In this article, I will explain what SEO is and how to optimise a website for Google to achieve impressive results, through an intriguing story and practical examples.
We recommend that you take notes.
⏱️ Reading time: 9 minutes 📚 Level: Suitable for beginners and advanced users. ✅ Last updated: January 2025
What is SEO and why is it important?
The popular abbreviation for Search Engine Optimisation means optimising the content of a website so that search engines (e.g. Google) rank it higher in the results.
Imagine Google as the world's largest library, with endless rows of books stretching to the sky.
These books represent our websites, but in order to reach them, Google must allow us to position ourselves on its shelves.
The websites are ranked from the highest quality, most authoritative and specialized in the first position and continue downwards.
It is extremely important that users get the answer they are looking for, so that it is relevant to them and the search engines approve it.
Practical example of optimization
Let's take an example with the word you most likely just searched for on Google.
This will clarify all your ideas about one of the best methods for driving traffic to your website - SEO website optimization.
We were recently contacted to ask why we weren't ranking on the first page of Google for SEO optimization.
Finding ourselves in a situation of "the cobbler's children having no shoes," we decided to start a live experiment to test how to climb to the top positions in Google step by step.
Here you will learn the basics of SEO and what it really is, and we will give you 11 methods that can guarantee success. You can use all of this to promote your website to tens of thousands of people online or do it for someone else.
UPDATE 2025
The new technological boom coming from America has brought the power of AI such as Gemini (Google) and Chat GPT (OpenAI) into our hands.
They have a big impact on optimization, and I must warn you that after many tests and experiments we have done, they can be useful, but they can also blacklist your site - we will show you an example.
You have to be very careful with them because Google has the right to impose bans and actually hide your site from the search engine. We will talk about this topic at the end of this paper.
In 2025, SEO optimization in Google is no longer what it used to be. With the advent of AI and constant changes in the algorithm, the rules have changed dramatically.
In this article you find out:
✓ What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
✓ How to scale your site to the top positions in Google
✓ Why some sites succeed, while 90% fail
✓ The exact steps for building a successful SEO strategy
✓ Real examples and proven techniques from our practice
✓ The era of AI and its impact on SEO
1. How does SEO Website Optimization work?
It is the optimization of your website for search engines in order to reach thousands of people and respond correctly to their search queries.
When optimized, a website can appear at the top of search results. That said, Google has hundreds of metrics by which it evaluates SEO content.
In their own podcast, Google states that there are at least 4 billion websites worldwide that they index on a global basis.
The words and phrases we use when searching Google are keywords. Google is a modern, technological library that uses these keywords to scan the pages of books (our website) and find the best result for the searcher.
We compete with other websites for keywords in order to rank higher.
There are SEO tools (software platforms) that show the average number of searches for a given keyword, for example SEO optimization, per month.
This word seems to be popular among us Bulgarians and is searched for an average of 2-3 thousand times a month.
Google has a free for use SEO tool - Google Search Console (GSC). To use it, you need to put a short code on your website and you will be able to see all the people who have visited your site and which keywords they used to get there.
Some of the popular paid platforms that professionals use are Ahrefs, Semrush, and Similarweb. They serve as a tool for every Google optimizer and are used in combination with best practices to achieve results.
What are some search engines other than Google?
Speaking of search engines, there are others besides Google.
For example, Yahoo, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, Brave, and Bing.
Among the largest is Microsoft's Bing search engine, which is usually associated with Microsoft Edge, the default browser for Windows.
Regardless, Google remains the market leader with over 98% of global traffic.
1. What are the main factors for ranking in Google?
Google has a ranking system with factors that determine whether a site is reliable enough to show it to users.
The first virtue and ranking factor of SEO for Google is TRUSTWORTHINESS.
In addition to Google checking how trustworthy your content is, you as a source must also be recognized in the market.
This is achieved by publishing more content, linking to other authoritative sites, crediting sources, conducting research, and more.
Therefore, you should be careful with black hat SEO practices, which have flooded the market. They do NOT work to get you to the top positions in Google and are considered SPAM.
According to Google's Unauthorized Practices policies, the main ones are:
- Hidden text and link abuse
- Keyword stuffing
- Link spam
As well as meny other, which you can see here.
One key thing is not to deliberately stuff keywords into the text and not to overuse links, so that they are not considered spam.
It is also strictly prohibited to hide text and links or to buy links from sources created for this purpose.
The internet is full of sites for buying links, and they are very dangerous, often originating in Asia, where it is more difficult for Google to track everything.
When someone offers you links, ask about the sources, as there are spam sites that are only used for links (referrals) to your site, but are very dangerous.
