What is SEO and Why is it Important for Your Business?
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It’s a practice aimed at increasing quality, organic web traffic to your website. This works by ranking your website’s content on the first page of search engines like Google.
In fact, 75% of all web traffic comes from Google. Yahoo, Bing! And the remaining search engines split the rest.
Why Is SEO Important for your Business?
In the online business space, you can acquire leads and customers through two major ways: paid advertising and organic traffic. Paid advertising means buying ad space on Google and Facebook, paying for sponsored content on renowned websites, or hiring influencers.
Paid advertising is expensive, though. According to research firms, the average small business spends at least $100,000 per year on paid advertising. Now, enter SEO. Search Engine Optimization majors in getting your website free traffic from Google, Yahoo, and Bing!
Here’s why it’s important:
- SEO Gets you quality traffic continuously
- SEO attracts more traffic than PPC ads and social media
- SEO provides better ROI than paid advertising
- Good SEO improves user experience
- SEO Leads to long-term success
How Does SEO Work?
SEO is all about pleasing search engines so that they can rank your website and its content above your competitors’ sites. In turn, this attracts quality traffic, which leads to increased visibility for your business and soaring profits.
Let’s say you run a website that teaches people how to prepare vegan meals. You want to rank for the keyword “Vegan Tacos.”
Search engines will look at more than 100 metrics before they can rank the keyword. These metrics are grouped into two
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO describes the practice of optimizing the different aspects of your website so that it can rank higher on search engines. These are things you can control: Site speed, quality content, keyword optimization, and internal link building.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO refers to the process of building your website’s authority in the eyes of search engines. For many, this means getting external links that point to your website from quality websites in your niche.
However, it involves more than acquiring backlinks. It also involves domain authority—Google favors sites with a higher Domain Authority. Off-page SEO also deals with brand mentions and shares.
White Hat vs Black Hat SEO
SEO takes time to implement. In fact, many businesses don’t see results for their SEO practices until after three months to a year. Due to that, some people get tempted to try out black hat SEO in the hopes of getting quick results.
Black hat SEO involves publishing plagiarized content, keyword stuffing, and paying for links from low-quality sites.
By comparison, white hat SEO is about optimizing your website the right way. It’s about following the recommended practices to avoid a ban from search engines and build a good reputation for your business.
Need SEO Help?
SEO is a technical skill. It’s time-consuming and confusing. But it’s essential. Talk to us for all your On-page and Off-page SEO needs. Let us optimize your website for better search engine ranking. In turn, you can dedicate all your time and efforts to your core business.
