How Exactly Does SEO Work?
Why do you need SEO on your website for it to rank well in search engines?
SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, is an integral part of doing business in today’s internet-based world. It works by optimizing your web pages and other marketing tools by using keywords and key phrases to help them rank higher in search results. The goal is to choose keywords and phrases that consumers will type into Google when making an inquiry. Yet many companies have no idea how SEO works.
The truth is, SEO is an ever-changing process. In order to use it successfully, a business must continue to produce ongoing, high-quality content and make changes to existing content. This will allow a company to consistently rank higher on Google’s search results, along with various other search engines.
The Benefits of Proper SEO
Developing proper SEO can be a little time-consuming, even before you’ve written a lick of content. The process is sometimes tedious, but these awesome benefits make every minute worth the effort:
Brings Organic Traffic to Your Site
Organic traffic—visitors who land on your website through a search engine—is an essential component of a company’s success. The goal of drawing in organic traffic is for Google to recognize your company and website as an authority for information. The best way to make this happen is to learn how to effectively use SEO.
Cost-Efficient Lead Generation
The goal of every company is to generate leads, but this can often be a very expensive process. SEO not only provides a sort of road map to generating leads, but is also much less costly than other forms of inbound marketing such as direct mailers and cold calling. SEO also doesn’t expire like ads do, which means that it can continue to pull in customers over time.
Increases Brand Awareness
Whether your company is just starting out or has been around for many years, there’s a good chance it could use more brand awareness. If you can get to a point where people are able to recognize your brand by its name, logo, or product, then success will be almost assured. By moving up in Google’s ranking system with the use of SEO, your brand will be front and center for an audience.
Gets Ahead of the Competition
Since businesses all have the same level of access to the internet, you’re likely to experience a lot of competition. SEO is instrumental in helping you get ahead of that competition. If you can properly optimize the content that you publish during a marketing campaign or on your website, you’ll be able to rank higher in search results. This is likely to leave your competition in the dust.
Optimizes Site for Mobile Users
Tough love time: if you’re not considering mobile users as you develop your site, then you might not get very far. SEO is an essential part of this process because the majority of online searches and purchases are done on mobile devices. By optimizing your site with proper SEO, you’ll help ensure that anyone using a smartphone, tablet, or similar mobile device will have an easier time being drawn to your website.
How SEO Works – Best Practices for Proper SEO
If you concentrate on developing and utilizing effective SEO, there’s almost no limit to what your business can achieve.
Here are some of our favorite best practices that will help ensure success:
Perform Careful Keyword Research
While coming up with your own keywords is a perfectly sound idea, it’s not always very effective. This can make it difficult for Google to give your company a higher ranking than other companies. This is why you should use an online tool such as Google’s Keyword Planner to research relevant keywords to be used on your website and various marketing materials.
Avoid Keyword Stuffing at All Cost
Even if you’ve never heard of keyword stuffing, there’s a very good chance you’ve seen it. This term refers to the repeated use of a particular keyword to the point where it’s basically overkill.
The reason companies attempt to do this is because they believe that using the same keyword over and over will help them rank faster and higher. However, the opposite is true. Google and other search engines can easily identify keyword stuffing and will punish you in the rankings for it.
Add a Company Blog to Your Website
While it’s important to optimize your website with effective keywords so that Google sees you as an authority, these keywords will remain stagnant. What you need is for new keywords to cycle through your site on a regular basis to increase your chances of Google taking notice. Adding a company blog is the absolute best way to accomplish this. Each time you publish a blog with proper SEO, you’ll give Google another chance to rank you higher.
Write Unique and Relevant Content
Even if you employ the most prolific writers in the world, you can’t simply throw out a deluge of content and find SEO success. You must write content that’s both unique and relevant for your industry. Blogs and other marketing materials don’t need to sound like Shakespeare, but the content must be well-written, engaging, very light on errors, and — most importantly — created with the best keywords you can find.
Optimize Each Image on Your Site
There’s always a lot of talk about the content that’s on a company’s website, but this is often limited to the visible content. If your site uses multiple images and you’re not thinking about SEO with those as well, then you’re missing a great opportunity. Each image on your site should be optimized by using a keyword or two within the alt text description. You should also use a filename that describes the image.
Contact P3 Agency to Learn More About How SEO Works
The marketing team at P3 Agency are experts in how SEO works. Our team is a leading force in digital marketing and web design in Clearwater and the surrounding communities. If you have any questions about our services or would like to receive a free, no-obligation marketing analysis of your business, give us a call at (727) 474 9064 today.