How SEO Can Help Grow Your Business

With billions of people using search engines like Google every day, it’s no secret that Search Engine Optimization is considered the foundation of marketing strategies and the key to getting your business noticed online. While there’s a long list of criteria to be met when optimizing your site, the long-term increase in web traffic (and, later, leads and revenue) makes an investment in your SEO incredibly worthwhile.

What is SEO?

SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is a digital marketing strategy applied to help websites appear higher in search engine results, increasing visibility and bringing more potential customers to your site.

There are several factors that contribute to a website’s SEO effectiveness, including Page Loading Speeds, User Experience (such as how easy a site is to navigate), High-Quality Content, Relevant Keywords, Links and Meta Tags.

Why is SEO important for business growth?

In today’s competitive online market, every business is vying for the #1 spot on search engine listings because it’s likely to be the first one a customer clicks.

When a prospective client is looking for a product or service, they’ll most likely start by searching online – either using a question or keywords. If your site isn’t fully optimized, it’s unlikely to show up in the Top 5, or perhaps even the first page of results. If your site isn’t in the first handful, it’ll remain unclicked and unnoticed.

A fully optimized website, however, is more likely to show higher in search listings; vastly improving an online presence and increasing web traffic quickly.

Where should I start?

Optimizing your website for search engines is the best way to increase your web traffic and grow your business. Here are 5 key things to consider when implementing an SEO strategy:

Keywords – Efficiently scattering carefully selected keywords that relate to your product or service throughout your site is often the best starting point to maximize your SEO. By using free Keyword Tools, the most searched and most effective keywords relating to your product or service can be established and can then be used across your website in SEO and Page Titles, Headers, Meta Tags, Body Text (or Content) and ALT Tags.

It’s worth considering, though, that keywords with the lowest competition could mean a niche area for you to utilize. While this could be a gamble, SEO data can be changed and edited at will and sometimes a change can pay off.

Meta Tags – If SEO is the foundation of a strong marketing strategy, Meta Tags are the load-bearing system below that. Although mostly invisible to site visitors, Meta Tags provide the bulk of your SEO data to search engines. They feed Web Crawlers information about your website, so they can index it on search engines such as Google, which in turn promotes visibility.

Meta Titles are the clickable page titles that a search engine displays on a results page, and Meta Descriptions are the sections of descriptive text below that which disclose what the page is about and what it features. These should both feature precisely placed keywords, and Meta Descriptions should often try to answer the question a prospective client may be searching for online.

Produce High-Quality Content – While it may seem that SEO and producing engaging content are two entirely different strategies, search engines consider visitor engagement with quality content a huge factor in a site’s SEO effectiveness. Not only does creating content allow you to litter your page with more carefully crafted keywords, it also offers the opportunity to incorporate strong and reliable Backlinks.

If you’re writing an informative blog post for consumers, and you cite another website’s information (providing a link), you’ve created a Backlink. These are incredibly useful because search engines, particularly Google, consider them trust signals, building confidence in your own site and promoting you up the search rankings.

Mobile Friendliness – Search engines now consider a website’s Mobile Friendliness a part of its overall accessibility and user experience, and that’s because more people are searching on their smartphones rather than PCs and Laptops. If your website isn’t optimized for use on a mobile device, it becomes extremely hard to navigate. Not only will visitors abandon your site, but search engines will also refuse to rank you higher because they prioritize internet user satisfaction.

Optimize your site for use on a mobile device, though, and you might even see a boost in your rankings.

UX – Your website’s overall UX (or User Experience) should be a priority, and not only for SEO purposes. A positive user experience includes a site that loads quickly, is filled with engaging content, and is effortless to navigate. If you can hit these targets, you’ll benefit from improved site engagement and greater web traffic which, in turn, will boost your rankings as search engines will acknowledge your website pleases the user.

Conclusion

While improving your website’s SEO can be tedious and time-consuming, requiring constant attention and adjustment, it is without a doubt an incredibly powerful marketing strategy that any business with an online presence should implement.

For more information on how our specialists can support your business with Search Engine Optimization, contact us today and one of our team will come back to you in a timely manner.