What is search engine optimization?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is often translated into Swedish as Sökmotoroptimering. It refers to the work done on a website to attract traffic from search engines.

When people ask what we do, our short answer is usually that we take your website to the top of search results when someone looks for your products. Of course, that’s the simplified version – search engine optimization is much more than that.

Search engine optimization is about driving visitors, sales, or other conversions from search engines by maintaining strong positions for the words and phrases people search for. It can involve a few high-volume keywords or many keywords with smaller search volumes. The goal might be to hold first place or simply to reach the top 3, 5, or 10 — depending on circumstances and business strategy.

Traditional marketing certainly pays off – print and TV advertising strengthens the brand, which in turn drives sales. SEO does both: it strengthens your brand and generates direct sales.

Instead of pushing your message on people when they want to do something else – like watching TV or reading the news – SEO reaches them when they’re actively looking for your type of product. Instead of telling people you’re the best restaurant in town while they’re watching the news, you can show up when they’re hungry and searching for a restaurant. It’s easy to see why this approach works.

It’s not always right to focus on a single keyword

Holding third place for the keyword mortgage can be a solid goal – it’s a very profitable search term, but aiming for first place may be unrealistic for smaller players, as the top competitors often have massive budgets. A third-place position will still generate significant revenue, especially if your business is in a lucrative sector like online casinos. For a site selling wooden nails, however, targeting such a keyword would be pointless, even though some argue that all traffic is good traffic.

What all SEO has in common is that the goals are achieved by maintaining strong rankings in the organic search results. “Organic” refers to the results that are not paid ads but rather the core of the search engine’s listings. Some claim that your ranking position doesn’t matter – only the number of new customers, newsletter signups, or page views does. Of course, revenue is important, but if it doesn’t come from ranking in search results, it’s not search engine optimization. There’s nothing wrong with getting customers from print ads, TV commercials, or social media – but that’s not SEO.

Search optimization, keyword optimization and search engine optimization

Search engine optimization goes by many names. SEO, as it’s often called, is simply the abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization — a direct translation of the Swedish term. Besides SEO and Sökmotoroptimering, which are the standard terms in the industry, you’ll hear alternatives like “keyword optimization” or “search optimization.” One explanation for this variety is that “sökmotoroptimering” can be a bit of a mouthful, but a more interesting theory is the so-called failure theory.

Many professionals working with SEO fail to appear in the top 10 for the keywords “SEO” or “sökmotoroptimering” — the two most competitive phrases in the field. To avoid giving their competitors an advantage, they start using alternative terms when talking about their work, hoping to rank better for those variations. Try searching for “sökordsoptimering” or “sökoptimering,” and you’ll notice that completely different companies appear than those ranking for the big terms. Whether this theory is true or not is open to debate.