It’s 2026 and everything happening is online. Every business out there is trying to find its place online, and that’s where Seo comes in.
What is Seo?
Seo is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. It includes all processes and actions taken by website owner or business owners to make their contents rank better on search engine result pages.
For example, imagine the Ceo of a salon company that sells wigs and services like manicure, pedicure. Seo will be everything they do to increase the online reach of the articles on Manicure, or a video post about the quality of wigs they sell.
It would include sharing their post on various platforms, structured data on blog posts, internal and external links, keyword search, analysis and analytics, overall brand reputation.
Seo involves packaging your contents, websites, and brand while considering search engines, people and now AI.
Good Seo practice is an essential technique of the broader digital marketing.
Seo touches how readable and understandable your post is for your audience and Search Engines. It is this search engines you want to rank on. If they (search engines) do not understand the contents of your Posts, you won’t rank on them regardless of how standard your post is.
Seo in 2026 now brings AI as a factor in its optimization process. Yes, optimized contents now must be AI friendly.
What Are Search Engines and How They Work
A Search Engine is a software program design to scan the World Wide Web and retrieve information and data based on individuals query or command. For example, Google.
What happens on Google and other search engine program is that users like you input a ”search query” like “White Dogs”. What Google does is that it scans the World Wide Web for data relevant to your search; and presents them hierarchically to you in a SERP.
It provides on the Search Result Pages all relevant information available on the query “White Dogs”. What Seo does is make sure your website or web post is not at the bottom of the list.
How Search Engines Work
We’ve discussed what search engines are and what they do, now we’ll have an overview of how they do what they do. They are basically 4 steps search engines take to achieve the duty of serving information.
PILLARS OF SEO.
Pillars of Seo also known as categories, aspects of Seo, are essential strategies that work together to ensure the visibility of content. To have a full grasp of Seo is to understand each of these pillars:
- On-page Seo
- Off-page Seo
- Technical Seo
- Content.
ON-PAGE SEO:
On page Seo as the name goes deals with optimizing every aspect of your page to enhance visibility. It deals with every aspect of your page that can influence the visibility of that page.
For example, Page Titles, Meta descriptions, HTML tags for search engines and user intent. Page titles including keyword searches. Using Seo tools like Uber suggest, Keyword surfer, to find the right keywords to input in your page title.
Key Components of On-page Seo.
OFF-PAGE SEO:
Keyword optimization:
This has to do with strategically placing relevant keywords in titles, headers, descriptions and content. Keyword optimization is not about using keywords repeatedly but strategically putting keywords in places that would inform search engines of content. This helps search engines present the page on their search results. For example, Seo tools like Yoast Seo, ensure that your keyword optimization is at its peak.
A headline that appears in SERPs is the title shown on search engine results pages. Therefore, when writing a title for your page, remember that it is what will appear on the Google results page.
It influences your click-through rate because it is what attracts users to your site. It is best practice to keep your title between 50–60 characters (not words) and make it compelling, clear, and highly relevant to both the content of the page and the user’s intent.
On the other hand, a meta description is the short summary that appears under your title on the search results page. A common best practice is to leave the meta description blank so that Google or other search engines can automatically generate one using the most relevant content from the page based on the user’s search.
Headings (H1, H2, H3):
Structuring content for readability and clarity makes it easier for both users and search engines to understand your content. As stated earlier on this page, it is important for both search engines and people to understand your content because these are the two audiences you are addressing.
The H1 tag is the main header for each page, while H2 and H3 tags are subheadings within the page. There should be only one H1 (main header), but there can be multiple H2 and H3 subheadings.
Content quality:
Providing useful, original, and well-researched information. This cannot be overemphasized because when all the criteria are checked it all boils down to how quality your content is. You can have every other box checked but if your content isn’t quality, search engines will pick other contents and pages that did a better job at explaining, sharing a particular concept over yours, because search engines want to depict quality.
Search engines prioritize helpful, relevant and original contents, so while word count is important because it’s an indicator that you’re knowledgeable in the topic you’re writing about, it will not be prioritized over relevance; how relevant is your page to the concept?
Internal linking:
Connecting related pages improves navigation and indexing. It helps search engine crawlers better understand your website and identify which pages are high quality and valuable.
It also helps search engines determine page authority that is, which content is most relevant and best represents your website so they can present those pages more effectively to your audience.
A best practice is to consistently link to pages on your website that you consider valuable and relevant to the content you are referencing. learn more
URL structure:
Keeping URLs, clean, descriptive, and keyword-rich helps improve both user experience and search engine understanding of your website’s content. A URL is the web address of a page on your site. Best practices include keeping URLs short and concise while incorporating relevant target keywords. For example: “https://yellowsamuel.com/digital-marketing-techniques-for-small-businesses-2026”
Image optimization:
using alt text and compressed images for better performance.