2. Trustworthiness - How Google Decides Whether to Trust Us
In today's world, until you see results, no one will trust you.
Google does the same. It looks for evidence from many directions that someone is "worthy" of being up there in the sweet top positions, which is the essence of SEO.
There is no way our website can rank high if it is not truly relevant to people searching for a particular keyword. For example, to get here, you used the keyword "SEO optimization" or something similar.
To ensure that you continue reading, which is important to me and Google (time spent on page), I will provide you with EXCLUSIVE information about what SEO optimization is and how to rank a website highly.
If you stay until the end, I will also give you two BONUS tips that will change your game.
I will show you innovative practices borrowed from American models that lead to success in SEO.
We use them to achieve our results and in Grow Easy.
3. The Fight for Google's Top Spot - Expertise & Authoritativeness
Part of the results are digital companies that have made a strong effort to reach the top positions in searches for the term "SEO optimization," thanks to which they can reach potential customers and even future colleagues.
Another part are educational websites that achieve results on their own or with an internal team, which is achievable with time invested in testing, monitoring, and improvements.
There are probably quite a few links to these pages that you see on the first page of Google. This is only a small part of the whole SEO optimization process.
Expertise & Authoritativeness
Behind the most profitable ranking websites lies expert (2nd virtue) content, worthy of being shown to thousands of searchers and which has authority (3rd virtue) in Google's eyes.
But I will go one step further and present you with an unprecedented article that will answer all your questions on the subject. If you appreciate it, Google will also appreciate it highly and will boost us up sooner or later. This requires me to come back every few months and improve the content to keep it relevant.
4. Before and Now - SEO optimization, for example, "digital agency"
Let me give another example, searching for "digital agency." The top results will be websites of companies that look good, are easy to read, authoritative, provide quality information about the service/product, and clearly show why their content has an advantage over others.
By reaching the top positions in the ranking, this will guarantee new customers for the website, which represents an authoritative digital agency (marketing agency).
In the past, it was possible for a page to reach the top positions in Google simply by layering links (other websites that link to ours), even if many of the other requirements were not met. And this is what many people did for SEO optimization in Bulgaria. Quite a few of them continue to do so.
From today's perspective, this is a LACK of trust. Google loses trust if we accumulate weak links from illegitimate sites. We are all Google users and we do NOT want it to show us results with services and products that are not suitable for us. That is why the authority of the site is so important; it is a guarantee that we offer quality.
By the time you read this article, we have probably already made it to the first pages. Let us explain how this can happen and how you can do the same.
How long does it take to see results from SEO?
It is important to know that SEO optimization can take a long time before ranking high, on average 12-16 months, sometimes even longer. There are different levels of difficulty for keywords, which determines how long it takes.
There are also words that can easily reach the top positions. Software tools are used to show how difficult it is to rank a particular word according to competitors.
For example, words related to optimization are very difficult because companies that specialize in this create perfect content.
6. Google Ranking Factors - How do Google's algorithms work?
Google is software that has systems, algorithms, and all sorts of complex things that don't make sense to explain in great detail. One thing is important, and that is the algorithm. It calculates what is most appropriate to be at the top because that way we, the users, will be satisfied with Google and will continue to use its products (in this case, the search engine).
The algorithm takes into account more than 200 indicators (Google ranking factors), which I assume you do not have the time or inclination to read about, but we will mention a few of the most important ones here. This will clarify our general knowledge and provide you with tools that you can use in your own endeavors.
Some of the ranking factors (Google Ranking Factors) are:
- Bounce Rate - does someone stay on your site or go back to the search engine and look for another solution to their search
- Links - references from other sites that reinforce our site by showing Google that our content is of sufficient quality to be shared
- Time spent on page - one of the most basic practices for measuring how interesting the content is is the time people spend on our site (this can be checked in the Google Analytics 4 platform)
- Images - Properly optimized and good-looking images improve one of Google's most important factors, namely site speed
- Keywords - As you know, keywords play a very important role in understanding the direction of the article
- Content Freshness - Content that has been recently updated carries more weight than old content that has not been renewed
- Customer Intent - what is our intention when we type words into the search engine (what lies behind the words)
These are the main ones, and we will cover them here. We are almost halfway through, so please be patient.
I will present the factors one by one and give an example for each. This will most likely be very useful to you. Ultimately, this will boost our results when you search for the term "SEO optimization" because it will be clear that what we write here is truly useful information.
