SEO in Marketing Your Business
Have you ever heard of SEO? Perhaps you know that SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization,” but do you understand how important it is for marketing your business?
Assume you require a good or service. How would you act? Did you do a Google search for it? Then, Google throws out a page of relevant search results so you can decide which one to choose and continue with your purchase.
Using SEO, you may ensure that your business website appears on the search results page. And making sure that potential clients can discover you is crucial.
While the process can occasionally be complicated and expensive, some businesses are devoted to SEO. But don’t worry! There are various “do-it-yourself” methods for improving the search results ranking of your website.
How Does SEO Works?
Bots are used by search engines like Google and Bing to crawl online pages by moving between websites, gathering data about them, and indexing them. Imagine the index as an extensive library where a librarian can bring up a specific book (or web page) to assist you in finding it at present.
The order in which pages appear in the search results for a particular query is determined by algorithms that examine sites in the index while accounting for hundreds of ranking criteria or signals. In the library analogy, the librarian has read every single book and can pinpoint which one provides solutions to your problems.
The search algorithms are made to surface authoritative, relevant pages and offer users an efficient search experience. Your pages may rank higher in search results if you optimize your site and content with these factors in mind.
What Makes SEO Important for Marketing?
Since people do trillions of searches annually, many of which are done with a commercial intent to learn more about products or services, SEO is an essential component of digital marketing. The primary source of internet traffic for brands is frequent searches, which supports other marketing channels. Your bottom line may be impacted significantly by increased visibility and a higher ranking in search results than your competitors.
Nonetheless, during the past few years, search results have evolved to provide users with more immediate responses and information that is more likely to retain them on the results page rather than sending them to other websites.
Also, remember that search engine features like Knowledge Panels and Rich Results can improve visibility and give users more details about your company right in the results.
In conclusion, SEO serves as the foundation of a holistic marketing ecosystem. When you know what your website users desire, you can utilize that information to improve your campaigns (paid and organic), website, social media presence, and more.
How Do Search Results Work?
Paid and “organic” search results are included on Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). However, Google does not get any money from the “organic” results. Instead, Google presents organic results based on its assessment of the quality and relevance of a site. Google will also show various components on the SERP, such as maps, photos, or videos, based on the type of search query.
Depending on what consumers have searched, there may be a lot of advertisements on a SERP. For instance, if you searched for “shoes,” you would probably notice that many of the top results were advertisements. In reality, the first organic result is likely to be further down the page than you expect.
Due to the possibility that the searcher is trying to purchase shoes online and the abundance of shoe manufacturers ready to pay for a place in the AdWords results for this query, a query like this typically generates multiple ads.
On the other hand, you will get different results if you search for something like “Los Angeles Lakers.” The top results are related to the topic because the professional American basketball team with that name is highly associated with this search. But the query is still not very clear. You may see their homepage, knowledge graph, and recent news. These three types of results at the top show that Google doesn’t know what you were looking for exactly, but it still offers quick links to find out more about the team, read their most recent news, or visit their website.
There are no AdWords results since there doesn’t seem to be any purchase intent behind the query, discouraging advertisers from bidding. But if you switch your search to “Los Angeles Lakers jersey,” which signals to Google you could be shopping, the SERP results change and include more sponsored results.
What Factors Determine Whether SEO is Good or Bad?
You must understand the ranking factors used by search engine algorithms before using SEO. Although there are more than 200 ranking variables, they can be divided into two categories: On-page and Off-page.
On-page SEO
The focus of on-page SEO is your website. You have total control over it. For instance, you choose the page titles, navigation bar layout, and content. Additionally, you’ll require the assistance of a copywriter, developer, and marketer if you want to optimize your on-page SEO accurately.
Off-page SEO
Your online presence is the main focus of off-page SEO. You have no control over it. For example, you cannot force someone to promote your content or link to your website. Instead, you should produce content that others will want to share or link to, which often requires outreach to raise awareness of your content.
