Passed on 7 April, 2025

4. An introduction to SEO

Showing up in organic search results is a great way to help your audience find you. In this lesson, you’ll learn more about making your content relevant to the people searching for it.

✅ Learning objectivesBy the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:Understand and apply SEO basics to your digital marketing content.Identify ways you can adapt a website to appear in organic search results.

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

Understand and apply SEO basics to your digital marketing content.

Identify ways you can adapt a website to appear in organic search results.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Find out about the basics of SEO to help a website appear in organic search.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of improving a website's visibility and ranking in organic search engine results.

What factors affect SEO?

Several factors impact SEO, helping search engines understand your site and connect it to relevant searches. Optimising these elements boosts visibility and organic traffic. We’ll dive deeper into these later in the lesson.

On-page factors

These are elements you control on your website:Keyword usage: Using relevant keywords naturally in titles, headers, URLs, and content.Content quality: Providing valuable, original, and well-structured content that satisfies user intent.Meta tags: Writing clear, descriptive meta titles and descriptions to improve click-through rates from search engines.Internal linking: Connecting pages within your site to guide users and crawlers.

Keyword usage: Using relevant keywords naturally in titles, headers, URLs, and content.Content quality: Providing valuable, original, and well-structured content that satisfies user intent.Meta tags: Writing clear, descriptive meta titles and descriptions to improve click-through rates from search engines.Internal linking: Connecting pages within your site to guide users and crawlers.

Keyword usage: Using relevant keywords naturally in titles, headers, URLs, and content.

Content quality: Providing valuable, original, and well-structured content that satisfies user intent.

Meta tags: Writing clear, descriptive meta titles and descriptions to improve click-through rates from search engines.

Off-page factors

These are external factors that improve your site’s authority:Backlinks: Earning links from reputable websites to show search engines your content is trustworthy.Social signals: Engagement with your content on social media platforms can boost visibility indirectly.Brand mentions: Getting your brand talked about online increases credibility.

Backlinks: Earning links from reputable websites to show search engines your content is trustworthy.Social signals: Engagement with your content on social media platforms can boost visibility indirectly.Brand mentions: Getting your brand talked about online increases credibility.

Backlinks: Earning links from reputable websites to show search engines your content is trustworthy.

Social signals: Engagement with your content on social media platforms can boost visibility indirectly.

Technical SEO factors

These ensure search engines can crawl and index your site effectively:Website speed: Faster-loading sites provide a better user experience and rank higher.Mobile-friendliness: Optimising your site for mobile devices is critical, as most searches are mobile.Site structure: Using sitemaps, proper URLs, and clean navigation to make your site easy to crawl.Secure connection (HTTPS): Sites with HTTPS are prioritised over those without it.

Website speed: Faster-loading sites provide a better user experience and rank higher.Mobile-friendliness: Optimising your site for mobile devices is critical, as most searches are mobile.Site structure: Using sitemaps, proper URLs, and clean navigation to make your site easy to crawl.Secure connection (HTTPS): Sites with HTTPS are prioritised over those without it.

Website speed: Faster-loading sites provide a better user experience and rank higher.

Mobile-friendliness: Optimising your site for mobile devices is critical, as most searches are mobile.

Site structure: Using sitemaps, proper URLs, and clean navigation to make your site easy to crawl.

Keywords

Keywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might be searching for. Learning more about keywords is the first step in SEO.

Keyword research

There are online tools that can help your research. Check out the Helpful Resources module to find out more.

Start with what you’re selling

Think about exactly what your potential customers might be searching for. For example, someone searching for ‘croissant’ could be looking to buy one, but they might also want a recipe or an image.

Narrow it down

Focus on appearing in specific searches. You could use keywords that reference your location, how customers can get the products or services, or special features.For homemade croissants in your city, create relevant, original content that references ‘croissants made from scratch’, ‘fresh croissants bakery’, and ‘croissants delivered Casablanca’.

For homemade croissants in your city, create relevant, original content that references ‘croissants made from scratch’, ‘fresh croissants bakery’, and ‘croissants delivered Casablanca’.