7. How and When Do We Appear on Google When 90% of Websites Do Not?
Unlike the media in Bulgaria, Google is NOT corrupt (hopefully this sentence won't raise a red flag 😀). Google will not put an article or service at the top of the search engine just because the boss said so. Google relies on its algorithm.
Well, you can actually pay Google to appear at the top, but you will have to pay for every click that brings a user to your website (cost per click). Not to mention that if you have poor content, even paid advertising won't work.
Paid Search is Google Ads. If you didn't know that already, you'll notice which sites pay for advertising by the small text that says "Ad" or "Advertisement" next to the search results.
No need to go back to the previous page to check, this article is completely organic (Organic Search).
8. What is the difference between organic traffic and paid advertising (PPC)? Organic VS Paid
Why do I need SEO optimization when I can pay to be at the top?
The organic results achieved with Search Engine Optimization have a long-lasting effect. Google Ads is Paid Search - with it, you will have to pay for each visitor. I try to be objective, but at Google Marketing Agency Grow Easy we also offer Google Ads advertising. I certainly don't have a preference for one or the other.
However, if you are looking for validation of your current product and want to see what works, it is advisable to start with Google Ads.
For example, we recommend starting with Google Ads when we begin working with a client because there is always a slight impatience with the time it takes for SEO to deliver results.
If you have a brand new website, many of your pages are not even indexed by the bots—Google Bots that crawl your website (don't worry, they are harmless).
9. How to check if your website is visible on Google?
Ranking factor - Indexing & Robots.txt
Best practice:
- Check if you have a correctly configured Robots.txt file.
If you do not have a correctly configured Robots file, you will not appear in the results.
- Manually call Google bots through Google Search Console (the main tool of every SEO specialist)
*Useful links:
Pages are indexed when we allow Google to do so. We have to do it ourselves or have an SEO specialist do it for us.
The so-called Robots.txt file instructs Google's bots whether to index the site and pages in the search engine.
For new websites, this process alone takes time. As we said earlier, trust is essential for Google. How can Google trust your website right away? There are many websites that are created with malicious intent and only masquerade as normal websites.
The time it takes for these processes to happen is a period of several months. During this time, we gradually begin to see results. This is where Google Ads plays a role as a source of profit for your website while the SEO optimization of the website is developing.
Whether it's paid advertising (GAds) or organic results (SEO), in both cases you control how the result will turn out. Here we use metadata.
10. Metadata and SEO optimization - How do we get someone to choose our result?
Meta title and meta description are tags that provide information about a web page to search engines and users. Both are important for SEO and can influence how your web page appears in search engine results.
*(First visualization of this article in Google)
Meta title: This is the title that appears in search engine results. The meta title should be a short, accurate, and captivating description of the page's content. It is important that it includes relevant keywords. In a sea of similar titles, it is important that your title stands out.
Meta description: The meta description is a short summary of the page content. It appears in search engine results below the page title. The meta description should be a short, well-written summary of the page content and should include relevant keywords.
It is extremely important to package your content well in order to achieve top positions in search engines. CTR (click-through-rate) is particularly important for every website. CTR is the ratio of people who have seen your result in Google and people who actually click on it to view your content.
When CTR increases by 10% for a word that has 2,000 impressions, you have an additional 200 people visiting your site. If you do this with every page, the results will significantly exceed your expectations.
Once you reach high positions on the first page, you will most likely stay there for a long time with a slight refresh of the content on an annual basis. This is another filter of the algorithm that is of particular importance - Fresh (for example: the tomato is fresh).
11. Content Freshness - Fresh content in SEO optimization
Or content freshness, meaning:
Is the information you offer up to date?
Just as you look for fresh tomatoes to make a nice salad, people look for fresh results so they can get the best information and choose the best products and services.
One of the ways we maintain high rankings is by maintaining a content renewal system. This requires effort not only on our part, but also on the part of our partners.
Good practice
- Major changes to pages signal fresher content
- If you keep up with changes in the field and publish them
- For example, I am currently reviewing the content and adding a new section on SEO in the world of AI
Bad practice
- Having short content that is morally outdated
- NOT reading about global developments in our field
If you want to have a product or service that sells, you have to put in effort that others don't put into their content and the services and products they offer.
How do big brands stay in the market? For example, by constantly creating new campaigns, modifying their product, making improvements, and changing their attitude.
12. Brand identity and SEO optimization are interrelated
Before we became a Google company, we created brand identities for companies. Unfortunately, this is now a thing of the past for a number of reasons, but it remains part of our consulting services, with suggestions for our partners.
Brand identity makes the difference between Nike and a clothing manufacturer. To remain in people's minds, we must present them with improving products, otherwise sales will most often decline over time.
