Voice Search
A search method where users speak their queries instead of typing, increasingly important for SEO and local search strategies.
- SEO
September 3, 2025
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
A digital marketing practice aimed at improving a website’s visibility and rankings in search engines through technical, content, and authority-building strategies.
SEO
Definition
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a broad digital marketing discipline that focuses on enhancing a website’s visibility, relevance, and ranking within search engine results pages (SERPs). It combines technical improvements, high-quality content, and authority-building efforts to help websites attract more organic traffic.
SEO is typically divided into three core areas:
• On-page optimization – Enhancing elements directly on the website, such as content quality, keyword targeting, title tags, meta descriptions, internal linking, page speed, and mobile responsiveness.
• Off-page optimization – Building authority through external signals like backlinks, local citations, social mentions, and digital PR.
• Technical SEO – Ensuring the site is easily crawlable and indexable, improving site architecture, implementing schema markup, and optimizing Core Web Vitals.
As search evolves, SEO now extends beyond traditional ranking factors. The rise of AI-driven search engines, including Google’s AI Overviews, requires optimization for AI-generated answers, voice search, featured snippets, and entity-based visibility.
Modern SEO success depends on understanding user intent, producing comprehensive and authoritative content, building topical expertise (E-A-T/EEAT), and continuously adapting to algorithm updates. User experience—page speed, accessibility, mobile-friendliness, and security—has also become integral to rankings.
With AI systems playing a growing role, SEO strategies must now consider how content will be processed and cited by large language models. Effective optimization ensures content is not only ranked well in traditional SERPs but also referenced by AI systems in real-time answers across text, voice, and visual search environments.
Examples of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
1 A local business optimizing its Google Business Profile, strengthening local citations, and refining website content to appear in both local map packs and voice assistant queries.
2 An online retailer implementing structured data for products, compressing images to improve load times, and publishing detailed buying guides that capture featured snippets and AI Overview mentions.
3 A B2B SaaS company building topical authority through in-depth guides, whitepapers, and case studies that earn backlinks and citations in AI-generated results.
4 A healthcare organization publishing expert-authored, peer-reviewed articles with proper citations to strengthen E-A-T signals for sensitive health-related queries.
Frequently Asked Questions about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO focuses on long-term organic visibility through content and technical optimization, while paid advertising provides immediate but temporary visibility by bidding for placements.
Related Definitions
Video SEO
Techniques for optimizing video content to improve search visibility, audience engagement, and ranking across search engines and video platforms.
- SEO
September 3, 2025
User Experience
User Experience (UX) describes how people perceive, interact with, and navigate websites, apps, or digital platforms, focusing on ease of use, satisfaction, and efficiency.
- SEO
September 3, 2025
Get recommendations to boost your AI search ranking
Join the waitlist for early access to real-time brand tracking across top AI answer engines. Stop guessing and start shaping the AI narrative.