SEO Basics: A Beginner's Guide

What is SEO

1. Define SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, increases your website’s visibility. It means that when customers search for products or services you offer on search engines such as Google and Microsoft Bing, they can find you — and only you — more easily.

At QliqQliq, we focus on optimizing your site’s most important components. This comprehensive approach is what allows your site to rank at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). The end goal is to get onto that first page.

This will help you identify the best, most valuable keywords that your audience is using. This strategy increases your site’s reach and visibility. It further brings in qualified traffic, giving you a better chance of turning visitors into customers.

In fact, a 2019 BrightEdge study found that organic search is responsible for 53% of all website traffic. This discovery point underscores the crucial importance of implementing a strong SEO strategy.

2. Explain SEO Marketing

SEO marketing is a comprehensive strategy that integrates both organic and paid search tactics to improve your visibility across search engines. Your strategy should integrate SEO and PPC efforts.

Then, you use tools like Google Ads to convert that traffic from organic search and paid listing. This dual strategy allows businesses to maintain complete control over content and technical optimizations, ensuring that every element aligns with overall marketing goals.

Though SEO is a long-term investment, with results taking weeks or even months to come to fruition, the payoff is huge. At QliqQliq, we’re proud of our track record.

Our proven SEO marketing strategies have given our clients an average lead increase of 400%. Just look at the musings of SEO experts—like us—on Twitter.

Per Semrush Sensor data from September 2024, more than half of U.S. SERPs now include images in the top 20 results. This change highlights the importance of visual content in your overall SEO strategy.

3. Describe Search Engine Optimization Meaning

Search Engine Optimization gives any business, large or small, the power to build their site’s authority and relevance. A properly-optimized website is one that’s easy to use, high-quality, and trustworthy — all of these are key ranking factors that Google rewards with higher placements.

SEO helps to ensure high-quality content and focus on technical factors. This strategy allows companies to position themselves as the leading experts in their respective fields.

This trust is rewarded with higher rankings, and in turn, more traffic. At QliqQliq, we excel at developing data-driven strategies that produce real results.

Our focus on performance has also earned us more than 65,454 first-page keywords. We’ve helped bring in more than $10 million in client revenue.

Featuring a 95% retention rate, we regularly help businesses like yours conquer Google with custom-fit SEO plans designed to drive results.

Importance of SEO

At QliqQliq, we pride ourselves on our ability to deliver real, measurable success through our services. As a leading digital marketing agency in Canada, we pride ourselves on achieving an average ROI of 20:1 for our clients. We are committed to strategies that produce true impacts and meaningful results. We’ve established our track record by producing $10 million in revenue for clients.

Read on to find out why SEO is so important to your business.

Enhance Organic Traffic

Search engine optimization (SEO) is more important than ever for increasing organic search engine traffic. This increase directly increases the amount of people who come to your website each day. A 2019 study by BrightEdge found that 53% of all website traffic comes from organic search.

This highlights just how important SEO is to improving your online visibility. At QliqQliq, we’ve helped clients earn more than 65,454 first-page keywords to prove that well-executed SEO strategies can drive results. Being able to rank on the first page of search engine results for relevant keywords brings in qualified, targeted traffic.

This increased traffic converts into more customers and greatly improves the business’s bottom line.

Improve Website Rankings

Attracting more relevant traffic is the foundational purpose of SEO. That’s because a high-ranking website is considered more authoritative and trustworthy. Google rewards sites that have these qualities with higher rankings.

At QliqQliq, we’re constantly fostering this trust factor by publishing closely organized, original content. This is the proven strategy that has allowed us to deliver a stunning 400% average increase in overall leads for our clients. SEO is all about creating content that gets found in organic search.

It also includes digital marketing tactics like pay-per-click (PPC), including Google Ads, that help you amplify your organic search strategy. This double whammy ensures we’re nabbing traffic from both organic and paid search channels.

In doing so, we increase our clients’ visibility and help them thrive in an increasingly competitive digital world.

