Your Complete Guide To SEO
Are you sick of confusing marketing terms and the latest digital trends? When you’re trying to run a business, knowing what to ignore and what to learn about is half the battle. If your business has a website (and it should!) you’ve probably heard of SEO and might be scratching your head.
SEO eh? Why is it important? What even is it?
In short, SEO is one of the most important processes you can do for your business online. It can transform the number of new customers visiting your business, open you up to a bigger audience, and even increase footfall in your physical store.
You might’ve poured your heart into your business and produce great products but if no one knows it exists, it’ll flounder. SEO is the online version of a big neon sign. A sign that points your audience right to your business.
Although there are many parts to SEO, it doesn’t have to be complicated. In this guide, we’ll be breaking it down so it’s easy to understand no matter what your digital background.
Keep reading to learn what SEO is and why it can give your business a huge boost that keeps paying back.
The Fundamentals of SEO
Let’s begin right at the heart of the matter. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the practice of making it as easy as possible for search engines to display your website when users search for related keywords or terms.
Here’s a quick example:
If you have a business selling balcony plant pots nationwide but don’t have a physical store, you need customers to find you online. By using SEO techniques, you’ll create a website and content that uses keywords your audience is likely to search for.
These might be, ‘balcony plant pots’, ‘balcony plant pot delivered’ or other related terms.
If your website ranks for those terms, it’ll pop up in search results. So when that person searches for balcony plant pots, they can click straight onto your website.
How Did SEO Come About?
To further understand SEO, it’s best to understand why it exists in the first place.
Before search engines, it was difficult to find a website unless you knew the exact web address. You couldn’t just type in a question and see a list of websites with answers like you can today.
As the internet grew, search engines were created to allow users to find any website. The number of websites in existence increased so quickly though, that showing the user the most relevant website was a huge challenge.
Today, there are over 1.7 billion websites online. Not all of those websites are active and in use, but hundreds of millions are. That means a search engine has to know what all those websites contain so it can show the right ones to each user.
To learn about each website and work out how relevant it is for each search term, engines like Google created complex algorithms and ranking systems. While Google keeps some of its SEO factors a secret, much of what it uses to work out appropriate ranking is well known.
As Google and others are actively looking for information on what your website is about, SEO is the practice of making it as clear as possible. You help them, they’ll help you.
Is SEO Just for Google?
SEO is most often talked about in relation to what Google itself is looking for, This is because Google has a 90%+ share of the search engine market so is usually the easiest example. While Google’s algorithms are essential to take into account, SEO is useful for all search engines.
Don’t forget that search engines aren’t just Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Social media platforms like Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter are also forms of search engines. They have algorithms to help users find relevant content and use and contribute to your SEO efforts.
SEO can be broken down into on-website SEO and off-website SEO for this reason.
SEO on Your Website
Your website is the online home of your business and everything else should point to it. No matter how many platforms you’re also on, your audience should always be able to find your website. This is the hub for all the information they need about your brand.
As your website is so important, it’s most often what you’ll want to rank most highly for. When a user searches for a product that you sell, ideally you’d like your website to be the first result.
In order to do this, you’ll need to use certain techniques on your website. That means spelling it out for search engines, so they know that your site is relevant and high quality. It will involve:
- Optimizing your website’s metadata
- Using keywords in website title and tagline
- Having relevant keywords in web copy
- Using optimally-sized images
- Having clear navigation
- Much more
One of the biggest obstacles business owners have when starting in SEO is considering all the factors. Search engines don’t only want to show the most relevant websites. They also want to show websites that users will enjoy using.
This means websites that load quickly, have high-quality images and are easy to navigate.
SEO off Your Website
While you want your website to have A-star SEO, don’t forget that SEO can work wonders for you off your site as well.
When you post content around the web on social media channels, you can include links back to your website. By ensuring your content is of the highest quality, readers will be more likely to engage with it and share it further. This helps the content rank and provides users with a new way to find your website.
Offering quality content to other websites is a great off-site SEO technique too. Most commonly seen in guest posting, other publishers feature content you’ve created for them on their websites. Their audience gets great content and you get to build authority and a link back to your website.
Why Is It Important for Businesses?
You’re probably starting to see a pattern by now. The more search engines understand your website, the more easily your target audience will find it.
In some ways, SEO techniques benefit from the snowball effect too. When your SEO is good, more people will be able to find your website. The more people find your website, the more important search engines will think it is.
The more important search engines think your website is, the higher they’ll rank it. The higher they rank it? Well, the easier people will find it!
