Naturally people have a lot of questions about SEO. It can be quite a confusing area, especially if you are a beginner. These days, it is vital that you include SEO as a part of your digital marketing campaign.

SEO also has the potential to go very wrong if you don’t have a proper understand of what is involved. For example, you could intentionally become involved in black hat SEO (negative SEO tactics) that Google sees as cheating and they could slap your website with a penalty.

Every website owner know that digital marketing, especially SEO marketing is important, this is a risk you cannot take. Therefore you should have a solid understand about what is involved. There is a lot of information out there that you usually end up with more questions then answers!

So, take a look below at some of the most common SEO questions and the answer:

What is a search engine?

A search engine is a place online that displays a database of websites when a users searches for something. Main search engines include Google, Bing and Yahoo. These search engines use bots to crawl websites and base the ranking on their algorithm.

When a user searches for a particular keyword, results will be displayed based on how well the site meets the algorithm set by the given search engine. Obviously, you want your website to rank as high as possible in order to get more eyeballs on your listing.

What is a keyword?

A keyword is the given word/s a user inputs into a search engine when they are looking for something in particular. For example, if you were looking for an Italian restaurant for dinner you might search the following keyword “Italian restaurant near me”.

What is PPC?

PPC stands for Pay Per Click and this refers to paying search engines to have your website appear in the ad section (and therefore potentially at the top of the first page – before the other normal listings).

As the name implies, you only have to pay when someone actually clicks on your ad. When using PPC you will set up a daily budget and when you have maxed that out your ads will not show until the next day. The cost of an ad will depend on a variety of factors, mainly the competitiveness/ popularity of the keyword.

How long does SEO take?

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question as speed of results is highly dependent on a wide range of factors, says Hari Menon. The industry you are in, for example, will have an impact on how quick you see results. Other factors include; level of competition, the age of your website and the keywords you are targeting.

Generally, SEO experts will explain that results take at least 3 months, possibly even more if your website is brand new. So be prepared to stick it out for the long haul – SEO is certainly a long term strategy.

How does a search engine find a website?

The main way search engines find a website is through the use of a spider. Not a literal spider but a bot that goes out and crawls all websites and anything new or different (i.e. a new website or new added pages within an existing website) that gets added to the database.

What is a spider?

A search engine spider is a program sent out by search engines and travels to other websites and adds anything needed to the database. It is this database that search engines use their algorithm and rank websites when a users searches for something in particular.

What is website optimisation?

Website optimisation is where you comb through your website and look for ways to make it more search engine friendly. This usually involves making small tweaks to allow users to have a better experience when on your site.

What is search engine friendly?

Search engine friendly is the term used to describe websites that have all the elements to ensure they get a great ranking from search engines. It is obviously important that your website is search engine friendly and meets the requirements to allow your website to be ranked highly.

Can you do SEO by yourself?

The simple answer is yes, you can do SEO by yourself – but that doesn’t mean you should. SEO takes a lot of continued work and requires some basic level of skill. Therefore if you do not have the time necessary to dedicate to your campaign, then it is probably best to enlist the support of a professional.

If you aren’t sure, you can always try doing SEO for yourself and if it doesn’t work out look for an agency. As well as this, most agency these days offer month by month plans, so you can try them out to see if they are a good fit for you and your business.