For homemade croissants in your city, create relevant, original content that references ‘croissants made from scratch’, ‘fresh croissants bakery’, and ‘croissants delivered Casablanca’.

Consider related topics

Include words and phrases related to your products or services. This will help make your keywords a better match for what your customers are looking for. For example, customers who might be interested in croissants could also search for ‘French breakfast’, ‘French pastries’, or ‘breakfast deliveries’.

Check your performance

Once you’ve identified good keywords, review how your website does in search results for those terms. How many keywords bring up your website on a search engine, and which don’t bring much traffic to your site? This information will help you figure out what’s working for you and what’s not. We’ll find out more about tools that can help with this in later lessons.

Create a plan

If popular phrases like ‘fresh croissants delivered’ aren’t helping customers find your site, you can make a plan to address this by adding more relevant content that uses those words. Check your website and analytics tools regularly and adjust your plan when something isn’t working.

Keyword considerations

When choosing keywords to include in your content, there are three considerations to keep in mind.

Frequency

You want to include the words and phrases people search for most often, in relation to your products and services. This is often referred to as search volume.

Competition

It can take a website a lot of effort to appear in search results for popular keywords, such as ‘croissant’. However, many keywords are used less because they’re specific. Smaller websites may get good rankings for these keywords with less effort, for example, ‘homemade croissants delivered in Bytom’.

Relevance

The keywords you select should closely match what you offer. If someone visits your site looking for birthday cakes but you only sell pastries, they will leave. Make sure your chosen keywords match the intent of searchers. You could use online tools to see which pages appear in search and get clicks.

✅ ActivityIt’s time to consider the words and phrases your potential customers might use when searching for products and services like yours.Alternatively, use a fictitious business or a local business you’re familiar with.For suggestions of online tools that could help you, check out theHelpful ResourcesorGoogle Marketing toolsmodule.Check the items off as you go.List three popular, generic words or phrases, such as ‘croissant’ that customers might use when searching for products and services similar to yours.List three phrases which may have lower search volumes, but are relevant to your products and services, such as ‘homemade croissants delivered in Bytom’.List three topics related to your products and services that customers might also search for, such as ‘French breakfasts’.

Activity

It’s time to consider the words and phrases your potential customers might use when searching for products and services like yours.Alternatively, use a fictitious business or a local business you’re familiar with.For suggestions of online tools that could help you, check out theHelpful ResourcesorGoogle Marketing toolsmodule.

Alternatively, use a fictitious business or a local business you’re familiar with.For suggestions of online tools that could help you, check out theHelpful ResourcesorGoogle Marketing toolsmodule.

Alternatively, use a fictitious business or a local business you’re familiar with.For suggestions of online tools that could help you, check out theHelpful ResourcesorGoogle Marketing toolsmodule.

For suggestions of online tools that could help you, check out theHelpful ResourcesorGoogle Marketing toolsmodule.

For suggestions of online tools that could help you, check out theHelpful ResourcesorGoogle Marketing toolsmodule.

List three popular, generic words or phrases, such as ‘croissant’ that customers might use when searching for products and services similar to yours.

List three phrases which may have lower search volumes, but are relevant to your products and services, such as ‘homemade croissants delivered in Bytom’.

List three topics related to your products and services that customers might also search for, such as ‘French breakfasts’.

Download PDF

Download PDF

SEO and your content

When it comes to SEO, there are some best practices you can follow to help improve your search ranking.

Continuous optimisation

The work of SEO is never done. Trends come and go, users can change their behaviour, and search engines evolve over time. Here are some quick tips on how to stay up-to-date on search.

Get to know search engines

Learn how search engines work. Many have blogs that offer updates on new features, algorithm changes, and suggestions about how to optimise your website.

Consider how changes affect your rankings

Keep an eye on changes and monitor how they affect your website. For instance, you might read that the major search engines made a change that improves users’ experience on mobile search results. If your website isn’t designed for mobile devices you’d probably want to update your website to be more mobile-friendly.

Know your competition

Find inspiration from other websites. Do they offer free shipping? Are they active on social media? Do they regularly update their website with photos? Adopt the practices that will work for your own business.

