SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Making a site easy for search engines to find, understand and rank.
In practice
Search engine optimisation covers everything that affects whether and where a page appears in search results: content that answers what people search for, clean structure and metadata, fast loading, mobile usability, and links from other sites. For designers it is not a marketing afterthought: heading hierarchy, image alt text, page speed and URL structure are all design decisions with search consequences.
Questions
What is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)?
SEO is the practice of improving a website's visibility in organic search results through content, technical quality and authority.
Why do you use SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)?
Search is how most people find things. A beautiful site nobody can find has failed at the first job.
How do you use/apply SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)?
Write for real queries, structure pages with meaningful headings, describe images, keep pages fast and mobile-friendly, give every page a title and description, and earn links by being worth linking to.
When do you use SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)?
From information architecture onward: SEO retrofitted to a finished site is expensive and partial.
Who uses SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)?
Content designers, web designers, developers and marketers.
