After optimizing on-site and off-site GEO content and establishing brand authority, the next step is to verify the results—whether your marketplace brand and content have been “recognized” and cited in responses across the six major AI platforms: Google AI Overview, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity.ai, Claude, and Copilot.

This article provides a detailed guide on the operational methods for verifying GEO effectiveness on each of these six AI platforms, allowing you to quickly assess results. A reusable tracking record table is also included for your convenience.

Example Search Query Used in This Article

“Where can I buy cheap glasses online in CA?”

Google AI Overview

https://www.google.com/

Google Search’s AI Overview appears at the top of search results as a summarized answer, with direct citations of source links. This is currently the most straightforward entry point for GEO verification—if your content appears in the summary, it indicates that Google has recognized it as an authoritative source.

Steps

Open Google Search and enter your core question or keyword.

Look at the AI Overview section at the top of the search results.

Check whether your brand name or content excerpt appears in the summary.

Click the source links on the right to verify the exact citation location.

Appearing in the AI Overview summary is the strongest signal of GEO success, demonstrating that the search engine has adopted your content as an authoritative source.

ChatGPT

https://chatgpt.com/

ChatGPT is one of the most widely used AI conversational platforms. GPT-4o and newer versions support real-time web browsing, making them particularly effective for verifying recently published content.

Steps

Open ChatGPT and select a model version that supports web browsing.

Enter your article title or core question.

Check if the response mentions your brand or includes content snippets.

Follow up with “What are your sources?” to confirm the citation origin.

Standard models have knowledge cutoff dates. If your content is relatively new, it is recommended to enable the Search (web browsing) feature before verification.

Google Gemini

https://gemini.google.com/

Gemini is Google’s native AI platform and is highly integrated with the Google Search ecosystem. Its indexing and citation logic closely resembles that of AI Overview, making it a vital channel for assessing content visibility within Google’s AI framework.

Steps

Open Gemini and enter your core question or article title.

Examine whether the response includes references to your content or brand.

Click “Drafts” or the source icon below the response to confirm the citation URL.

Since Gemini shares a portion of its index with Google Search, passing verification here often implies a higher likelihood of being included in AI Overview.

Perplexity.ai

https://www.perplexity.ai/

Perplexity.ai is one of the fastest-growing platforms in the AI search space. Each response explicitly lists source webpages and displays the specific passages cited, making it the most transparent tool for GEO effectiveness verification.

Steps

Open Perplexity.ai and enter your article title or core question in the search bar.

Check whether your brand’s page links appear in the search results.

Expand the source list to view the exact content excerpts that were cited.

For deeper analysis, switch to “Academic” or “Writing” mode.

If your page is directly cited, it indicates that GEO optimization has taken effect within the AI knowledge base and that your content’s authority is recognized—this is one of the most straightforward verification paths.

Claude

https://claude.ai/

Developed by Anthropic, Claude is known for accurate and source-attributed responses. When web search is enabled, Claude provides source annotations in its answers, allowing clear determination of whether your content has been referenced.

Steps

Open Claude and ensure the Web Search feature is enabled.

Enter your article title or core question.

Observe whether the response cites your content or provides information consistent with your article.

Click the source annotations to verify the exact page address referenced.

Claude adheres to standardized source attribution. If your content appears in the citation list, it serves as strong evidence of successful GEO optimization.

Microsoft Copilot

https://copilot.microsoft.com/

Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) is built on GPT-4 and the Bing search engine. Responses include source annotations from webpages indexed by Bing. It serves as a supplementary verification channel for assessing content exposure within Microsoft’s search ecosystem.

Steps

Open Microsoft Copilot and enter your core question or article title.

Examine whether the response cites your content, paying attention to the source annotation area.

Cross-reference the findings with results from Google AI Overview.

Copilot may sometimes summarize or paraphrase content, so the citation format may differ from the original text. It is advisable to base your assessment on whether your brand name or URL appears in the response.

With the rise of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), the focus of optimization is no longer just on search engine rankings, but on AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, and others. These AI systems generate answers by crawling web content, knowledge bases, and online data. When users ask questions, they might recommend a brand, cite website content, or provide product suggestions and purchase references. Therefore, GEO traffic is becoming the new frontier.

Recently, China Central Television (CCTV) exposed a “poisoning” grey market involving large AI models: some service providers claim that for a fee, they can ensure a product is “listed” in mainstream AI models. The essence of this is manipulating recommendation results by bulk-publishing marketing content across numerous platforms for the AI to crawl and cite. This incident reminds the industry of the need to clearly define the line between legitimate GEO and “poisoning” GEO.