Know your customer

Talk to your customers. They have the best insights on what content your site is missing, features that are needed, or products they are looking for. Even the way your customers describe your products can be a form of keyword research—they likely use those same terms to search.

Keep speed in mind

Websites and web pages that load quickly can have better search engine rankings. Regularly check the speed of your website, especially after making changes. We’ll cover this in more detail in theWebsites and apps module.

Organise your site well

Make it easy for your audience to use your website by using simple, popular structures, grouping similar pages together, labelling content, and linking pages together. You can also submit a site map to search engines to help them navigate your site. We’ll cover this in more detail in theWebsites and apps module.

Choose your URLs carefully

Parts of the URL can be displayed in search results so users can understand whether a result will be useful for them. Try to include words in the URL that may be helpful, such as www.example.com/flowers/roses.

Keyword stuffing

Your site’s content should be written for human visitors, not search engines. Write naturally and avoid adding unnecessary keywords or variations just to rank higher. Repeating them excessively is called ‘keyword stuffing’ and goes against search engines’ best practices.For example, instead of writing, ‘Buy croissants. Our croissants are the best croissants. Find the perfect croissant here,’ try, ‘Our freshly baked croissants are buttery, flaky, and perfect for any occasion.’

For example, instead of writing, ‘Buy croissants. Our croissants are the best croissants. Find the perfect croissant here,’ try, ‘Our freshly baked croissants are buttery, flaky, and perfect for any occasion.’

For example, instead of writing, ‘Buy croissants. Our croissants are the best croissants. Find the perfect croissant here,’ try, ‘Our freshly baked croissants are buttery, flaky, and perfect for any occasion.’

Copied content

We know that search engines use an index as the source of information displayed on the search results pages. But, not everything the bots find makes it into a search engine’s index.

Why is some content excluded?

Some retailers use product descriptions provided by a manufacturer. They often use them word-for-word, meaning each description is identical. The index has no need for hundreds of duplicates, so it’s unlikely that every page will be added.

What can I do about it?

Write your own product descriptions - and content in general - so your pages are unique. This increases your chances of your pages appearing in search engine results.

Backlinks

Your SEO results are influenced by things you do on your site and things that happen off your site. The latter involves what other sites are saying about yours. One way to control this is through backlinks.

Check your knowledge

It’s time to find out what you’ve learned so far.

Question 1 of 2

Eric sells fruit and vegetables online and is using SEO to improve where he ranks in search engine results. He’s thinking of different ways to improve his website so that it appears on more search engine results and gets more traffic. Which of these ideas will help improve his search visibility?The correct results will be displayed once you’ve sorted each card.

The correct results will be displayed once you’ve sorted each card.

The correct results will be displayed once you’ve sorted each card.

Almost.Eric needs to work hard to get backlinks – that means links to his site from other websites. To do that he needs to produce quality content, such as writing recipes. He can also encourage people to write about his business. Social media is a great way to improve his visibility, but search engines don’t recognise the number of likes or followers an account has, so this won’t help the search rankings. Eric should avoid creating artificial links to his website.

Question 2 of 2

Eric has researched what people search for to get to his website, and he’s created content to match it. Eric’s SEO work doesn’t stop there though. He’s been talking to some friends and they’ve all offered him advice about how he should keep up with SEO over time.Which advice should he take?

Which advice should he take?

Which advice should he take?

Get opinions from your customers on what might be missing from your site

Don’t change your keywords as it confuses search engines

Stay up to date with search engine changes

Read about the trends in your industry and use them to create content for your page

Submit

Submit

Yes.SEO work is never finished – search engines evolve and so do trends. That means you should refine your keywords over time and don’t assume that if something works you can keep doing the same thing forever. Instead, keep up with how search engines work and how they’re changing. Get inspiration from other websites and don’t forget to get feedback from your customers.

Lesson complete

You now know about SEO and how you can use it to improve your rankings in search results.Head to the next lesson to find out more about measuring your success with SEO.

Head to the next lesson to find out more about measuring your success with SEO.

Head to the next lesson to find out more about measuring your success with SEO.