At its core, SEO is the practice of increasing both the quantity and quality of your website traffic, along with exposing your brand, through non-paid (aka "organic") search engine results.

It's about making your online store more visible so potential customers can find you more quickly. SEO combines creative and technical aspects, requiring us to think about what people are searching for, what they want or need, and ensuring they can find it on your marketplace.

But that's just one side of the SEO coin. Another crucial aspect of SEO is understanding search engine algorithms. Google, Bing, and other search engines have elaborate algorithms that "crawl" through the web, indexing sites and pages and ranking them according to relevancy and quality. While the algorithms often change, there are a few consistent factors that determine SEO ranking.

Among these are keyword usage, site structure, mobile compatibility, loading speed, and the number of quality links to a site.

Now, imagine an eBay seller or a niche online boutique - these marketplaces should use SEO to attract the right customers. Let's say you're selling handmade soaps. If you have strong SEO practices in place, when someone types 'handmade soaps' into Google, your shop will ideally pop up within the first page of results. Effective SEO techniques could include using 'handmade soaps' in your product descriptions, blog posts, and meta tags, or linking to relevant, high-quality sites.

Effective SEO isn't about cheating the system or using 'black hat' tricks. It's about making the most of your online marketplace by engaging in practices that provide long-term benefits. It could take a little bit of time to see significant results, but the lasting effects can massively boost traffic, exposure, and ultimately, sales.

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