With millions of websites on the web, working on your positioning in internet search results (SEO) has become an essential part of your strategy.
As an important channel for acquiring traffic, referencing is an essential practice if you want to increase your visibility on search engines! There are two types: natural referencing and paid referencing (AdWords or Display campaigns).
Today we focus on one of the components of SEM (Search Engine Marketing), natural referencing: definition, functioning, optimization criteria, we tell you everything!
Natural referencing: definition
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) defines a set of techniques aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine results. It depends on a number of criteria.
How does this ranking work?
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Indexing: robots, called "crawlers", crawl through the pages of websites and record the content of the pages visited in a database. The crawlers continuously crawl the websites in order to index new pages and delete those that no longer exist.
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Algorithms: browsers use algorithms which, from among the data stored, retain those that appear most relevant to the search made by the Internet user.
The ranking obtained through SEO is not fixed: your position in the search results can change. SEO is a long-term practice, which takes time, requires regularity and is constantly evolving.
Why is SEO important?
Most internet users do not go beyond the first page of internet search results. Ensuring a good position in the search pages is therefore essential if you want to get traffic to your site.
By working on your SEO, you can increase your visibility by appearing higher in search results. This will then allow you to increase traffic to your site.
How to optimise the natural referencing of your website?
The technical aspect
You need to develop a site that is accessible and easily indexed by robots. Several elements must be taken care of:
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Optimise the loading speed of your site's pages.
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Integrate an XML sitemap: this is a map that defines the pages of the site to be indexed. This facilitates the work of the crawlers.
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Take care of the structure of your website
Quality content
Writing original and relevant content is a key element of SEO.
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Use of keywords: identify the words used by Internet users when they search the Internet. Including these words in your content will make your pages more relevant to the search. However, be careful not to overuse them!
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Structured content thanks to the Hn tagging system: this involves ordering the content presented with levels of titles.
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Complete content: the title tag and meta description are equally important.
Netlinking and backlinks: the importance of links
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Integrate internal links between your different pages: redirecting to pages with similar or related content will help the indexing robots in their work.
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Popularity: backlinks, i.e. external links to your pages, will increase your visibility.
Voice recognition is now an important part of your SEO strategy
With the rise of voice searches, adapting your SEO can be useful. Voice searches lead to longer queries and/or queries formulated in the form of phrases. How can you adapt to this?
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Provide concise paragraphs containing the elements that may be requested by the person conducting a voice search.
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Write content taking into account the so-called "conversational" language to correspond to the questions formulated orally by Internet users.
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Integrating "long tail" keywords: this involves using phrases, questions or sentences that integrate the keywords. Long tail keywords are generally composed of more than 5 words. This type of keyword is also an advantage. Indeed, they are more competitive and offer a better conversion rate.
In conclusion, SEO is an essential practice if you want to have an effective presence on the web.
To learn more about the other components of SEM, you can read our latest article.