So, how can websites enjoy the benefits of GEO traffic without crossing the “poisoning” red line, while also maintaining SEO effectiveness? The following 9 methods can serve as a reference.

9 Methods for Doing GEO Right:

1. Content Authenticity is the Bottom Line

The exposed “poisoning GEO” essentially uses false, exaggerated content to mislead AI models. Legitimate GEO must ensure content is authentic and reliable, including genuine brand information, real user experiences, and accurate product data.

Legitimate GEO can highlight strengths, but it must not fabricate non-existent features; forge user stories; or use unsupported extreme expressions like “first,” “only,” or “best.” AI models are continuously being upgraded to identify low-quality content. False information might work in the short term, but it will be filtered out in the long run.

2. Maintain a Natural Publishing Rhythm, Reject “Content Bombing”

A typical characteristic of “poisoning” is: publishing a large volume of highly similar content across many platforms within a short period, essentially just repackaging the same material. The correct GEO approach is:

Publish content according to a natural rhythm, avoiding the urge to blanket the entire internet overnight.

Tailor content for different platforms, ensuring it fits the platform’s context and user habits. For example, Reddit favors genuine discussions, Quora is Q&A-focused, and industry media prefer in-depth analysis.

Be problem-solving oriented, rather than simply boasting about rankings.

Avoid simply copying and pasting the same article onto dozens of sites.

3. Prioritize High-Authority Platforms

“Poisoning” tactics pursue maximum volume and broad coverage.
Legitimate GEO should concentrate resources on platforms that are frequently cited by AI, such as:

Communities like Reddit, known for genuine discussions and traceable interactions.

In-depth, long-form articles on industry vertical media and professional blogs.

Objective, neutral knowledge sites like Wikipedia.

Content on these platforms is more likely to be crawled and cited by AI. Furthermore, prioritizing quality over quantity is also beneficial for Google SEO, avoiding the burden of “spammy backlinks” to your site’s link profile.

4. Make “On-Site Content Power” the Core Asset of GEO

Many businesses exposed in the scandal focus all their efforts on off-site publishing. Once the payment stops, all effects vanish instantly. From a long-term perspective, truly stable GEO capability comes from the website itself:

Clear Blog Structure: Establish well-defined topic clusters with clear hierarchical subheadings and internal links.

Systematic FAQs: Build a dense, reusable Q&A repository centered around real user questions.

Structured Page Information: Present parameters, specifications, comparisons, usage scenarios, and other information clearly using tables and lists.

These practices are fully compatible with Google SEO and can even be considered the “new standard for SEO,” while also making it easier for AI models to extract “trustworthy facts.”

5. Genuinely Build E-E-A-T Signals

Both Google and various AI models are increasingly emphasizing E‑E‑A‑T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The correct GEO approach involves:

Feature Truly Experienced People: Invite real experts and professionals, collaborate with KOLs for articles or interviews, and ensure author information is verifiable and content is authoritative. Avoid faking expert identities, user identities, or experiences, as this will damage both SEO and GEO effectiveness.

Cultivate First-Party Data: Publish content based on genuine user feedback, official test data, and internal research, such as white papers or research reports.

Accumulate Content on High-Trust Platforms: Prioritize placements in industry media, professional forums, and authoritative websites, rather than low-quality content farms.

6. Avoid Keyword Stuffing, Let Brands Appear Naturally

Low-quality GEO often repeatedly stuffs brand names and product keywords into articles, hoping to increase AI memorization and manipulate it. A safer and more effective GEO method is:

Write content centered around problems, letting the brand appear naturally as part of the solution.

Control brand keyword frequency; avoid mechanical repetition just to “remind” the AI.

Introduce products using scenarios and solutions. Answer the question: “For whom, and in what scenario, is this product most suitable?” rather than just reciting parameters or slogans.

For example, more valuable than “best running shoes” is a guide like: “A Guide to Choosing Training Shoes for Runners with High Arches.”

This way, AI is more likely to accurately match you with specific needs, rather than treating you like just another advertisement.

This also aligns with Google SEO’s requirements for keyword density and semantic naturalness, helping you avoid being penalized for spam content.