Boost Online Visibility

SEO is a broad term that encompasses many strategies. These strategies are designed to increase a site’s natural visibility on search engines, such as Google and Microsoft Bing. By targeting the most relevant and valuable keywords for your target demographic, our goal is to maintain strong online visibility.

This level of visibility is particularly important for small and medium-sized businesses that are trying to build a strong digital footprint. The SEO industry is expected to expand from $75.13 billion in 2023 to $88.91 billion in 2024.

This almost tripling is a remarkable surge that underscores its growing importance and relevance. At QliqQliq, we’ve created more than 810,000 leads and a stellar 95% retention.

We’re able to service more than 1,000 businesses to date because of these methodologies we’ve developed. With a laser-focus on data-driven results, we make our client’s growth and success in the digital space our top priority.

How SEO Works

Understand Search Engine Operations

Here at QliqQliq, we’re results-oriented. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is all about making your website easier to find on search engines like Google, which holds a massive 91% share of the global market.

With Google processing more than 8.5 billion searches a day, the need for appearing in these results is enormous. SEO is a long-game tactic that pays dividends by increasing your site’s visibility on all search engines, especially Google, but also Microsoft Bing.

We understand that you want your website to be on the first page of search engine results. Let’s go after the most relevant, most valuable keywords to help you do just that! That’s important too, because organic search accounts for 53% of all website traffic.

A new BrightEdge study puts the magnitude of that impact in stark terms. Google’s search quality evaluator guidelines instruct human raters on how to determine the quality of search results. They hone in on what they call the EEAT principle – experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

This indicates that your website’s content must satisfy these requirements to rank high in search results.

Learn Key Ranking Factors

SEO is more than just keywords – it’s knowing what makes search engines search engines. Quality and relevance of your content are key ranking factors.

On top of that, the SEO works done with speed and mobile-friendliness are key factors. Beyond the algorithm, Google improves the search experience through SERP features, including rich snippets and knowledge panels.

These non-standard results can increase your website’s presence on the SERP. We have achieved 65,454 first page Google rankings organically by the sweat of our brow.

We know these factors, quite literally, like the back of our hands. Our strategies are tailored exclusively for each client to maximize performance and deliver measurable success.

SEO isn’t a one and done approach, but rather a long-term process that involves continuous effort and tactical refinements. Seeing the full effect of your SEO efforts can take weeks or months.

When you do pull it off flawlessly, the payoff is something that can’t be beaten!

Explore SEO Specializations

SEO is not the magic bullet for every problem. Here at QliqQliq, we pride ourselves on customizing our strategies to meet each client’s specific needs.

From comprehensive on-page SEO, which involves optimizing individual pages for keywords, to off-page SEO, which focuses on building a website’s reputation through backlinks and social media signals, every element counts.

We dive deep into technical SEO, the foundation that makes sure search engines can crawl and index your site with confidence. Our strategies always convert traffic into paying customers.

We’ve produced well over 810,000 quality leads and increased our clients’ lead flow by an average of 400%. We’ve served more than 1,000 businesses, with a 95% retention rate because we provide powerful, results-driven campaigns that work.

Benefits of SEO

Increase Brand Credibility

With a well-executed SEO strategy, a brand’s credibility is greatly enhanced. When your website comes up on the first page of search results, it signals to users that Google has determined that your site is the most trustworthy. This trust can drastically increase your conversions and sales.

This trust is cultivated over time as your site continuously shows up in search results, solidifying the trust towards its authority. By the organic acupuncturist Morningside Acupuncture New York, the increase in natural visitors was nothing short of astounding. We increased their monthly traffic 20x from 1,000 to 20,000 by maximizing local SEO with targeted directory listings and consistently responding to customer reviews.

This strategy increased their overall search presence and also helped them become recognized as the local experts and more trustworthy options available. Additionally, the more backlinks a page has from reputable sources, the more a page is seen as an authority in Google’s eyes, making it more likely to rank higher.

