eligible for higher rankings. For those who have ever wondered, “What is SEO and how it works,” knowing E-E-A-T is crucial to producing content that is both relevant and high-performing for search engines.
What is E-E-A-T in SEO?
E-E-A-T is an important concept from the Evaluator Guidelines of Search Quality Assessors by Google. Not only does it focus on content, but rather on the author and their reliability. This is critical for YMYL (Your Money Your Life) subjects like medical, financial, or legal fields, where misinformation can do serious damage.
This framework is crucial when analyzing what SEO is in digital marketing in order to produce trustworthy, excellent content that ranks high on Google.
How E-E-A-T Connects to On-Page SEO
When studying what is on-page SEO, you’ll notice that E-E-A-T is directly involved. On-page tactics that assist E-E-A-T are
- Author Bios: Emphasize the qualifications and experience of your content writers.
- Clear Citations: Employ authentic sources and link to authoritative websites.
- Original Content: Don’t use duplicate or thin content to make sure of originality.
- Page Design: Simple navigation and professional layout enhance trust.
By using E-E-A-T principles along with on-page SEO strategies, you’re likely to gain Google’s trust and get top rankings.
The foundation of SEO is E-E-A-T, which gives your content authority, credibility, and quality. It strengthens technical SEO, directly supports on-page SEO, and indirectly improves off-page SEO performance. Integrating E-E-A-T is a must if you’re worried about long-term SEO accomplishments.
Top SEO Tools You Should Know in 2025
Having the right tools is essential to understanding what SEO, on-page SEO, and even technical SEO are. These top SEO tools of 2025 help in optimizing content, analyzing performance, and enhancing search engine result page rankings.
1. Google Search Console
- A free tool from Google to monitor how your website appears in search results.
- Assists with indexing, search performance, and mobile usability.
- A must-have for anyone learning the basics of search engine optimization.
- Identifies crawl errors, page indexing problems, and keyword visibility.
2. Ahrefs
- Most robust tool for off-page SEO and backlink research.
- Monitors competitor strategy, keyword rankings, and content performance.
- Includes site audit, content explorer, and keyword explorer.
- Useful for improving domain authority and search traffic.
3. SEMrush
- One-stop SEO platform for supporting on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.
- Includes keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink audit, and SEO writing assistant.
- Ideal for digital marketers who want to make their campaigns more visible.
- Incredibly relevant when discovering what is SEO in digital marketing.
4. Morningscore
- A game-like SEO tool ideal for novices and experts.
- Includes technical SEO, backlink tracking, and keyword analysis.
- Recently renovated with AI-driven SEO recommendations.
- Customized to help people learn about SEO and its visual workings.
5. Surfer SEO
- Great for beginners learning about what is on-page SEO in 2025.
- Designed to be used for on-page SEO and content optimization.
- Reviews the top-ranking pages for your target term and provides actionable advice.
- Great for building blog posts and landing pages that rank higher.
How to step up your SEO game?
Most of the time, what happens is that you start applying all the SEO strategies and hit a roadblock somewhere. Then you are lost on how to take it forward from there. These steps are going to help you way to become the top SEO site in the industry, and you can also use these experiences to make a good SEO career.
Step 1: Develop the base website
The main website has to be set up properly with complete technical accuracy and made sure that the pages are optimized for their content. It is important to stick to one country or language to be specific for a website. The content should stick to the top 5–50 keywords as primary keywords and then go after the secondary keywords through different parts of the website, such as Content Marketing, blogs, designing, etc.
Step 2: Optimize low-ranking pages
All pages you create may not always rank well. There may be high-ranking and low-ranking ones. However, the issue with the latter can be rectified by frequently refreshing them and driving more links to these pages. This will help in pushing the low-ranking pages to the top of search results. You can use Google Analytics to improve and track SEO.
Step 3: Broaden the base
Once you have done your best focusing on one country or one language, it is advised to explore other opportunities. It is done by either moving to other countries following the same language or selecting the second most popular language in the same country. This can actually multiply the amount of traffic to your website.
Benefits of SEO: Why It’s Essential for Digital Success
1- Increased Visibility on Search Engines
SEO allows your site to show up in the top search rankings, making it more likely for users to find you when they search for keywords related to your business.
2- Targeted Organic Traffic
You can attract users who are actively searching for what you are offering with effective keyword research and on-page SEO, resulting in traffic that converts.
3- Increased Brand Awareness
Ranking higher in search engine results establishes credibility. Users are likely to trust and remember a company that they always find on page one of Google.
4- Improved User Experience
Faster loads, mobile responsiveness, and an uncluttered site structure are examples of technical SEO improvements that improve the browsing experience and keep visitors on your site longer.
5- Long-Term ROI
SEO provides long-term results, while paid advertising only provides short-term ones. Once your pages rank well, they will continue to attract visitors without requiring ongoing ad spending.
6- Better Insights into Consumer Behavior
SEO helps you understand what users are searching for, how they engage with your content, and where you need to make the next optimizations using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Real-Life Example: How SEO Changed the Game for a Local Bakery
Suppose you have a small bakery in the center of Bangalore—”Crust & Crumbs.” Similar to most small enterprises, your sales largely rely on walk-ins and word-of-mouth. You make phenomenal cakes, but your online presence is zero to none. That’s where you chose to adopt SEO in digital marketing.
Let’s talk about how you turned things around:
1. On-Page Optimization
You started by focusing on on-page SEO by using keyword research to identify high-intent keywords like “custom birthday cakes Bangalore” and “eggless cakes near me.”
You naturally incorporated these keywords into your product descriptions and homepage optimization. You also optimized title tags, meta descriptions, and header structures with all product pages internally linked with proper anchor text.
2. Technical SEO Improvements
Two significant SEO red flags were your site’s slow loading speed and lack of mobile friendliness. You fixed this by employing a responsive web design, switching web hosts to a faster option, and optimizing images.
You added a canonical tag (a code that tells Google which page is the original to avoid duplicates) to the home page to merge duplicate URLs. You also generated an XML sitemap and uploaded it to Google Search Console for improved crawling.
Result? Your website eventually started to appear on page one for significant local searches, and your Google rankings skyrocketed.
3. Off-Page Optimization
Local food bloggers and influencers that you collaborated with wrote about your cakes and included links to your website.
You set up a Google Business Profile and invited satisfied customers to leave reviews, which increased local trustworthiness. Over time, these backlinks increased your domain authority, which gave search engines a sense of your reliability.
4. Ranking Impact
In just 3 months, Crust & Crumbs shifted from rank #37 to rank #4 for “best bakery in Bangalore.”
A clever, strategic SEO strategy caused online orders to grow exponentially and web traffic to increase by over 250%.
This story demonstrates how even the smallest local business can become a digital giant by applying technical SEO, off-page SEO strategies, and on-page optimization. Even in highly competitive markets, rankings can be improved with consistent work and the right resources.
Conclusion
Now that you understand what SEO is, how it is done, and why on-page, off-page, and technical SEO are important, it’s time to apply that knowledge in the real world.
Start your journey with Intellipaat’s Digital Marketing Course, where you’ll be learning everything from SEO and keyword research to performance marketing and analytics, led by top industry professionals.