The power of search engine optimization builds and builds which helps to make it a very efficient form of digital marketing.
SEO is vital for businesses on several levels so let’s take a look.
Organic Traffic
This is what we’ve been talking about so far and one of the clearest benefits to search engine optimization.
The biggest issue for all businesses is finding customers. Ads have traditionally been the most common way of attracting your audience but they’re expensive and usually very generalized.
Organic traffic is the audience that comes to you via means that aren’t paid for. They haven’t clicked on an ad. Instead, they might’ve come through a search engine or a social media post.
While the content and SEO efforts you’ve pursued might cost you time and money, they keep paying you back. We’ve seen that SEO snowballs and content is there forever. Ads, on the other hand, are temporary.
Builds Authority
SEO helps you build your authority and reputation as well as driving organic traffic. When you work on your SEO, your target audience will see your business popping up in results far more often.
Even if they don’t click on your website at first, they’ll see it right there in the results. On social platforms, your SEO efforts will help you appear alongside your logo and content.
When you guest post on other platforms, your audience will see that you’re seen as an expert by other websites too. This all flows into the Familiarity Principle which is powerful in marketing. The more familiar someone is with a brand, the more they like it.
Local Customers
Since the internet has opened up the majority of the planet to businesses, it’s increasingly common to forget your neighbors. Even if your location isn’t important to your product or service, many customers prefer to buy from local businesses.
Yet businesses forget to take advantage of this.
Local SEO is a specific type of SEO that shouldn’t be overlooked. By working on local SEO, even if your business isn’t geographically limited, your local audience will find you more easily than your competitors in the next state.
Provides Feedback
SEO isn’t about guesswork, it’s about research, trial, and error. If you don’t get systematic with analyzing the results of your SEO efforts, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table.
SEO analytics can be complex and hiring an SEO marketing agency to create reports and guide you is often the most efficient method. Analytics can show you which of your keywords are performing the best, where your traffic is coming from, and which content type resonates with your audience.
This information is invaluable and enables your SEO to become better targeted and more focused.
The Importance of High-Quality Content
Along with SEO, you’ve probably heard the term ‘content’ thrown around a lot. Content is a hugely important factor when it comes to SEO success and it has a fantastic ROI.
When you’re trying to get your website onto the first page of Google, you’ll be focusing each web page around a keyword. Therefore, the fewer web pages your website has, the fewer opportunities it has to appear in search engines.
By producing high-quality content in the form of videos and blog posts, your website will have considerably more pages to rank for.
Quick example:
Your customers can find you if they search for those balcony plant pots but what if they search for the term, ‘best herbs to grow on a balcony’? If your website doesn’t mention that subject, you won’t appear.
That would be a big mistake as that user might need balcony plant pots for those herbs they want to grow.
SEO Backlinks
Great content is essential for your own website but it’s also important for getting SEO backlinks on other websites. Building backlinks is a top SEO strategy as it boosts your website’s authority.
When a search engine can see other websites link to yours, they’ll know that your website must be useful. They prioritize useful websites in search results so the more good backlinks you have, the better it is for SEO.
It’s far better for your backlinks to come from high-quality websites too, so providing outstanding content is in everybody’s best interests.
Social Media Reach
By producing unique content, you can share it widely across your social media platforms. This consistent output shows search engines that you’re an active and regularly updated business, positive markers for higher ranking.
Giving your audience good content also encourages them to share it. For the effort of producing that content, your message and branding could be spread thousands of times at no additional cost.
How to Get on Top of Your Search
SEO is an ever-evolving practice that is essential for any business operating online. Without SEO, it doesn’t matter how good your website is, no one will find it.
Many small and medium-sized businesses use digital marketing agencies to deal with their SEO for them. This is a far more efficient way to stay on top of your SEO than by handing out tasks to your staff.
SEO takes a lot of time to learn while understanding keyword analysis and monitoring data feedback is labor-intensive for beginners. SEO experts, however, can work with you to build a solid strategy and implement it on your behalf.
Getting SEO Right Is Essential for Business Success
SEO, why is it important? It’s the lifeblood of every effective digital marketing strategy. SEO takes your business, your products, and your message and makes them visible.
When you put the time and effort into bolstering your SEO, you’ll see results in the short and long term. It’s a practice that keeps on giving and has a snowball-like effect. Watch the organic traffic increase and start reaching your ideal audience far more effectively.
If you’re looking for help developing your SEO and making this practice work for you, get in touch with us. We’re SEO and digital marketing experts who help businesses just like yours get the attention they deserve.
