Are you looking to take your business or company to the next level, but not sure
where to start? Know that you should be utilising Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
If you’ve never heard of this or only know the basics and want to find out more, we’ll
tell you everything you need to know.
When people use search engines to search for information online, they type their
queries into the search box. The search engine then displays sites offering the most
relevant information to the question. Search engines must determine that your
business’ content is valuable, for your site to become available when people search
for information online. This is where SEO comes in by ensuring that your site is
appealing to search engines.
What is SEO?
SEO is at its core, the process of optimising your website to increase its visibility and
achieve a higher ranking. SEO techniques vary from one industry to another.
However, SEO serves to achieve two goals. The first one is to help you understand
your target audience and what they are searching for online. The second one is to
help you build a website that meets user intent and one that search engines can find,
understand the content and index. Following the right SEO practices can increase
your website’s quality by making it user-friendly, fast and easy to navigate.
Purpose of SEO
Today, SEO is a crucial part of any effective marketing strategy. In the past few years, consumers have shifted in masses to online markets. Even the most traditional businesses realised that they needed to concentrate more on their online presence. SEO provides a way to reach customers. Most companies know that they need SEO for their digital marketing because they will benefit from this strategy, but what real value does SEO offer? Continue reading to discover the purpose of SEO.
Organic Search as the Primary Source of Website Traffic
Organic search is a vital part of your website’s performance and is an excellent way to engage consumers. Google owns the highest portion of the search market compared to other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing. Therefore, Google’s guidelines are essential to follow. Being the most popular and visited search engine, you must ensure that your site ranks high on Google if you want to maximise your business’ potential. If Google can trust your site, then you will benefit from increased traffic and lead generation. Quality SEO practices will take your site to Google’s first results page.
Increasing Visibility and Ranking
One of the essential purposes of SEO is increasing your site’s visibility. This means that it is easier for potential customers to find you when searching for something related to what you offer. Visibility is directly related to ranking. The higher your website ranks on the search engines results page (SERP), the more likely potential customers will see and click on your site. You can achieve a higher ranking and increased visibility through effective SEO practices. When thinking about ranking, remember that most internet users do not go past the first page of Google. Due to this, you must improve your SEO practices to rank on the first page of search results and garner more online visibility.
Building Trust and Credibility
For most businesses, the internet has changed what the sales process looks like. This is because consumers now have several resources to help them learn about their options. As such, you have to build trust and credibility to become a number one choice to your customers. Combining your SEO efforts with content marketing, where you create informative and valuable content, will build your trust and credibility within these search engines and with potential customers. The first way to create trust is when a user searches for information and finds your site as one of the resources in the search results. After reading your content and finding valuable information, they might share it with friends or subscribe to your email list. The user may also return to your site regularly to look for new content without taking any action. This may seem pointless however, you are establishing your site as credible, authoritative and informative with each new batch of content the user reads. This ultimately works in your favour, by boosting your website’s credibility and thus, it’s rankings.
Increasing Web Traffic
SEO is also responsible for increasing your web traffic. Once you improve your visibility and rankings, you will, in turn increase your web traffic. Remember that nearly 33% of clicks go to the first ranked page and the first five listings get over 75% of all clicks. Thus, if potential customers cannot find your website, you are missing out on crucial sales opportunities. SEO increases your visibility, in turn increasing the number of visitors to your website each day.
Improving User Experience
The ultimate goal of search engines is to provide the best possible results to their users. Google regularly updates their algorithm to ensure that they direct users to sites with relevant content and those which provide an excellent user experience. Therefore, technical factors, such as mobile optimisation, site speed and usability, are crucial factors when it comes to ranking. Therefore, you must optimise your site to meet both user and search engines intent. You must continuously be improving your site since you cannot predict the search engine’s algorithm. This means that optimising your site requires professional help from our Marketing Sweet team since this is what we do best. User experience has a significant impact on conversion, affecting your sales and revenue in the long term.
Eliminate the Need to Pay for Ad Space
Another purpose of SEO is eliminating the need to pay for ad space. Look at how traditional ad campaigns operate. You must select a location, such as a TV channel or radio station, to advertise your brand. You then pay the company that owns that media for the advert. The company will require you to pay for the ad to run for a specific period or within a certain number of issues. When that period expires, your ad stops running. The same thing happens on search engines.
The top listings denoted by a small “Ad” are pay-per-click or PPC. Like traditional ad campaigns, these spots involve ongoing costs. Advertisers will only pay when a user clicks the ad and visits your site. The minute you pause the campaign, the site stops showing. However, the sites appearing on organic results (SEO) rely on ad spend. While the site owners may have invested a lot of money and time into creating pages that rank highly, they would appear on the first page of SERPS because the search engine algorithm thinks they provide value to users. As a result, they earn traffic without spending a cent for every click.
Building Your Brand
Most people consider branding to be a traditional marketing strategy. While SEO is firmly in the digital category, branding and SEO involve similar steps. Building a brand involves what people say about you and what you provide. When optimising your site for SEO, you must consider the same factors. You need content that meets your audience’s needs and interests and find ways to earn links to that content through other sites. Keeping this relationship in mind when optimising your site for SEO will enable you to select the right keywords and create content that reflects your brand’s image.
How can I Improve My Site’s SEO?
SEO is as challenging as it sounds. You can easily modify aspects of your SEO if you have the right tools. The first step to consider is understanding the intent of your users. What are your users looking for? Search engines are good at identifying user intent by inspecting how your keywords connect with the search phrase. They will determine what users want from the search and decide how to rank the results. Using the right keyword is another crucial SEO aspect. Search engines check how well the content of your site matches with terms used by the user. If you include the same keyword in your content that your audience is searching for, search engines will deem your content relevant to the search term. Link building is also another way of improving your SEO. Having links from reputable sources act as votes of confidence. Search engines determine that if your peers trust your site, users will also trust you.
SEO for Your Website
SEO practices will help your brand accomplish goals such as brand awareness, traffic, conversion, customer experience and much more. This is why any digital marketer needs to have a solid grasp of SEO, the best practices and how they can help you achieve your business goals. It is essential to have the right professionals do it for you. At Marketing Sweet, we have the resources, skills and experience to optimise your website and perform SEO practices for long-term success. We will help you from the initial planning stage through to the implementation and maintenance of your website, to ensure that your SEO strategy yields positive results. Remember that search engines keep on changing their algorithm as technology advances and users change their behaviour. We conduct daily research and stay updated with the different techniques, tactics and best SEO practices. Let our team at Marketing Sweet help you meet the SEO challenges of tomorrow.
