We understand that marketing jargon can sometimes go over people’s heads if they don’t have to deal with it firsthand. We realize that SEO, or search engine optimization, might be one that many don’t understand. SEO should be a household name if you have a business that dabbles in online content. If you haven’t heard of it, then there is plenty for you to learn.
SEO is a complicated marketing tool that we recommend doing more research on than just this blog. If you are wanting to find more in-depth articles on how to utilize SEO, we will list those at the bottom of the article. At Elemental Plans, we handle this complex element of digital marketing for you.
Let’s first dive into the definition of Search Engine Optimization. According to multiple sources, SEO is the overall process of helping a website or snippet of content rank higher on a search engine, like Google.
You may be asking yourself; don’t I already pay for ads that are supposed to bring in traffic? Paid ads are quite different from SEO. Search engine optimization is “organic” ranking. You are not paying to be listed higher up. It is all about word choice in your content, which we will get into next.
When researching SEO, you will come across the term “keywords” a lot. Keywords are the words that best identify your business. Keyword research is determining what words are being searched and how much traffic utilizing those words in content can bring in. There are many factors to take into consideration when determining your specific keywords. Those may include:
Competition - If you are in an industry that has a heavy hitter, the more niche you can get, the better. Those larger companies will have drained every drop from any general keywords in that industry. It’s best to drill down more.
What your potential customers are searching for - They are the ones buying it, so they’re the ones searching for it in the first place. What are they typing into Google when they are looking for information? Those are the keywords you want to use.
How much that certain keyword is being searched - You may have an impressive list of keywords, but they may not be getting searched enough to even be worth using. Make sure to use words that are actually being searched regularly.
Determining your keywords is one of the very first steps you can take as a business owner in utilizing SEO. It is also one of the easiest for you to do because no one knows your business better than you.
There are multiple ways to implement SEO to help your website rank higher on searches. The easiest one to get a handle on is on-page SEO. On-page SEO is all about creating content on your website to rank higher. You can do this by:
- Making sure you are including your keywords,
- Creating unique content and being consistent with it,
- Utilizing metatags and titles.
If you feel like you can’t create unique and engaging content on a regular basis, many business owners will outsource to find experts. At Elemental Plans, we help all our clients optimize their SEO by either redesigning their websites or adding consistent content such as blogs. We will even create a website from scratch for you. All in hopes of getting you ranked higher on Google and other search engines.
Another fantastic way to rank higher is by link building. If someone finds your article interesting, they will create a link to it on their website. It’s almost like a vote of credibility. Google sees that and determines that people are vouching for your article, thus ranking you potentially higher because of it.
We now understand some of the fundamentals of SEO and what search engine optimization is, but why is it important? It is important for traffic purposes to be listed high on Google because most people are only interested in clicking on the first page of links that they get. Most searchers won’t click on the next page.
That is why it’s important to do extensive keyword searches to make sure you are utilizing any keywords out there that could benefit your business. This is an ongoing process and one we recommend doing quite often.
If after all of this, you would still like to do a little more research on SEO and how to actually utilize it as a business owner, here are a few articles we recommend that will scratch the surface a little more than we have here.
Sources-
Ahrefs Blog, “SEO Basics: Beginner’s Guide to SEO Success”, Joshua Hardwick, March 30, 2021, https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-basics/#how-to-do-seo, Accessed August 10, 2022
Neil Patel, “What is SEO? Your Complete Step-By-Step Guide,” Neil Patel, https://neilpatel.com/blog/simple-guide-to-seo/, Accessed August 10, 2022
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