Page speed and mobile friendliness
Optimizing your website enhances user experience and accessibility. It is critical not only for SEO but also for user satisfaction. No one wants to spend time waiting for a website to load.
In many cases, no matter how relevant or useful your content is, a slow-loading page can significantly reduce your traffic.
Best practices include testing your website using tools like Google Page Speed Insights and optimizing images by compressing them to reduce load time.
Primarily about building credibility and authority outside. Off-page Seo includes all forms of optimization done outside your website to improve visibility, authority and ranking in search engines.
Off-page Seo is concern about how your website is seen. How it is doing in the outside world. It involves, building visibility in communities, sharing links on social media platforms, podcasts and all other forms of awareness building, but it is not limited to awareness building.
Key Components of Off-page Seo.
Backlinks (link building):
This are links you get from other websites. Remember we said that off-page Seo is all forms of optimization carried outside the website.
Backlinks are basically other websites linking to your webpage or website, referencing it for a particular topic. Search engines take notes of these links as a signal that your webpage or content is authentic and useful. Best practices include getting links from website that are big. Also avoiding spammy links or paid links is best practice.
Ways to Get backlinks (Best Practices).
For a website with a big name and authority, getting links from other websites might be a problem. However, when you’re just starting off with no name or authority you’d need strategies:
- Create a linkable content: This is literally no.1 in all Seo and website growth. Create good contents that people want and would want to link to. Let your contents be rich and help people out with issue.
- Monthly/weekly/daily Link roundups: There are sites you can find that posts blog articles with the sole aim of linking other contents and webpages. More like “Weekly round for best Seo content” the blog post goes ahead to mention blog posts in Seo section that fit that and then link them on the post. learn more
- The Moving Man method: This involves manually reviewing websites and clicking on their links to identify any that lead to inactive or broken pages. When you find such links especially on websites within your niche you can reach out to the publisher. Introduce yourself and politely inform them that a link on their page is directing users to an inactive webpage. You can then suggest your own website as a replacement, provided it is active and contains relevant content on the same topic. Click here for more details on Moving Man Method.
Social Media Engagements:
Social media marketing is another strong component of off-page SEO. It primarily involves gaining visibility and engagement through social media platforms. Promoting your content on platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and X enhances brand awareness, increases website traffic, and improves content visibility.
To effectively reap the benefits of social media and gain meaningful engagement, it is important to understand how each platform operates and the type of content that performs well on it. Many people struggle with engagement not because their content is poor, but because they have not studied what works best on a particular platform.
The essential principles for using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, and others have been properly outlined in the previous post.
You can promote your website on these platforms by sharing content that links back to your site. Additionally, you can run targeted ads to drive leads (potential customers) to your website either to purchase your products or services or to explore more of your content.
Through social media platforms, you can build a brand that reaches people both near and far. You establish a clear identity for example, by creating a Facebook page that communicates what your brand represents. Over time, this helps you build credibility, reliability, and demonstrate your experience.
Guest Blogging:
You know those times where you do something for someone but indirectly, you’re doing more for yourself and for them? That’s exactly what plays out in guest blogging.
It might not be “blogging” per se, but guest hosting on podcast, co-writer or researcher. These activities give you the chance to share knowledge about a concept or topic in your and at the same time, you’re telling the audience that you’re actually knowledgeable in that topic.
Its publicity while dispersing knowledge; a win-win situation for you and your host.
Influencer Collaboration.
This type of off-page Seo is quite popular, many brands, organization, use the popularity of these influencers to gain visibility also. Partnering with influencers and industry experts, experts in that field helps boost visibility.
It also builds credibility. Some people will do business with you or buy whatever you’re selling because an influencer, they’re familiar with and trust recommended you with that collaboration.
Off-page Seo is less about immediate financial rewards but more about reputation building, it may take a while but eventually it creates long term authority and sustainable ranking.
TECHNICAL SEO
Technical Seo is a major player in the game of Seo. It’s a major player that if neglected can ruin your Web page visibility and growth. It basically has to do with how search engines understand, interact and see your website or webpage.
It also ensures that your page is not only visible but accessible and user friendly. It makes your content/website work for both users and search engines.
Key Components of Technical Seo.
Website Speed (Page performance):
Proper Technical Seo examines your page speed. The duration it takes for your page to load is checked. According to research the best performing sites have an average of 15.2 milli seconds on desktop and 78.5 milli seconds on mobile.
The Faster your webpage loads the higher your user satisfaction experience and the higher you rank on search engines.
Tips on Improving Webpage Speed.
Compress Images:
The size of the images you post on your contents or webpages affect the loading time. Use Image compressing plugins like Imagify, Imagine Optimizer, TinyPNG.
