I love to explain complex processes and definitions with the simplest of words and analogies, and as for search engine optimization, what it is, how it works, and why it exists is just as simple as understanding a fisherman with a boat in the middle of the ocean trying to find the best seafood for him, his family, to trade, or to sell on the fish market.
Let’s say you, the digital marketer(fisherman), wants to fish the ocean for tuna(your specific audience) from your boat. The purpose is to find the healthiest salmon and you have the best bait for them.
The way the ocean is spread is completely chaotic, with fish everywhere, coral reefs, strong winds, and high tides, but you are in need of such a fish.
You want to find the fish as efficiently and fast as you can, so you start by looking at the best places to fish and you take your boat, fishing rod, and bait for the day.
You add the bait to the hook and tie it to the end of the fishing line. You go through the line as long as you can with the floater so it stays for a while in the same spot.
The ocean is vast and has sharks, squids, dolphins, and all sorts of marine wildlife attracted by your bait, but you use a specific one to attract your desired fish.
As some fish come and go and you are unsuccessful, after 2-3 hours you start getting the fish you want.
You tag your coordinates on your map to come back again in hopes of catching the same fish again with the same quality and characteristics.
This is repetitive until you find and look for better fish that can be of greater value, let’s say you fish enough of them to open a fish market, trade in bulk, or start a seafood restaurant.
You do this repeatedly until you streamline the process and, being aware of nature and its limited resources, you want to farm fish in the most natural way to grow and share the wealth.
This trend continues and you start getting competition from other fishermen and try to replicate your process to make a profit.
You buy a bigger boat, get larger fishing nets, hire fishermen, buy faster jet engines, and stay longer fishing.
View the Internet as the seaport being the internet connection, the ocean’s surface is the world wide web, boats are the websites, the fishermen are your digital marketing team, the fishing rod is the web browser, the searcher’s query is the fishing line, the hook is the search result page, backlinks are the ocean’s currents, and the marine animals are the digital devices connected to online users.
Here is where it makes sense now, users can show up on different devices either from a laptop, tablet, or a mobile device, they can come in a seashell or as a shark, but that is why you have a net but that might slow your sales growth down, there must be a way to filter them to have sales qualified leads, by now your fishing business has grown tenfold!
Your website has more than one channel that attracts users! Your brand, products, and services are so far beyond Google, Bing, and other competitors that the fish go directly to your boat, they even hop in for the ride!
Like dolphins that follow you when you are just passing by, or a turtle that is just wandering near your boat just to say hi, or if you can remove a straw from its nose.
You are now gaining traction with social media, email marketing, affiliates, and sponsorships that you have grown a considerable amount from your SEO strategy.
As mentioned previously, I used the analogy of backlinks as if they were the sea currents, as they might attract more fish if you positioned yourself strategically with it, that means that some websites can push users to your boat(website) and not just send them your way, but increase your fishing(online) reputation against other fishermen.
This allows room for expansion for bigger fishing(marketing) budgets to increase, you start expanding your fishing farms, hiring marine biologists to do experiments, opening up restaurants, and trading more frequently, even internationally!
All of this happened because you decided to do things the right way which means that you didn’t abuse any marine policies, you didn’t cheat on anyone’s bait, and you abided by laws and regulations that were implemented in your country of origin.
Sounds too easy, but the matter of fact is that it requires time, dedication, vision, a strategic view of the landscape, execution, and doing what is best for yourself and the people you serve.
If you need me to explain SEO in greater detail, please let me know and send me an email to digitalcollective0@gmail.com I will be more than happy to explain in greater detail.