What is SEO and how can it help your business?

Arguably the most crucial element of online marketing today, SEO or Search Engine Optimization allows you to focus your website content, functionality and design to organically increase visibility online. A key ingredient of modern day marketing, most online interaction in the way of information and search is governed by the laws of SEO. So, what is SEO and how can it help your business?

SEO explained

An ever growing process that changes often enough to keep professionals on their toes, SEO is the process of improving the position of your website and website pages as they appear in a Google search- or other search engines- organically. Ranking it in comparison to other sites and pages using similar keywords, SEO allows Google to see the relevance, news worthiness and interaction on your site as to give the best possible search results to users.

SEO takes into account a number of factors on your web page in order to build a ranking and place your site in comparison to others. The idea behind this is that the higher your rank on Google, the more traffic and click through’s you will have coming from searches, more traffic should convert to more business. In this way, visibility online increases your chances of being found by the user, which increases your business opportunities. The goal of any SEO specialist is to get their pages ranking on page one, if not position one, for all their chosen keywords. A tricky and thorough process, keywords can be difficult to navigate as many are already weighed down in high competition environments, allowing little room for newcomers to rank without a bulky budget behind them. Seeking out keywords with a balance of high search rate and low competition is ideal, although not entirely common.

Not only taking keywords into account, SEO also looks at the uniqueness of the content as well as the relevance, links between pages both internal and external, as well as the amount of new content being uploaded onto the pages. These all compound to show Google how trustworthy and relevant the information on your site is. Ideally you want links from external sites to your site, increasing your page rank a lot more than internal links would- unless, in some cases, your internal link is a much higher source of traffic. An all-important approach, keyword selection and precise SEO is key whether video, audio or a text based page.

How can it help your business?

As a business, your entire marketing effort should be to increase brand visibility in the most relevant and efficient of ways. In this modern, digital marketing world, being visible online is something that can make or break a marketing strategy- the best work in the world doesn’t matter if no one sees it. When prospective clients search for your services or products, using certain keywords they would associate with it, you as a brand want to appear as high up the list as possible- it has been said that most users won’t make it passed page one of Google search when looking for a product, but will rather alter their search terms. As it goes, the higher your rank, the more chance of someone clicking through from the search to your site, and in turn this offers more chance for business or for possible clients to gain interest in your brand.

A cost-effective marketing solution in comparison to the traditional mediums, it has been observed that customers looking for a specific item or service are way more likely to trust the top search results. Association is also a big thing on Google- often users will refine their search as they go, changing key words three or four times before reading through their chosen results. If you can rank for each or as many of their searches as possible, you are gaining mindshare. Mindshare basically means that by ranking for multiple, topically related search terms, the customer will see your site as a solid, trustworthy source of information and is much more likely to refer to it for their needs.