7. Commercial Content Should Be Willing to “Admit It’s Advertising”

Transparent labeling is important for both users and AI. Sponsored articles or reviews should clearly indicate their source, which can help increase AI “confidence” and is a plus.
It is recommended that websites ensure clarity in the following areas:

Use official labels like “Ad,” “Collaboration,” or “Sponsored” on third-party platforms, rather than disguising content as completely neutral “independent reviews.”

Distinguish between “user reviews,” “brand statements,” and “third-party reviews” on your official website. Avoid mixing them together, which could create confusion.

For AI models, transparent labeling doesn’t hinder citation; on the contrary, clear information about the “source type” helps the system understand the content’s role more accurately and helps build trust with both AI and users.

8. Synergize SEO and GEO for Consistency

Avoid treating SEO and GEO as separate activities. Make them part of a coordinated strategy.
This can be implemented on two levels:

Consistent Messaging: Ensure parameters, data, key conclusions, and comparisons on your official website (SEO content) are consistent with the information fed through off-site channels (GEO content). This is especially critical for key details like pricing, performance, and target audience.

Consistent Strategy: Treat high-quality FAQs, in-depth topic pages, and authoritative knowledge bases as a “content hub” serving both SEO and GEO. External placements should serve as extensions and dissemination of this core content. This can improve Google rankings and provide reliable citation sources for AI.

As long as the core content is unified, search engines and AI models, when cross-referencing, will view the website as a stable and reliable source of information.

9. Output Unique and Valuable Content

AI models will continue to upgrade, becoming increasingly capable of deduplication and identifying homogenized content. Websites should produce authentic content with unique perspectives and multi-dimensional citations, including: social media interactions, news coverage, video demonstrations, official data, etc. Genuine, multi-dimensional digital footprints are something no “poisoning” technique can replicate.

GEO is Another Long-Term Game

The grey-market GEO of “paying for AI recommendations” essentially uses large-scale “content publishing + brainwashing” to deceive systems and users.

A truly safe and sustainable GEO should return to a simple starting point:

Make the content itself authentic enough, professional enough, and structured enough.

Create multi-dimensional, mutually verifiable digital footprints between your official website, media appearances, and social communities.

Let AI naturally choose you as the answer, rather than forcing your way in.

From this perspective, GEO is not the opposite of SEO, but rather an “evolved version of SEO” for the AI era. Good GEO is simply another form of long-term SEO, earning natural AI recommendations through “content quality and trust.”

What can transcend time, algorithm changes, and public opinion is never “poisoning tricks,” but consistently stable content quality and a trustworthy brand image.

In the first quarter of 2025, Google updated its latest version of SEO ranking factor weightings.

Compared to previous years, this new report shows only minor changes, but there are notable shifts in certain areas, especially against the backdrop of the AI-driven content explosion. Google’s “preferences” are now more worthy of re-examination.

1.

Consistently Publishing High-Quality Content That Meets User Intent

Weight: 23% (up 2% from 2024)

Unsurprisingly, this remains Google’s most important core factor.

The increase from 21% in 2024 to 23% in 2025 highlights that consistently producing high-quality content not only impacts rankings but also builds long-term authority.

High-quality content refers to original, relevant information that solves real user problems. Such content not only attracts repeat visitors but also encourages search engines to crawl your site more frequently, improving overall indexing and trust.

2.

Meta Title Includes Target Keyword

Weight: 14% (slightly down from 17% over the past three years)

Although its weight has declined in recent years, it remains the second most important factor, indicating that it is still the primary anchor for search engines to understand a page’s topic.

Properly including core keywords in meta titles remains a key action in SEO for improving relevance and visibility. Especially in competitive search results pages, an accurate and compelling title not only helps algorithms recognize intent but also directly influences whether users click.

3.

Backlinks

Weight: 13% (consistently ranked third over the past three years)

The stability of backlinks’ ranking position reinforces one point: Google has yet to find a complete replacement for “links = trust endorsements.”

High-quality backlinks effectively enhance a website’s authority and credibility, serving as an important signal for search engines to evaluate content value. In competitive SERPs, the ultimate battle is about the combined influence of content + authority, and high-quality backlinks are a key pillar of authority building.

4.

Website Vertical Expertise

Weight: 13% (rose from eighth to fourth over the past three years)

This is one of the biggest changes in 2025. Previously just a sub-concept of E-A-T, it has now become an independent ranking factor. This shows that search engines are more inclined to allocate traffic to authoritative content providers that “focus on a specific field.”

