People browse the internet every day and search for services or products. According to experts at First Page, 65% of the people globally have access to the internet. Meanwhile, 54% of B2C and B2B website traffic often comes from local or organic searches.
Do you know what this means?
Half of your site traffic can come from Google or other search engines, such as Bing. This is why you must consider optimizing your site for search engines so you can get this traffic.
Regardless of that, only 32% of business owners have SEO strategies put in place. Many business owners and entrepreneurs who have given it a try find it time-consuming.
But the truth is that SEO (search engine optimization) is not as complex as some think. Once you familiarize yourself with the basics, you will know that SEO is all about using the best practices, which gives visitors and search engines a better chance to find your business’s website.
What SEO Is
SEO or search engine optimization refers to optimizing websites to improve ranking in SERPs and gain more non-paid (organic) traffic.
The SEO history dates back to the 90s when Google and other search engines emerged. Today, SEO is an important strategy for marketing and the ever-evolving industry.
Mainly, SEO focuses on organic search and doesn’t include pay-per-click optimization. Both PPC and SEO are part of SEM (Search Engine Marketing).
SEO Aspects
There are two major aspects of SEO, which work in synergy. These aspects include off-site SEO and on-site SEO.
Off-site SEO includes a set of planned activities, which SEO expert carries out so as to improve traffic and rankings. This SEO aspect has several components, but backlinks are the most common.
Search engines, such as Google, have laid out the best practices for on-site SEO. Like off-site, on-site also has a few components, including content, UX, and internal links. Your content must be comprehensive, original, and give value to readers. It must also be structured for readers to read it easily. And to improve navigation to different parts of your site, you must include internal links.
Why SEO Matters
SEO is an amazing way of getting more traffic, customers, revenue, and leads to business. As a matter of fact, 82% of every Google searcher clicks on organic search results. This means an 18% opt to click on ads.
In other words, expect about 5x traffic by ranking in SERPs than when you pay for ads. And if SEO strategies are done right, the search results will add up faster.
For instance, businesses like Amazon get more than 380M organic visitors monthly from Google. This isn’t bad at all. But it’s getting better and better.
Unlike traffic that paid ads bring, organic visitors will come in whether or not your business actively runs ads. In order to be clear on this, SEO will always be an ongoing procedure, which takes work and decision. However, once your website ranks for keywords, your ranking will remain stable for some time.
The bottom line is that SEO is helpful to business owners and entrepreneurs alike. Some of the benefits SEO can offer you may include the following:
- Ensuring your business brand remains visible when potential clients search on a search engine like Google.
- Giving you a competitive edge.
- Resulting in increased revenue.
- Driving traffic to your site from individuals interested in your services or products.
Effective SEO Strategies
As a business and website owner, don’t neglect your SEO practices. Apart from the basics, you should begin using advanced practices right now. Optimizing your website well to improve ranking in the search engine result pages means getting higher revenue, more conversions, and more traffic.
Since last year, around 93% of all website traffic has come from search engines. Although other search engine result pages exist, their significance pales in comparison. This is why it is best to use SEO strategies like the following to rank higher on Google:
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Optimize Content
After setting up your GBP, optimize all the pages on your website around one keyword. If you are just starting out, this one keyword must be a long-tail search term. Long-tail keywords don’t get a lot of search volume but are less competitive.
Whether or not you use long-tail keywords, optimizing your website pages for Google remains the same. Other ways to optimize your content are by writing enticing Meta descriptions and making your website work with all mobile devices.
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Claim Your GBP
Google Business Profile (GBP) is a public listing or profile which appears in all the relevant search results. Perhaps, you have seen GBP when finding directions to specific locations, searching for places to eat, and searching for business brands.
Creating or claiming your GBP listing will enable you to provide Google with immediate and helpful information about your business. It is easy and fast to claim a GBP account. After creating a profile, optimize the account by adding the below details:
- Relevant categories, such as ‘restaurant
- Website URL
- Operating hours
- NAP (name, address, and phone number)
- Pictures
- A brief description of your business
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Link Building
Google often uses links so as to find your site and all its content. Without links, it will be difficult for robots to notice your website. Plus, your website may not be indexed quickly.
If your site has already been indexed, you may link to new content from pages, which have been indexed. This is what experts regard as internal linking. But if other websites link to your site or even the other way around, this is called external linking.
Will SEO Still be Relevant this Year?
Search engine optimization will never stop being relevant, even in the future. In fact, it is going to be more important in 2023 and for the next ten years or beyond. This is because businesses and people don’t have a lot of money to use on their advertising strategies. So the only affordable and viable option for them is SEO.