Minimize Code (CSS, JavaScript):
On your website, there may be unnecessary CSS code that adds extra load, causing your site to take longer to load. CSS is the language used for web design, including layout, colors, fonts, and overall styling. When your site is live, some of the CSS and scripts included may never actually be used for example, styles tied to design elements you are not applying.
These unused resources can slow down your website. JavaScript, on the other hand, controls the interactivity of your site. It determines how your website responds to user actions for example, clicking a button to open a form or navigate to another page.
However, scripts can sometimes prevent content from displaying until they are fully loaded. This can negatively affect your site speed, especially when unnecessary scripts are included. To improve performance, you can work with a developer to optimize your website when you notice it becoming slow.
Alternatively, if you use WordPress, plugins like WP Rocket can help optimize speed by removing unused CSS and improving script loading.
Note: Be cautious when using optimization plugins, as incorrect settings can break parts of your website if not properly configured.
Excessive Plugins:
Generally, in WordPress web development any plugin you’re not using should be deleted. This is because when not being used and updated they can cause harm to your website. Hackers can leverage on such unused and outdated plugin to send malware to your site. So yes, delete plugins you’re not using and frequently update the ones you’re using.
URL Structure:
A clean URL structure improves useability and Seo. By clean URL what is meant is that your URL should include your short, not too long, maximum of 50 to 60 characters, it should contain keywords, and users should understand what the URL is about just by reading it. It means your URL should be readable. Also, prioritize using Hyphens and not underscores to separate your words in URL.
Mobile Friendliness
By mobile friendliness I mean that your website must be suitable for mobile devices. The text should not be too big or small. The design should suit the size of a mobile screen. On WordPress there are different views you can use on your website. It is advisable that after each content you write before posting, view it on mobile.
Optimize buttons and navigation for mobile users. Make sure that all buttons are properly placed for a mobile user. There should be no need for a “bigger screen” to use your website.
Crawlability and Indexing:
This a very crucial part of Seo and website running. Always confirm that search engines have access to your website. By access we mean that your website is crawlable. By Indexing we mean that your webpages, web contents are uploaded on this search engines result page.
Without Crawlability and indexing no one literally sees your webpages. It’s not out on Google or any other search engine platform.
Tools like:
Robots.txt and XML Sitemap help to ensure crawlability.
Robots.txt is a file in root directory of your website’s domain that tells search engine bots what to craw on your website. In other words, it tells search engines what they can have access to on your website.
By typing “domainname/robots.txt” you should be taken to your robots.txt if you have it on your website.
For example, “yellowsamuel.com/robots.txt” on a search engine should take me to my robots.txt.
However, not having robots.txt is not an automatic error. What it means is that search bots can call every single webpage and content on your website. Except you now have contents on your website that you don’t want to be crawled, you may not need a robots.txt.
XML Sitemap
is a file that simply list all the important contents on your website for search engines to easily access them. It helps search engines to understand your website structure and prioritize important contents or pages on your website.
Secure Website:
Search engines prefer to index a secured website on their SERPs over a “risky website”. This because every search engine is trying to put out the best out there for their users.
Google would prefer a website that has HTTPS over HTTP. Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) a secure version of hypertext transfer protocol, it encrypts data that is sent from local sever website to web browsers.
There is really nothing to be worried about here because most web host and severs use HTTPS, so it comes with the package.
Content
As stated earlier, remove content, I mean quality content and see yourself get little or no result from the effort you put in the other pillars.
By quality content I mean content that answers or addresses questions your users may have. Contents that solve problems and offer them a product or service that they need.
Content is major player in the game of Seo because it’s only content among the pillars that markets on its own. Content Marketing is a strategy in digital marketing where you use good contents to gain authority and trust, get leads and land sales.
How to identify a good content.
A good content that answers the questions of your audience is good marketing on its own. People will link back to, share, and talk about your content not because its indexed-on Google or because the Headings and the meta description is good, but because the content is good.
A good content solves a problem that many have, and it something everyone needs and can relate to. This is what good content is all about.
It is the foundation on which the success of every other pillar rest on.
Content can be in various forms. Content can be text based, video, audio, podcast, and so on. It all depends on your audience and the platform you use.
Note that every platform has the form of content that performs best on them. Good content has quality; your content must at least have something your audience will benefit from going through it.
Whenever you’re done preparing a content and you cannot point out what your audience will benefit from reading, watching or listening to it, that might just be an indication that such content is not needed on your platform.
Your content must give value.
Conclusion
That’s it, If you’ve made it this far, you now understand the core pillars of SEO and how they work together to grow your website. Start applying these principles step by step, and you’ll begin to see real progress.
This is just the beginning there’s a lot more to explore, and I’ll be breaking it all down in upcoming posts.
