Search Engine Algorithms and their impact on Your Business
Today, the Internet has become integral to our lives and businesses. Your business’s online presence is as crucial as your physical one, as it’s where your customers will likely find you first. In this blog, we’ll uncover what search engine algorithms are from a fundamental level and why they’re vital for business owners or SEO professionals. Suppose we are to know the secret of how a search engine works; it requires a combined understanding of a language expert, website developer, website designer, content writer, computer scientist, data scientist, and so on. You can imagine why these search engine brands are multi-million dollar businesses with multi-national personnel working 24/7.
The goal of this blog is to give you a functional understanding of search engine algorithms and their impact on your website’s performance. By gaining this knowledge, you can confidently make informed decisions about your SEO or digital marketing investments, taking control of your online visibility and success. I will also provide easy-to-understand best practices for understanding the core concept relevant to your business role. Whether you are tech-savvy or just starting, this blog will help you understand the functional level of search engine operations and how to use this knowledge for your website’s success.
Before we look at the details to understand search engine algorithms, it is essential to understand what a search engine is. This sounds quite basic because you could be thinking, duh! How do you think I got here? Search engines are not necessarily only on the Internet; they are available as web search engines to the public; many search engines are developed for and used within specific business use cases. For example, if you are an Apple Macintosh user, using the command + F key will bring a find window, and likewise, if you are a Microsoft user, the Windows logo key + E will bring in a file explorer window; these are simple computer operating systems built-in search engines to find files in your computer. Likewise, as per the statistics, there are over 1500 search engines across the globe, including niche ones catering to specific features unique to various countries, and thirty of these are dedicated solely to general web searching. Each search engine has its own business goals and accordingly types of algorithms.
What is a search engine algorithm?
Search engine algorithms are complex systems used by search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other brands to retrieve data and website information from their search index and instantly deliver the best possible results for a query.
Let us quickly understand two important technical and user-level concepts: Search Index and Search Query.
- Search Index – A search index is like a digital library catalog. When search engines like Google scan and store information from web pages, they create an organized list or index of all the content they find. This index helps the search engine quickly find and retrieve relevant web pages when someone looks for information.
- Search Query – A search query is the term or question you and I type into a search engine when we are looking for information. It’s like asking a librarian for directions to find a book in the library and in the same context a search engine uses the search query on its index to find the best answers.
To retrieve answers for a search query a web search engine would search about two billion plus everyday growing lists of websites and its web pages that are currently available on the web to give us an answer to search queries. To serve a search query search engines require a lot of computation ability to store such vast data information. Then, to translate this data from human language to computer language, to understand what the website is talking about, what the website address is, the number of pages on it, and so on. – In the SEO world, we call this as search engine optimization service.
You and I use different methods to seek an answer in a search engine, like desktop, laptop, mobile, tablet, voice-enabled devices and connected devices. Before serving a query, whether a simple one, a long one, or even a voice search, these search engines require many of their proprietary level algorithms to decode the query and then serve search queries with appropriate answers from the stored – indexed information. These algorithms consider a range of factors like keywords (words and phrases that people use to search for information online), site usability, the relevance of page content and several other technical valuation factors to rank websites for a user’s search query. Think of them as the Internet’s librarians, sorting through billions of web pages to find the most authoritative and relevant ones for your search query.
While I searched for the query “world preferred search engine based on the survey,” these statistics say that for desktop search engine market share, Bing has 10.51 percent, Google around 81.91 percent, and Yahoo around 2.67 percent. So, for Google to serve its customers, keep its market share and improve its market share, a list of algorithm updates is released periodically to ensure the quality of the search results is addressed to the user’s search queries. Here, you can find all of Google’s released and active algorithms and what these algorithms are for.
Why a business owner needs to know about algorithms?
Understanding search engine algorithms is beneficial and essential for business owners. Search engines use various computations and algorithms to validate your website’s niche among the universe of web pages on the internet making it a crucial aspect of your online presence and success. For instance it can help you understand,
- How your website ranks according to your SEO analyst’s or digital marketing team’s strategies.
- To know why your website might not rank as high as you’d like for a search query and how to improve it.
- Your likely investments that could be in time or money to get your website in the desired search engines as per your geography and the nature of your business.