An SEO optimizer can bring you traffic, but whether the content of the page will convert is another question. I have had cases where traffic has grown significantly, but sales have declined. There will always be better, more modern things on the market that can overshadow the old overnight.
A good example of this is the bankruptcy of Kodak, which was a 100-year-old business at the time. However, they failed to make the transition from film to digital photography and went bankrupt.
You can read more about the topic here.
By analyzing people's search behavior and preferences, SEO specialists can gain insight into the market and people's interests.
How do we understand this? We monitor the number of searches for a given keyword. Yes, you guessed it, this is another indicator from the algorithm.
13. Keyword Research for SEO Optimization - "SEO" Analysis of Keywords
This is one of the most important stages of SEO optimization. If you want to understand what customers are looking for, you need to do a thorough analysis of the keywords that are most commonly used to reach your business.
Let's open a parenthesis here.
(Customer intent)
Let's clarify. Here comes a very important part of SEO optimization. You may know what you want to appear, but the question is what is the intent of the users behind the search. When someone types these words into a search engine, there are most likely two types of users behind them:
People who want to get involved in SEO and gather information;
Business owners who want to learn more about their business and ranking;
And, in fact, businesses that check whether we rank as proof of our expertise;
Come to think of it, competitors (they will be furious about this novel we are preparing).
What have companies been fighting to get out if it is mainly SEO novices seeking knowledge who are searching for the above keyword?
This is a common problem in this field and is usually circumvented as follows: you look at all the results on the first page and assess which type of users prevail behind the search.
I'll close the parentheses to make it clearer for you. Readability is another factor for better ranking, but more on that in a moment.
14. Good keyword analysis - How the Expert does it
It all comes down to doing a very good analysis of the search terms. To understand them. To understand what the person who writes the term is thinking. To understand where they are in the "customer journey".
Customer journey in SEO optimization
The journey has several different stages, starting with Awareness (the need), when the customer does not even know what they are looking for. It continues through several stages as they develop Interest, which leads them to seek more information.
The next steps are Desire, when the person already expresses a desire to purchase a particular product or service. On this page, the service is explained in detail and presented step by step for SEO optimization.
The next step is Action. When the user is ready to buy. Based on the search terms and results, we can determine what is most frequently visited and conclude what people who type it in a certain way are looking for.
How does AI (artificial intelligence) work with website SEO optimization?
Before we continue with the last bonus ranking factors, we will explain the impact of AI on optimization.
Artificial intelligence has dramatically changed the way we optimize content. Artificial intelligence is a significant aid in writing texts.
Use AI as an assistant for researching topics and keywords, but always rework the text in your own style. Searches are starting to shift towards asking specific questions. This is because people most often use AI tools to ask specific questions.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
It is good practice to integrate many questions into your texts and provide relevant answers to the search query. At the same time, these AI machines use an algorithm similar to the one mentioned above, so by creating good SEO content, you will also be mentioned by AI search engines that crawl websites in a similar way.
Before publishing, check the content of your texts with tools that monitor text generated by robots, such as Copy Leaks. This tool will show whether the text meets the minimum requirements.
The best strategy is to use AI for initial ideas and structure, but the final text should be written entirely by a person who knows the audience and the market.
That is why today, more than ever, it is important for texts to be written and edited by humans, which is why the term "human-generated text" is becoming increasingly popular.
15. Readability - How important is it for your SEO optimization?
When we decide to add text that provides information to visitors to our website, it is important that it is structured correctly and in accordance with Google's requirements. But what does correctly structured text look like?
Well, this is something you absolutely must know and pay attention to every time you share a new article on your website.
First of all is the division into paragraphs. Nobody likes to read text that is like a canvas in front of them and has no divisions. Do you like this type of text? Hardly!
The second important thing is to separate paragraphs with subheadings. This way you share with your readers what they'll find in the next few lines and give your article a bit more completion.
Third, but not least, is about the pictures. Another method to add variety to the reading you provide. It's important to have some other interesting fact, statistic, graph - anything that will hold the visitor's attention.
Trust and a matter of time
Trust overflows into our relationship if we hire an SEO agency. Especially when it comes to SEO, which takes months of hard work that can't be seen without the analytics we have to do monthly.
Of course, the exceptions are there in our face. With some partners, we've done surprising results within weeks as well. Those are the times we have perfect synchronicity, but let's be honest, they're rare.
I'm being honest with you, this is important to me. This is how we develop TRUST with each other. If you want to return the favor, be honest with me and leave a comment at the end of the article with your opinion.
