Briefly, we can say that there are 5 major steps in terms of SEO.

1. SEO began with search engine submission in the early days due to the fact that search engines had limited crawling capabilities.
2. Then, it turned into on-page SEO, meaning the art of ensuring a website is technically accessible to search engines and relevant to the targeted keywords.
3. Since Google – which quickly became the major search engine from 2000 – introduced its notion of PageRank, the acquisition of quality back links the dominant factor in the early years of the decade.
4. In order to face link spam, Google algorithm began to take into account contextual information of a backlink and especially its  anchor text.
5. In the same logic, the notion of TrustRank appears meaning that the more a backlink comes from a trusted sources  the more it is valuable. Domain authority mainly came from the age of the domain name.
6. Link context became more and more important mainly because link exchanges. Google started to consider that the placement of links on a page and, more importantly, the context of the page and the site the link is on is of utmost importance .
7. Additionnaly, user signals – such as click through rates, bounce rates and search patterns – became to be taken into account by search engines to assess the level of trust search engines have in a site.
8. Finally, major search engines – among which Google is the more advanced – decided to include multimedia and real-time content to match better user’s needs.

See below for more details:

SEO History (1994-2001) - Greenlight

SEO History 2 (2002-2009) - Greenlight

SEO and copywriting are two fundamentals of the eMarketing. Mastering both of these Internet marketing techniques are strongly recommended. However, using both of them can be sometimes conflictual. So, how to combine effectively SEO and copywriting?

Differences between SEO and Copywriting

Whereas SEO (Search Engine Optimization) focuses on writing for search engine robots, Copywriting mainly concentrates on writing for Human readers. Whereas SEO allows you to rank higher in the SERPs (Search Engines Result Pages) and thus attracting a qualified traffic of visitors, copywriting allows you to retain the visitors on your website.

Combining SEO and Copywriting

Though combining both SEO and copywriting is obviously recommended, these two eMarketing disciplines might be conflictual.

Let’s take an example. A good title is essential both in terms of SEO and copywriting.

Example of a SEO title

Let’s image that you write an article about SEO. Then, in order to be high positioned in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) on this keyword, you might want to choose the following title which contains the two elementary keywords you might rank for that are « SEO » and « Search Engine Optimization » :

• SEO Title: SEO – Search Engine Optimization.
• Comment: Though being  very targeted to robots, this SEO Title certainly does not fit (human) readers.

Example of a copywrited title

Then, in order to attract and retain readers on your article, you might want to rename it this way:

• Well-written Title: How to turn your website into a real traffic machine?
• Comment: This catchy title contains no real keywords but will certainly attract the visitors willing to optimize their website.

Best Practices: Combining SEO and Copywriting

A best practice combination could be this one for title: What are the best SEO (Search Engine Optimizations) techniques to optimize your website?

• A best practice combination could be this one for title: What are the best SEO (Search Engine Optimizations) techniques to optimize your website?
• Comment: Though a bit longer than the precedent ones, this title effectively combines both the advantages of SEO and copywriting.

The importance of Backlinks

Backlinks – or incoming links to your web pages – has now becoming an essential factor to rank high in the SERPs. That’s why, it is also very important – once your article is published – to generate backlinks to your new article with a relevant anchor text. In our example, the anchor text could be « SEO techniques » or « SEO tips « , etc.