This trend drives the development of content verticalization strategies: it affects whether a page deserves to maintain its ranking long-term, not just a one-time ranking judgment, but sustained visibility.

5.

User Engagement

Weight: 11% (continues to rise)

Over the past two years, Google has increasingly emphasized user engagement as a key signal for assessing content value and expertise.

User engagement measures actual interactions between users and a page, such as click-through rate, dwell time, scroll depth, and conversion rate. These behaviors reflect whether the content is engaging and accurately addresses the user’s search intent.

6.

Content Freshness / Website Update Frequency

Weight: 6%

In previous years, freshness was only a secondary signal affecting indexing efficiency. Now, Google has officially incorporated it into its core ranking logic. Whether a page is updated and whether the information remains timely directly impacting search rankings. Especially in highly competitive topics, not updating a page for six months can easily result in being surpassed by newer content.

Updating isn’t about increasing word count but about letting search engines know: this page is still being maintained and still serving users.

7.

Mobile-Friendliness

Weight: 5%

Mobile-first is now a basic rule. Google has long fully switched to mobile-first indexing, and mobile experience has shifted from a bonus to a baseline requirement. Poor mobile performance can slow down crawling and affect indexing and rankings. Details like loading speed, layout adaptation, and button usability directly impact user retention and conversion on mobile devices.

8.

Website Credibility

Weight: 4%

This is a foundational element that supports content performance and conversions. For e-commerce sites, users care about payment security, third-party reviews, and platform endorsements. Service-based websites rely on reviews, case studies, and customer support responsiveness.

Google is increasingly valuing these “authenticity signals,” which not only affect user trust but also determine whether a page deserves to be ranked on the first page.

9.

Link Diversity

Weight: 3%

Link diversity refers to whether backlinks come from varied sources. It’s not about who has the most backlinks, but whose backlinks appear more natural.

A backlink profile from diverse types and domains更容易 builds overall trust and authority. Especially for sites with limited link-building opportunities, diversity matters more than quantity.

10.

Page Load Speed

Weight: 3%

Google prefers to index pages that are fast and stable. Especially on mobile, being slow can lead to user loss, crawl delays, and lower search engine rankings.

11.

Website Security / SSL Certificate

Weight: 2%

SSL is a security certificate that enables HTTPS, primarily used to ensure secure data transmission between users and websites.

While it’s not a core ranking factor, not having an SSL certificate can directly impact indexing, trust, and conversion performance—especially for pages involving transactions or information submission.

12.

Internal Linking

Weight: 2%

Internal links refer to the connections between pages within a website. A well-structured internal linking system helps search engines better understand page relationships and improves crawling efficiency.

Contextual semantic internal links can also strengthen topical relevance, enhance the completeness of topic clusters, and increase user dwell time on the site.

From the above 12 ranking factors, it’s clear that whether for SEO or AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), Google increasingly favors websites that are systematic, well-structured, and consistently produce content.

Content quality remains core, but now, simply “having good content” is far from enough. The structure must be engine-readable, users must be willing to engage, and the content must be regularly updated and interactive.

The single most important success metric of any SEO campaign is what?

A. The number of keywords the site is ranking for
B. The number of relevant keywords the site is ranking for
C. The volume of organic traffic
D. The ranking increases of the target keywords
E. The number of leads and sales from organic traffic
F. Money

If you answered F, you’re correct! You money-grabbing capitalist, you! SEO is a marketing activity, and the point of marketing is to sell stuff and make money. So, really, the only thing that is worth a damn in the long term is how much time or money you put into SEO and what you get out.

Whilst your website’s ranking is increasing, there will be a period of time where the ‘money’ metric is not moving much or is going in the wrong direction. This is perfectly normal as there’s a period of investment required to ‘sow’ authority and content before you start to ‘reap’ the increased ranking and financial rewards. So, if your friend is three months into SEO for their brand new website and complaining that they’re not seeing a total return on their investment yet, have a quiet word. To add a second asterisk, the ‘money’ also depends on other non-SEO variables (website performance, sales process, product-market fit, etc.).

For this reason, all of the above metrics are useful in tracking the performance of an SEO campaign and we’ll look at how to track each one in turn.

Why Should Everyone Learn SEO?

SEO isn’t just about improving your website’s ranking—its real value lies in helping you understand user needs, optimize the online visibility of your products or services, and enhance user experience. By thinking from the search engine’s perspective and treating it as a “dialogue” with users, you’ll realize that learning SEO is essentially about mastering better “internet marketing.”

