Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be an imperative part of your business structure and website. We investigate what SEO is and why it is important for your small, medium, or large business.
It’s no surprise that countless businesses fail in the first year of operation. This can be caused by a lot of aspects, however many times it’s caused by the lack of SEO and website visibility. Particularly if you are an online business, SEO can mean the difference between failure and success.
Understandably for most business owners, SEO is not their expertise. Building and launching a website is the easy part. The hard part is getting seen on search engines, and ensuring you are ranking when people search for your product or service – cue the keywords and creative content!
What Is The Purpose Of SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s all about getting seen on search engines and allowing users to visit your website that will convert them into customers. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps the business meet its online marketing goals and objectives. It can help generate leads, convert sales, and build brand awareness.
Search engines use bots to crawl through websites and collect information to index them accordingly. This allows the public to easily search for what they are looking for. These bots will determine the websites that can offer them the best information in regard to the search terms, and rank them accordingly – from number one onwards.
This is different from paid ads, organic SEO will allow the bots to find you, and rank your website listing. This can include the quality of content on your website and its optimization and the keyword search.
If your website is not optimized for SEO, the chances of the big search engines finding your products or service, and organically ranking you will fail. If you notice that your business is not showing up in search engines, or your friends and family cannot find your website unless they type in the exact URL or company name it’s a clear indication – you need SEO.
One Size DOES NOT FIT ALL
When it comes to SEO, a customized approach is always best. Digital marketing offers a huge number of opportunities online, however not all businesses are the same. Or are at the same stage of their business growth. SEO for a small business, compared to a medium and large will differ. So, what is perfect for one website, may not work for another.
Getting a clear goal of what you want to achieve is important. Having a set goal can allow you to set a realistic budget and protect your precious time. Before you enroll in an SEO course or consider pulling in an expert ask yourself the following:
- What are my goals?
- Do I want to support my existing clients?
- Do I want to grow my current business?
- Or is it both?
Good quality SEO can provide your business with sales conversions and visibility online. It can also drive traffic to your website and gain customers that are looking to purchase your service or products.
What Else Helps Your SEO?
It’s not just all about keywords and ensuring your website is correctly optimized. It’s also about generating organic links to your website through great content. When you can produce high-quality content, you can provide additional links to other great websites…and more importantly vice versa.
Having a link (commonly known as a backlink) from another high-ranking website to your own can help drive organic traffic and boost your search engine ranking. Blogging and developing other forms of creative content can help with your SEO. This can also include podcasts and videos.
Advanced SEO will allow you to have a fun and educational voice in your industry, that can drive traffic, build brand awareness, and increase sales. Becoming the educational and authorities voice in your field of expertise.
The key with podcasts and blogging content is to choose your topic carefully. The topic needs to align with your strategy and goals and ensure they are in line with your expertise. Research the trending topics and what people are searching for regarding your services and products – there is no point in creating content that nobody wants to read or listen to.
Final Thoughts
There are many websites that offer the current trending searches that can help you map and build your blog/podcast content around. Being interesting, and offering solutions and advice is key.
With the correct SEO plan of action, you can achieve success, build your brand and more importantly gain customers and repeat sales.