Various optimization strategies are used to optimize for both on- and off-page ranking factors. Understanding the two sorts of tactics—white hat and black hat—is essential before you change your first title tag or draft your first outreach email.
White-hat SEO
White-hat SEO employs respected and trusted optimization strategies. Because they don’t aim to deceive search engines or take advantage of gaps in their algorithms, search engines prefer to see these kinds of methods.
Some instances of white-hat SEO strategies are:
- Including accurate and relevant alt text in an image
- Fixing 404 error
- Developing informative yet optimized page titles
Black-hat SEO
Black-hat SEO utilizes unapproved and deceptive optimization techniques. Search engines punish these tactics because they mislead search results and degrade the user experience. Black-hat SEO strategies were once common, but today’s frequent algorithm updates make them rarely effective.
Here are a few instances of black-hat SEO strategies:
- Adding a lot of keywords to pages
- Purchasing links
- Creating 301 redirect chains
White-hat SEO should be used to improve your off- and on-page factors for the best SEO results.
How Do You Improve SEO?
Check out a few things you may take to enhance the SEO of your business website significantly.
Audit Your Business Website
Before you can figure out how to make improvements, you must first understand how your website is performing in terms of SEO. To keep tabs on your progress through time and maintain your website ranking high in search results, you should scan your site with an SEO tool regularly.
The following are among the most crucial factors you should consider:
- Speed – Does your website load fast, or do users have to wait as the page loads slowly?
- Mobile-friendliness – Does your website work and look good on mobile platforms? The majority of individuals browse the internet on mobile devices.
- Broken links and error pages – Don’t you find the infamous “404 error” page annoying when you click a link? Both your customers and search engines agree.
- Security – Is your website secure? Are you using an SSL certificate that is valid from your domain provider?
- Page titles – Does each webpage have a clear and concise title? Do any titles have duplicates that might be “competing” with one another in search results?
- Keyword optimization – The words you want to appear for when a user types them into a search engine are known as keywords. You must build your material around these phrases or words. They should be visible across your website but most prominently displayed in:
- Meta descriptions and alt tags (image descriptions)
- Page titles
- Headings
Although by no means exhaustive, this list contains some of the most critical elements you should consider when performing an SEO audit on your website.
Optimize Webpages
After finishing your audit, you should start working on boosting the search rankings of your most crucial web pages. These keywords are utilized in this phase of SEO. As was stated before, you should ensure they are present in several valuable areas of your website.
It takes more than just organizing, cleaning, and tagging the information on your website to optimize it. Content creation should be a significant component of your SEO strategy. You’re more likely to do well in search results if you constantly update your site with fresh, high-quality content (blog posts, videos, client testimonials, etc.).
Gain More Popularity Through Backlinks
A backlink is a link that leads to your website from another website. To determine the value and reliability of your material, Google and other search engines like to have a lot of backlinks pointing to your website. Your chance of ranking better in search results increases with the number of trustworthy websites linking back to yours.
The best way to acquire a lot of backlinks is to provide high-quality material that website visitors want to share or use as a source on their pages.
Guest posting on a reputable blog is a more effortless and efficient strategy to gain backlinks. The blog owner will probably provide you with one or more backlinks from their website in return for a well-thought-out blog article.
Here are some various ways to effectively grow your backlinks:
- Linking your websites to your business site.
- Make sure that the listings for your business on several listing and review websites, such as Google Business Profile, contain accurate information.
- Request press coverage of your business so it can include a link to your website.
- Ensure to encourage others to share your website and information on social media.
Take Your Business To The Next Level!
Advantage Attorney Marketing is a marketing firm in Upland, California providing attorney marketing and legal technology solutions that work. With more than 20 years of experience in the US legal sector, we’ve created our marketing management system for small law firms that will strengthen your brand, connect with your target market, increase leads, produce a higher ROI, and free up your time, so you can focus on what you love instead of worrying about your legal practice.
If you are still confused about what SEO stands for in marketing, contact our marketing firm today to schedule a free 30-minute evaluation.