Where to Start?

Our recommendation is to begin with foundational theories rather than jumping straight into tools and techniques. First, grasp the basic concepts and goals of SEO.

Learning SEO requires a systematic approach. Initially, you might gather fragmented knowledge from various online courses, articles, and tools, but your understanding of SEO will remain incomplete. Through continuous learning and practice, you’ll gradually develop your own learning path.

Below are some resources to help you quickly get started with SEO.

1. Official Sources

Google Search Central

As the world’s largest search engine, Google’s official guidelines are the best starting point for understanding search engines. Google provides extensive resources and guidance for SEO practitioners. Check out the latest SEO guides in Google Search Central to stay updated on algorithm changes and optimization recommendations.

Official Link:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

2. Online Courses

1. SEO Specialization on Coursera

A beginner-friendly, structured course consisting of five modules covering fundamental SEO concepts—from keyword research to content optimization and website analysis.

Course Link:
https://www.coursera.org/specializations/seo

2. LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn offers high-quality SEO courses suitable for learners at different stages. Opt for highly rated comprehensive courses to gain a well-rounded understanding of SEO.

Course Link:
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/

Choose one of the above courses to get started. After completing it, you’ll have a much clearer grasp of SEO.

*Note: These platforms require a membership. Coursera offers a 7-day free trial, while LinkedIn Learning provides 30 days. Completing the courses and assignments may also earn you an SEO certification. If you prefer not to pay, studying Google Search Central’s documentation is equally effective.*

3. Advanced Learning

Once you’ve built a foundational understanding, supplement your knowledge with online marketing courses to strengthen your SEO skills.

1. Semrush Online Marketing Courses

Semrush is a leading SEO tool, and its courses cover advanced SEO techniques and strategies to help you boost traffic effectively.

Course Link:
https://www.semrush.com/academy/lessons/

2. Ahrefs Blog & YouTube Channel

Ahrefs isn’t just an SEO tool—its blog and YouTube channel offer a wealth of SEO knowledge, especially on high-quality content creation and backlink building, making it a must-have resource for learners.

Ahrefs Blog:
https://ahrefs.com/blog/

Ahrefs YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AhrefsCom

Choose one platform for in-depth learning. During advanced studies, you’ll encounter many technical terms—don’t worry, just look them up! Use Google or an SEO glossary to ensure you fully understand each concept.

4. Essential Practical Tools

Semrush & Ahrefs
Similarweb
Google Analytics
Google Search Console

5. Staying Updated with Google Trends

Google’s search algorithms and trends are constantly evolving. To stay ahead in SEO, keep up with the latest updates by regularly checking these websites:

Search Engine Journal:
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/

Google Search Central Blog:
https://developers.google.com/search/blog

6. Hands-On Projects

The best way to learn SEO is to apply theoretical knowledge through practice.

Online SEO Projects: Look for third-party platforms offering practical SEO tasks.

Create Your Own Website/Blog: This is the best way to practice. Use WordPress to quickly set up a simple site or leverage AI to build one (free hosting options like GitHub or Vercel are available). Gradually explore and refine your SEO skills.

Final Thoughts

Going from zero to mastering SEO isn’t difficult—consistent learning, practice, and optimization will lead to progress. SEO is an ongoing process that requires patience and exploration.

The most important step is to take the first one!

Content: In SEO, content serves as the vehicle for information. It provides information to the target audience, fosters engagement, and demonstrates the depth of expertise (of the webmaster, the company, the publisher, etc.). Website content should be interesting, useful, relevant, and of high quality. It must educate the audience, address their essential needs, and offer value. In today’s digital landscape, content is considered the cornerstone of search engine recommendations, hence the saying «content is king».

Keywords: The selection of terms to be integrated into the page being optimized dates back to the origins of the discipline. While the importance of keywords has not diminished over time, their role has evolved. Rather than merely inserting many keywords into the content to be optimized, nowadays it’s essential to choose the right phrases to work with, consider user intent, and, most importantly, place them within high-quality and relevant content.

On-Page Criteria: Many SEO ranking factors concern the website to be optimized. These factors are primarily technical criteria related to the site’s structure, including its hierarchy, navigation, and methods of information retrieval, all designed to streamline the work of crawling and indexing by search engine robots.