Here are a few factors of a business owner’s responsibility to know about search engine functionality and algorithms. This will help you understand them and align them with your offline or digital marketing goals to support your business’s business development or sales opportunities.
- Visibility
- Improved understanding leads to better SEO strategies that align with your business goals. Whether you’re a new or a mature business, visibility of your business’s online presence is not an option but a strategic need. Your business goals can be only online specific or aligned with your business and marketing plans.
- Example visibility goals
- Does my business need to establish an online presence?
- Is my website getting the desired website traffic?
- Are my social media accounts set for my brand?
- How many of my products are sold online, and what products must be displayed online to engage customers that would help increase walk-in visits to my store.
- Example visibility goals
- Competitive edge
- Knowing how algorithms rank sites can give you a significant competitive advantage. It can help you adapt your content strategy and SEO practices to stay ahead of your competitors, fueling your business goals to drive its intended results. Let’s say you are a business owner selling a luxury product and displaying your product information on your website is essential. With current technology advancements like Apple Vision Pro or VR headsets, if your website displays your luxury product in an immersive AR experience, chances are that you’re attracting the right visitor to your website; they are even seeing your product and researching to support their decision towards their purchase.
- Customer engagement
- In the example of the immersive AR experience and user journey, your marketing team would say these are my ideal customer personas, how do I bring them to the store, pre-book for a discounted price, or even book an appointment for a store visit? Based on your business, whether it is a service or product leveraging technology like a chatbot or a simple form that collects the lead’s contact information or displays the calendar of your sales or business development teams to book an appointment will increase the optimized likelihood of enhancing user engagement and sales conversion rates.
Why it is essential for SEO personnel?
If you are an SEO professional someone who is responsible for optimizing a website to improve its visibility and ranking on search engine results pages the stakes are even higher. The current way a website is considered for a SERP is more than a keyword or an overall content strategy. It is combined with user experience, devise adaptability and not to miss the recent technological implication of artificial intelligence in the web world.
- Adaptability
- Search engines frequently update their algorithms, so staying informed allows you to adjust strategies to maintain or improve rankings quickly. As consumers like you and I adapted to mobile for quick answers, the need for websites to be mobile-friendly was not optional for search engines to serve mobile search queries. As I publish this blog, the web and software adopts artificial intelligence to every ideal implication. Every time new technology or emerging technologies are adopted, especially when they are web-dependent, algorithms could be used to validate and embrace these emerging technologies. SEO personnel must stay ahead of these technology trends, adapt them to their workflow and to a certain extent guide fellow digital marketing team members.
- Efficiency
- Deep knowledge of algorithms and their regulatory impact allows for more targeted SEO tactics in the ideal use implications of these new technologies. Like the new technology AI setting trends in all industries, AI is suitable for efficient use in overall digital marketing efforts. SEO personnel activities should ensure that such efficient use of technology is aligned with set regulatory requirement guidelines, i.e., to get the optimal results from understanding the algorithm’s goal.
- Innovation
- How big brands are always (mostly) the go-to place for your customers regardless of how much your marketing team invests in acquiring a particular online market share? The answer is innovation. That is where big brands have leveraged over basic level SEO strategies and implementations. For instance, using a customer experience approach even for a simple eCommerce purchase journey will improve your brand’s overall buying experience thus improving brand recall and brand equity. Understanding the core of search algorithms can inspire innovative approaches to SEO challenges, setting trends rather than following them.
Regularly engaging in SEO and digital marketing blogs, attending webinars and participating in forums is crucial. It keeps you updated and inspired, fostering continuous learning that is important for your business or job responsibility. Understanding search engine algorithms is essential, whether you’re running a business or working behind the scenes in digital marketing.
Here are a few essential points to remember.
- Search engine algorithms determine how your website is indexed and ranked.
- For business owners, this knowledge can translate into better visibility and engagement toward the business and the marketing goals.
- SEO professionals must stay informed, updated and adopt innovative strategies effectively.
- Non-SEO professionals can benefit from basic SEO knowledge, enhancing their contribution to team or business goals.
Remember, knowledge is power in the realm of digital marketing. By understanding search engine algorithms, you’ll be better prepared to navigate the complexities of the online world.
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