Search Engine Optimization: All You Need To Know

If you own a business and still don’t know what search engine optimization is, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

 

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO means making your website fit (optimized) for search engines like google, thereby increasing your ranking on the search engine results page (SERP) and in effect multiplying your chances of showing your business to your target customers.

Now you’re traveling to a new city and would love to visit all the cool places. The best restaurants, museums, monuments, landscapes etc. You don’t know anything about the city and you’re certainly not going to waste your money and time trying to find the best places. So instead you ask the tour guide who knows the city inside out. He knows the good and bad places and will save you time and money.

Why Is Search Engine Optimization Important

The end goal of search engines is to give its users what they need in the shortest time possible. To show users the best locations (websites) on the internet.

How can you benefit from Search Engine Optimization?

You might already be sensing the benefits of search engine optimization.

Some benefits include

• Drive more traffic to your website
• Increase brand awareness (more people will know about your business)
• Generate leads (you can channel more people into your sales funnel)
• More sales

Let me tell you a secret. About 75% of users don’t go beyond the first page of google search.

That means the millions of results after the first page are mostly irrelevant.

What’s the point in having a website when it will only be a liability?

You spend on a domain name, hosting, website management, writing content and yet nobody sees your website.

I’m sure nobody wants that.

How is Search Engine Optimization done

Experts say there are “4 types of SEO”.

1. On-Page SEO

This involves what you do on your website to make it favoured by search engines.

Things like 

• writing content that gives your target audience what they need
• using keywords in your content, especially in headings and subheadings
• ensuring that people who visit your website have a good user experience
• Using internal links from one page of your website to another
• restructuring URLs

2. Off-Page SEO

The main thing here is getting external links to your website.

The more other high quality websites link to yours, the greater your chances of ranking high on search results.

External links are like a referral. A vote of confidence.

3. Technical SEO

This part deals with some technicalities like writing a code that tells search engines how to navigate your website.

Here you also ensure there are no duplicate pages, broken links or missing pages showing error codes on your website.

Another key thing is increasing your site speed. If your website takes too long to load, users won’t waste time on it. Search engines hate slow websites.

As a customer, which restaurant would you prefer? One that brings your order instantly or one that takes a lifetime to deliver?

4. Local SEO

If you own a physical store and/or operate in a particular geographical area, you’d benefit greatly from local SEO.

Here you optimize your website (and by extension your business) for people searching nearby.

You become more visible to those in your area who need your products or services.

You can do this by 

• setting up a Google My Business Page and getting customer reviews. 
• Listing your business in online directories.
• Adding maps (location) to your website
• Using keywords of your geographical area when writing your website content.

How long does it take to get results with Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is a marathon, not a sprint. How long it takes to get results will depend on the current state of your business and your online presence, the results you want and how much resources you’re willing to invest.

That might sound like a long time, but when you weigh the long-term benefits of SEO, you’d see that it is a lethal weapon in your marketing arsenal. The results compound over time. It doesn’t depreciate as long as you keep at it.

How much does effective SEO cost

This also depends on where your business currently is and what results you aim to achieve.

If your online presence is good you’d spend less. But if you want to start from scratch, and perhaps don’t even have a website it’s going to cost more. How much money you spend also depends on whether you’re just looking to improve brand awareness or make more sales.

What are the downsides of Search Engine Optimization

There are no real downsides, unless you use black hat SEO techniques that get you penalized by search engines. Perhaps you might count taking 3 months to get results as a downside. But when you look at the long-term benefits of attracting new customers, a few months isn’t something to worry about.

How can you start using SEO to advance your business

If you have the time and energy, and if you believe you can learn the intricacies of SEO, check out Hubspot’s free SEO course. It is value-packed and had all you need to start using SEO to grow your business. But if you’re occupied and have money to pay SEO experts to handle it for you, book a free consultation call let’s help you.

Conclusion – Search engine optimization is vital for modern business success

The world has changed. More business is done online. You need to position your business as the go-to-guy in your industry/market using search engine optimization if you want to grow.

Frequently Asked Questions about SEO

 

Yes you can. Just dedicate some time and effort to learning the basics using free resources like

• Hubspot’s free SEO course
• Semrush Academy
• Udemy SEO
• Coursera SEO

Can I learn SEO without coding

Most of the work done by SEO specialists does not involve coding. Also, there are no-code tools that can handle that technical SEO for you.

What does an SEO Specialist do

First we perform a website audit to know your current state online. Then we carry out a competitor analysis to know what we’re up against in the fight to enable you rank higher.

After that we come up with a strategy and then execute it while analyzing for the effectiveness.

Can I do SEO for free

There are tools used for SEO and the most effective ones are not free.

So you might have to spend if you want to carry out an effective SEO campaign.

Nevertheless, there are many free tools out there.