Off-Page Criteria: Some ranking factors are influenced outside the website, known as “off-page SEO criteria. Among them, backlinking (a strategy aimed at obtaining inbound links from authoritative domain sites) has maintained its significance through successive algorithm updates. Consequently, a page receiving links from influential sites continues to enjoy greater popularity.

Authority: To achieve a high position in search results and to gain the trust of users, a website must have some level of authority-a combination of reliability, quality, relevance, and added value. Given the importance of this criterion to users, who seek assurances when browsing a website, sharing personal data, and conducting transactions, it’s unsurprising that search engines prioritize it.

Local SEO: The local aspect of SEO has gained prominence in recent years as more users turn to search engines for information about local businesses, artisans, and companies near their location. Approximately half of all search queries now include a local intent, whether it’s for checking a store’s opening hours, finding information about upcoming events, or finding products/ services in a specific geographic area.

Traffic: One of the significant benefits of SEO is the increase in website visitors. The volume of traffic is linked to the organic link position in search results, with the top positions generating the most clicks. However, SEO has evolved to consider more than just the traffic generated. It also looks at the subsequent steps after users arrive on the site: user experience and conversion. This has given rise to the field of Search experience Optimization (SXO), which encompasses these three dimensions SEO, user experience, and conversion-to deploy highly effective marketing strategies.

User Experience: Users perceive a website as a cohesive whole and don’t differentiate between content quality and technical performance. They expect a seamless and smooth experience from start to finish during their browsing session. Search engines acknowledge these user expectations regarding page load speed, usability, and content display on mobile devices.

The use of ChatGPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI, has become increasingly popular in the field of SEO as it offers several benefits. Some of the key benefits of using ChatGPT for SEO include:

Generating High-Quality, Optimized Content: ChatGPT can be used to generate a wide range of SEO-optimized content, including meta descriptions, blog posts, and product descriptions. The model can be fine-tuned to generate text that is optimized for specific keywords and phrases, which can improve search engine rankings.

Saving Time and Resources: Creating high-quality, optimized content can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive task. ChatGPT can be used to automate the content generation process, saving businesses time and resources.

Improving Efficiency: ChatGPT can be used to generate multiple versions of the same content, which can be used to test different headlines, subheadings, and keywords to see what works best. This allows businesses to quickly identify the most effective approach, improving the efficiency of their SEO efforts.

Staying Up-to-Date with Latest SEO trends: ChatGPT is trained on a large dataset of web pages and can be fine-tuned to adapt to the latest SEO trends and best practices. It can also be used to generate content that complies with the latest Google’s algorithm updates

Cost-effective: Using ChatGPT for content generation can be a cost-effective solution for small and medium-sized businesses. It can help them to produce high-quality, optimized content without having to hire a team of writers or pay for expensive content creation services.

Personalization: ChatGPT can be fine-tuned to generate personalized content, by using a person’s name, demographics and other information. Personalized content can help to improve engagement, conversion rates, and build trust with users.

It’s important to note, however, that while ChatGPT can be an extremely powerful tool for SEO, it’s not a replacement for human oversight and editing. The generated text should be reviewed and edited by a human before it’s used for any purpose. Additionally, ChatGPT can only help in generating optimized text, other SEO best practices such as creating high-quality content, building backlinks, and optimizing website structure should also be implemented for the best results.

A good way to answer this is to think about all the big players: the websites that are at the top of their categories.

Why do all of them use SEO? The simple answer is: Because they know its value and use their knowledge of it to get ahead.

Everyone connected uses search engines to find information online. If you want to be found today you need to be not just present in the search engine results pages (aka SERPs) but you also have to be seen and that means ranking at the top. Ranking at the top is a serious business – if you’re an eCommerce like Amazon, ranking for “LED TV” means millions of visitors, sales, and revenue.

Search as a channel is called Organic Search since you’re not paying to show up there. It means that the user is looking for a solution.

With Organic Search, you’re getting:

• Quality Traffic – because of the user intent behind the search
• Volume of Traffic – based on the market demand
• Free Traffic – free advertising since you don’t pay to show up

Remember that Google likes websites that have a lot of links pointing at them because this indicates that they’re popular and authoritative. Popular and authoritative sites tend to rank better because they’re usually better quality and more useful. So the next step in your SEO detective work is to analyse the number and quality of backlinks that your own and your competitors’ sites have.

