Brands need SEO first, as it is the most viable and cost-effective way to both understand and reach customers in key moments that matter. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is the process of strategically optimising your website to help it rank higher in search results. When it is done well, it can really tie in well with web design and the ways website design is able to work too. It’s not just your blog that demands your SEO attention. Any landing pages, micro sites, content pages, and other digital areas of content on your website can also be of great benefit to it.
In a nutshell – what you really need to know about SEO
We’re sure you’ve heard of Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO. But you may still be unsure of what SEO is exactly, why SEO is important for your business, and how to get started implementing it. Content marketing and having a strategy to help you rank well on search engines is key. It is becoming a main component of a successful digital marketing plan. More and more consumers are searching for information online and favoring useful, informative content over more direct advertising. Therefore, understanding and implementing SEO is necessary for your business to stay competitive, visible, and relevant. Continue reading to understand why SEO is important for your business and how you can implement it.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a digital marketing practice that helps make your website visible on search engine results pages (SERP). It is made up of technical, on-page, and off-page components. It involves adjusting and optimising your website’s functionality, content, and content promotion in order to rank highly on SERP. Ultimately, SEO practices are intended to work with search engine algorithms. Things the algorithms look for include a well functioning website, high-quality content including keywords, and high traffic and time on site.
Keyword research is a vital must
The first step in content creation for SEO is keyword research. This refers to finding out which keywords relate to your products or services and are actively used in search queries. These need to be well researched so that you choose keywords that are relevant to your offerings and are not too competitive. Unless you have a very high domain authority, the best keywords are those with high search rate but low competition. High search rate and high competition keywords will be dominated by high domain authority sites (think the biggest players in an industry such as BuzzFeed for trending content or The Wall Street Journal for business content.)
Local SEO as a service
The key difference between SEO and Local SEO is the type of search results your business shows up in. Local business SEO is a search engine marketing strategy that helps businesses boost their visibility in local search results. Unlike regular SEO, which relies on national and international search results, local SEO is about boosting your web pages’ visibility in region-specific results. For example, if you own a boutique hotel in New York, you’d want to appear for “boutique hotel near me” or “boutique hotel near the Hudson River.” These kinds of keywords and searches help users find products or services near their location.
Here are four ways you can boost your website’s local SEO:
- Optimize for Google Business Profile: Having a Google Business Profile page can help customers find and learn more about your business easily. Prospective customers can also get a quick summary of your business – reviews, opening hours, contact info, and more.
- Contact details: Ensure your name, address, and phone number are consistent across every publication and website. This makes it easier for potential customers to find you. Additionally, if Google can’t determine which information about your business is correct, your website might not be shown in the search results.
- Optimize online directories and citations: Map aggregators like Express Update and Foursquare provide map data to search engines. Submitting your business to online directors can further boost your website’s visibility.
- Local SEO audit: You can use SEO audit tools to check how well optimized your website is. When it comes to local SEO, this could include a Google Business Profile audit, Google Search Console audit, citation audit, and more.
SEO as a key service – in detail
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. Generally speaking, it’s the process of increasing the amount of traffic to your website as well as the quality of the traffic, through a number of online techniques. With good SEO, your business can move higher up in the search engine rankings, which means your website will be found more easily. If it’s one of the first websites a person sees when searching for something specific, they are more likely to click on it. Hence you are increasing your website visitors and chances of converting those visitors to customers. All from improving your SEO.
This is because people are typing in words or phrases into a search engine. They should all match with words and phrases on your website. For example, imagine you own a business selling hot tubs. Someone might be looking for a hot tub and they type in a search phrase like ‘where can I get a hot tub for my garden near me?’ Then they will get a list of companies that can sell them hot tubs. Where is your business on this list? The businesses that are higher up and on page 1 of the search page are clearly using SEO well.
The potential customer searching for a hot tub is much more likely to click on one of the first websites that appears rather than scrolling through several pages to solve the problem. That’s where good search engine optimisation comes in. If your website has regular, fresh content, new images and videos, it’s more likely to appear higher up in a search. Obviously, you want the people to choose your business over the others in your industry. From this, you need to stand out.
A very important service to any business
A large part of digital marketing is search engine marketing (SEM). SEM is paid search marketing. This is not a bad thing; pay-per-click marketing campaigns use strategic research to help increase your return on investment (ROI). You just need to be aware that most people recognize which SERP results are ads and which are organic. And gaining organic traffic is the ultimate goal. Organic traffic can be improved using tools like paid search campaigns to bring more visibility.
Yet, as a consumer yourself, you may find yourself wanting the results that don’t have the word “ad”. Your customers most likely feel the same way. Again, paid search campaigns can be used to your advantage. Even more so if done well and can intentionally market your business to your target audience. Organic search will utilize more SEO tactics such as keyword searches. This ultimately means that your content shows up for a wider range of potential viewers.
Overall, everything you need to take into consideration
Attracting visibility in an organic way means that your website is appearing because of what your customers searched. Customers can seek you out based on their needs, which is where keywords really come into play. When customers see you as someone who can meet their needs, you spur engagement. Engagement cannot begin, though, until they are aware of you.
The importance of SEO is that it allows potential leads to see you, meaning that process of engagement can begin. SEO is a pathway for visibility, which, depending on your purpose, can impact the buying cycle. Knowing what people are looking for by conducting thorough SEO research is key. This is where Local SEO becomes crucial in knowing your audience and their needs and wants. So, what is SEO in business when it comes to Local SEO?
Local SEO uses the geographical location of your business in search results. Your location can contribute to your online visibility. When a potential customer searches for a question followed by “near me” or within your geographical proximity, you want to be the business that comes up first. Increasing Local SEO will increase your online visibility, leading to growth in your customer base.