When trusted sites link to your content it increases your site’s authority and trustworthiness. As users trust your credibility, they are more likely to visit your site. Our in-house team at QliqQliq have also earned more than 65,454 first-page keywords. We’ve seen firsthand how sustained SEO investment can establish a foundation of long-term credibility for businesses.

Achieve Long-Term Results

SEO isn’t a one-off thing, it’s an ongoing investment that keeps paying out long after the initial spend. Unlike paid advertising, which ceases to bring you traffic once you’ve depleted your ad spend, SEO works around the clock to market your business. This ongoing exposure helps create brand recognition and puts your business in front of prospective customers.

Related Flowrite doubled its monthly visitors per month. It soared from less than 100k to more than 1 million by doubling down on a successful SEO strategy. The long-term benefits of SEO can’t be overstated. Just ask 89 percent of marketers who credit their most effective strategies to this formidable tool.

Here at QliqQliq, our obsession with real world results and actual outcomes has led us to consistently drive impressive growth for clients. An average ROI of 20:1 and a 400% increase in leads are just some of the impressive results we’ve achieved, thanks to our strategic approach to SEO and digital marketing.

Gain Competitive Advantage

However, in the current digital age, an effective SEO strategy provides an important competitive advantage. Through keyword targeting and content creation, businesses can get in front of consumers when they’re looking for solutions and begin building brand loyalty. Over 60 percent of consumers also agree that they only buy from brands that deliver personalized content experiences.

By increasing visibility, SEO is furthering the relationship with their customers. SEO improves user experience (UX) SEO is crucial for conversion rate optimization. SEO improves website architecture and helps you make your content more relevant.

This makes it easier for users to find what they’re looking for more quickly, leading to increased conversion rates. This dual benefit of improved UX and SEO ensures businesses not only attract but also retain customers, driving long-term success. QliqQliq has produced more than 810,000 leads and has a striking 95% lead retention rate.

Their personalized tactics quickly turn visitors into repeat customers, providing companies a leg up in any sector.

Essential SEO Strategies

At QliqQliq, we believe in a results-centered approach that drives success through essential SEO strategies. We’re not just interested in making your brand look good—we’re hell-bent on making it successful with tangible results. With over 30 years of combined experience, our team has generated $10 million in client revenue, achieving an average ROI of 20:1.

So let’s explore the key strategies that make this attainable.

On-Page SEO Techniques

Properly optimizing all of your on-page content is arguably the most important step for earning top search engine results page (SERP) rankings. This includes strategically placing target keywords throughout your content, maintaining relevance and natural flow.

Put user intent first to improve your rankings. Create content that truly serves their purpose. At QliqQliq, we understand that mobile optimization isn’t just a requirement, it’s an absolute necessity as Google has implemented mobile-first indexing.

Ensure your site performs equally well on a mobile device versus a traditional computer. It has to not only work better on both devices.

Internal linking is the second cornerstone of our on-page strategy. When you link related content together internally, you’re giving search engines and users a much better path for discovery. This makes it easier for users to find exactly what they’re looking for — and improves your SEO in the process.

Additionally, refreshing older blog posts with new data helps to keep them up to date, making sure they always rank high.

Off-Page SEO Methods

Off-page SEO includes anything you do outside of your website to help build your website’s authority and reputation. This means naturally acquiring backlinks from authoritative sources, which tells search engines that your content is credible and worth ranking.

Organic search is also the channel that drives 53% of all website traffic, making a compelling case for the lack of strong off-page strategies. Our approach also involves building authentic relationships with industry thought leaders and influencers to earn high-quality backlinks organically.

Social media marketing and content sharing come in a close second, but they are central to increasing traffic and engagement. When you promote and distribute your helpful content where your audience spends their time, you create opportunities to earn more visibility and ultimately more links.

Our team has brought in more than 810,000 leads through the use of these powerful strategies. In fact, our clients have experienced an incredible 400% average increase in leads.