Google “Moz Link Explorer”, click on the tool and put in your website’s URL. This tool gives you an indication of how many backlinks your site has. It’s not completely exhaustive, as Link Explorer doesn’t index as many links as Google, but it’s really useful to get an indication of the relative authority of different sites.

At the top of the Link Explorer page, you’ll see a number of statistics:

• Domain Authority: This is an estimate of how authoritative Google may consider the website. The more inbound links from other high-authority sites that a site has, the higher the Domain Authority will be. We will discuss Domain authority later on in more detail.
• Page Authority: This is an estimate of the specific page’s PageRank rather than the website’s authority as a whole.
• Linking Domains: This section shows how many individual websites (root domains) are linking to your website

By putting your top competitors’ sites in for comparison, you can begin to identify possible reasons as to why they might be outranking you. If you’re being outranked, you’ll usually find that your competitors have more links than you and, as a result, higher Domain and Page Authority.

Anchor Text

Within the same Link Explorer results page there’s a section for Anchor Text.

Anchor text is the text used in a link. When you’re surfing on the net, you might see an underlined word in blue, something like ‘click here’.

Obviously, clicking on that link won’t take you to a website called ‘click here’. The words ‘click here’ are what we call the anchor text.

The reason that anchor text is important is because it’s one of the measures Google uses to establish the topic of the linked page. For example, in the ‘click here’ case, Google would see the words ‘click here’ and associate the linked page with that phrase. If the anchor text was ‘best protein supplements’, what do you think would be on that linked page?

Hopefully, you can also see that using ‘click here’ as anchor text is not the best idea in the world.

A far better idea would be to use your keywords as anchor text, for example ‘vintage furniture’ for a site that sells vintage furniture.

You can see the anchor texts your competitors are using by scanning the Anchor Text table in Link Explorer. If you notice that they always have the same anchor text, take note, because this is likely the phrase they have singled out above all others to rank highly for.

It might seem like a good idea to create lots of links using your main keyword as the anchor text but this is where you have to start being careful. This strategy was used to death by low-quality SEO companies in the past, to the extent that Google actually started penalising sites that used too much “exact match anchor text”, where the anchor text exactly matched the target keyword.

It’s natural for websites to get a lot of links with their company name and website address as anchor text, so this is what Google expects to see in what we call a “natural-looking link profile”. If 80% of the inbound links say vintage furniture that starts to look a bit suspect. So when you’re building links, it’s a good idea to use descriptive anchor text, as long as you’re being natural.

For now, you should have a list of the keywords you plan to target and a list of your top competitors for those keywords.

You will have studied their websites, noticed the keywords they are targeting and how aggressively they are targeting them. You’ll have observed the frequency of those keywords on the page, in links and in the meta description and title tags.

Companies that understand the importance of SEO and try to incorporate it into their daily practices usually treat SEO in two ways:

1. In-House
2. Outsourcing

It’s important to make a point here that all of this depends on the company team structure.

Let me give you some common examples through the companies that I’ve worked with and studied.

In-House

Here, SEO is the responsibility of a team. For example, the Marketing Team will have an SEO professional that participates in the projects, going through the project briefing.

Covering aspects of the strategy, implementation, and validation based on the best practices according to webmaster guidelines (“Webmaster Guidelines”).

Some companies will have multiple SEO professionals because of the size of their teams and projects, and some will even go deeper and subdivide the SEO team into micro-strategy/operations teams.

Here are a few examples of SEO in-house jobs:

• SEO Analyst/Specialist/Manager
• SEO Product Manager /SEO Marketing Manager
• SEO Content Specialist
• SEO Performance Analyst
• SEO Campaign Manager

These are all SEOs jobs you can find online today if you look on Glassdoor, Linkedin, etc.

Companies hire those professionals based on their product and/or company stage – they will likely start hiring when they have the money to afford bigger teams (e.i: 80+ employees).

Outsourcing

This approach is more common, particularly where the company doesn’t want or have the capacity to deal with the SEO process. They choose partners like agencies to take on this task for them as service providers.

SEO agencies (SEO 公司) have been a big business for a long time and they still hold a few competitive advantages (e.g: more analytical data) because they work with multiple clients and verticals.

Clients that choose to go this route will usually have a team of agency employees allocated to their account, managing their day-to-day tasks and reports.

SEO agency team can look like the following:

• Account manager – takes care of client communication and administration
• Specialist – the person in charge of strategy and execution
• Analyst – the person in charge of the research and reports
• Journalist – the person in charge of writing and editing content