16. What is link-building and why is it important?
Links - the main weapon with two blades in the battle for ranking positions. When we talk about SEO, we're largely talking about links. What should links be based on? You guessed very well: on TRUST.
Links are those in-text references that lead us to another page or another site. There are other links like those from pictures, but the most important ones are the ones in the text and on the words.
Links from various sources that point to our sites show Google that many different people trust our sites, services, products and content.
It is important to specify that links must come from relevant sites
Let's give an example. There are several types of links we can get to this article from external sites:
Exact match keyword - SEO - The word we think is relevant to the content;
Domain name keyword - Groweasyltd.com; Grow Easy - Only the domain is used, these are the most common keywords;
Semantic keywords - what is SEO; SEO optimization - Close in meaning, semantic words;
Customer-defining keywords - SEO for websites - These words define who the user is. In this case, someone needs SEO for their website.
It used to be the practice to overlay lots of links from whatever sites. For example, we'd bump a few sites with links to the word "SEO" pointing to this article and it would shoot up to the top spot.
Yes but no!
That can work nowadays too, but for a very short period. If the content isn't worth it, it won't stay in the 1st position for long because users, in this case people who want to get valuable SEO information, won't sit on it for long, they'll go back to the Google page and find another more relevant result.
Now I guess you guessed what I'm going to say? I hope I'm not boring you, if so, let me know in the comments at the end of the article!
But yes, this is the next indicator for Google - return to the previous page in search of a better result - BOUNCE RATE.
Bounce Rate - BOUNCE RATE
Bounce rate matters a lot to the overall quality of your website and meeting your goals:
Users who bounce from your website will not convert. If you reduce the likelihood of bounce rate, it will increase your results.
There are many different arguments about bounce rate in SEO. Your SEO efforts need to take bounce rate into account in order to rank higher in the search engine.
Bounce rate is actually a good conclusion about the quality of the visit. Therefore, this metric can help you determine if your website (or a specific page within it) has issues. Whether the content is relevant to people, as well as the user experience, page layout or copywriting.
I do NOT want you to drop off this page, so I'll be moving towards closure after I give you and BONUS the advice.
I'm about to forget 2 of the most important things. Content and photos, these are of course the basics. Since a higher word count usually leads to better rankings, people love cramming some 2-3 thousand words of meaningless text into a page so it can rank well. This works provided the content is really valuable.
CONTENT IS KING
It's important to have meaning in the text in addition to lots of words. I hope that in this piece, besides being long, I have been able to give you accurate, quality information that you can use as knowledge or just to have a better judgment of the service.
Too often text gets bumped in pages because people neglect the quality content part and some take advantage to give rather unnecessary information. I'm looking at the front page of one site right now and I'm seeing exactly this from one of the major SEO agencies.
Normally, these are companies that have been in business for 15 years. In digital marketing experience is not viewed positively like in other areas. In this dynamic, it's more like your working patterns are amortized over 15 years unless you're quite flexible. Take heart if you are a young, enthusiastic entrepreneur starting out now. I'm dropping this meme on you to get a laugh and reinforce the article. And of course that's the next ranking factor.
Google Images Optimization - Image Optimization
Here are some of the most important things to keep in mind when optimizing images for SEO. They are of utmost importance just due to the fact that one needs a visual representation of some facts. That's why we have added a lot of images in this work,to make it easier to read.
Use descriptive, relevant file names: give your images descriptive file names that include relevant keywords. This will help search engines understand the image content.
Use alt tags: Alt tags, also known as alternative text. They provide a textual description of an image for search engines and visually impaired users who use special readers. This can also help search engines understand the context of the image. The third case where alt text helps is when the image doesn't load for some reason. Then alt text is displayed, which suggests what is in the image.
Compress images: large image files can slow down your website. And this, naturally, will negatively affect your SEO. Compressing images can help reduce their file size and improve page load time.
Use appropriate image file types: JPEG is usually the best file format for photos, while PNG is better for graphics and images with transparent backgrounds.
Use structured data: using structured data, such as schema.org, can help search engines understand the context and content of images on your website.
- Optimize images for the web using tools like tinyjpg.com
- Create an image sitemap and submit it to Google's webmaster tool.
- Optimize images for mobile devices as well.
By keeping these things in mind, you can help improve the visibility of your images in search engine results and make it easier for users to find the information they're looking for.
If you're reading the last paragraph of our article, then we've managed to hold your attention for quite some time. That was our idea, as we wanted to describe in the most detailed and understandable way what SEO is and how this article will get you on the first page for the keyword "SEO"! Then I would no longer feel embarrassed that we didn't rank high enough on one of the main services our digital agency offers!