Technical SEO Insights

When it comes to technical SEO, page speed is one of the most important ranking factors. Since 2018, Google has been making page speed an increasingly important ranking factor. To maintain those users and rank higher in search engine results, you need to deliver your pages fast.

Regular audits of your website’s technical health can identify and fix issues like broken links, duplicate content, or slow-loading pages.

What’s more, the SEO market is on fire, expected to increase from $75.13 billion in 2023 to $88.91 billion in 2024. Being proactive with technical optimizations will give you a leg up on the competition.

Using a data-driven approach, we ensure your site remains optimized according to the latest search engine standards. This simple strategy is what allows us to average a staggering 95% client retention rate over 1,000+ companies.

Steps for Effective SEO

Conduct Research and Planning

Research and planning should always be the bedrock of any effective SEO campaign. At QliqQliq, we found that creating on-page content with a specific focus on keyword targets produces top rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). That makes this strategy one of the most effective strategies we’ve ever rolled out.

It’s all about understanding what your future customers are looking for and creating content that answers those questions head-on. Tools like Semrush offer valuable insights by showing the exact volume of searches a term receives and estimating the difficulty of ranking on the first page. This information is instrumental in developing content strategies that engage and connect with your audience.

After you lay the foundation with good keyword research, a monthly content plan will help ensure that your strategy stays focused. This means, of course, not only adding new content but circling back to old blog posts and giving them an SEO facelift with new info.

With this, you’ll be able to make sure your content is up to date and maintaining that high ranking position. In reality, making a commitment every month to this effort has shown to be critical for long-term presence in SERPs.

Implement and Monitor Strategies

Making good SEO work takes attention to both technical and content details. Starting in 2018, page speed has been an increasingly important factor for SERP rankings. Making sure your website loads quickly is important for both user experience and search engine ranking.

Most importantly, 54% of consumers access information through their phones. What’s more, every major search engine has begun rewarding mobile performance by rolling out mobile-first indexing algorithms.

At QliqQliq, our SEO practice is holistic. We’ve ranked more than 65,454 first page keywords by focusing on these technical aspects in tandem with our content strategy. Measuring what strategies work best is just as critical.

Record the search engine ranking of each blog post and the keywords they are focused on for a few months. This will provide you with supportive data to inform what’s performing well and what should be optimized. This ongoing practice of watch, learn, and improve keeps strategies working at maximum efficiency with ever-evolving search algorithms and consumer habits.

Analyze Performance Metrics

The analysis of performance metrics is where the real magic occurs. It’s also where you can finally see the tangible results of your hard work. At QliqQliq, our commitment to data-driven results goes beyond just executing strategies—we take measurement seriously.

This encompasses closely monitoring key performance indicators such as organic traffic, conversion rates, and lead generation. You’re experiencing a fantastic 400% average increase in new leads. With more than 810,000 leads generated, these amounts reflect tangible, measurable growth and success for our clients.

Through careful analysis, we’ve achieved an average ROI of 20:1 for our clients. This kind of success does not happen by chance. It’s born out of a passionate knowledge of how each individual piece of an SEO strategy plays into the larger picture of performance.

Our 95% client-retention rate is a testament to the trust our clients put in us to consistently deliver these results.

SEO vs SEM and PPC

At QliqQliq, we’re firm believers in the strategies that lead to tangible, measurable success. It’s this commitment to results that makes our approach to SEO, SEM & PPC so different. These three pillars of online marketing each serve unique purposes and timelines.

Differentiate SEO and SEM

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are two sides of the same coin, but they are distinct tools in the digital marketer’s toolkit. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a long-term strategy that involves optimizing your website content and structure to rank higher in organic search results. It may not take direct cash outlays, but it certainly takes time.

The first results typically start coming in after 3 to 6 months, with more meaningful results taking more time. Despite this slow, step-by-step approach, the payoff is significant. Investments in SEO can achieve powerful outcomes. However, as one example, Backlinko grew their own organic site traffic an astounding 125% year-over-year.

Conversely, SEM includes paid advertising, offering instant visibility. Though SEM can more rapidly raise a site’s profile with paid ads, it requires a significant budget for bidding on keywords. This is the part of SEM that requires you to stay on your toes. Testing, monitoring, and making adjustments based on which keywords are bringing in leads are key for ensuring the campaigns stay effective.

However, the short-term influence of SEM is quite impressive, which is perfect for businesses wanting to immediately get in front of their audience.

Compare SEO with PPC

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is another part of SEM that lets businesses bid on specific keywords to show up on search engine results pages (SERPs) with customized ad copy. Unlike this other strategy, this one boom drops your ads at the very top of SERPs within hours of set up. PPC is your answer for short-term visibility, but you need a committed budget.

Small and medium-sized businesses typically spend upwards of $9,000-10,000 CAD per month on these campaigns. Though PPC is great at delivering fast results, those results are temporary without re-investment. SEO, in contrast, establishes an organic foundation for long-term, compounding growth.

SEO lacks the direct costs that exist with PPC. This in turn makes it a more cost-effective strategy over the long haul. Sure, it takes time to see meaningful results, but the wait is certainly worth it. Once you build it, SEO is like a field of dreams—you get a steady stream of leads and traffic without ongoing cash outlay.

At QliqQliq, we believe in developing customized strategies designed specifically to help our clients achieve their goals. We combine the best of SEO, SEM, and PPC to deliver winning results.

We’ve seen the tangible benefits firsthand, achieving an average ROI of 20:1 and generating $10 million in client revenue. It’s our expert team’s specialty to make sure that businesses do more than just meet their marketing goals, but instead they blow them out of the water.

Evolution of SEO Practices

The evolution of search engine optimization (SEO) is an amazing tale of reinvention. At QliqQliq, we have a profound appreciation for this evolution, using it to achieve tangible results for our clients. In the past, SEO was really basic. The word SEO began to be used more widely in the second half of the 1990s.

Sure, back then, exact-match keywords were the golden rule of all things optimization. The overarching trick was to stuff your keywords into your website’s content, pages, and meta tags as many times as you could. This tactic lured search engines, allowing sites to shoot up the leaderboard with ease.

Trace Historical Changes in SEO

As search engines like Google became more sophisticated, the practice of SEO started to evolve. Google, for example, didn’t roll out its first big algorithm update—called “Google Panda”—until 2011. This update targeted eliminating low-quality or thin content – this was the big one.

It marked a departure from quantity to quality, rewarding sites that provided value to users. It was a time when the SEO world was constantly experiencing what we call the Google Dance. This era of monthly major updates led to huge ranking volatility, forcing SEO professionals to learn to pivot quickly.

Our team at QliqQliq has more than 30 years of combined experience breaking through these challenges. We’ve made $10 million for our clients’ bottom lines by concentrating on the metrics that matter – real outcomes, not just vanity metrics. Because now, it isn’t enough to just get traffic – you need to get the right type of traffic that actually converts.

It’s led us to win more than 65,454 first-page keywords, by shaping our strategies around these evolutionary trends.

Adapt to Modern SEO Trends

Now, SEO is changing faster daily. As a side note, Google today relies on a machine learning system called RankBrain to help them interpret 15% of searches that they’ve never seen before. However, with this innovation, the search engine was able to better understand user intent, making it more difficult to artificially inflate rankings.

Today’s SEO strategies need to prioritize the ability to deliver the most contextually relevant, high-quality content. At QliqQliq, our methodology is rooted in performance. Whether it’s through social media marketing, pay-per-click campaigns, or email marketing, we make sure our SEO practices drive traffic that’s guaranteed to turn into customers.

We’ve on average doubled our clients’ leads 400% while delivering more than 810,000 leads for our happy clients. This success is an acknowledgment of our innovative, results-oriented campaigns.

Our retention rate of 95% with more than 1,000 businesses served speaks to our determination to deliver powerful growth for all our clients. The evolution of SEO practices is an ongoing journey. Taking a backseat to market changes is one thing—turning those changes into opportunities is another.