“Someone told me I needed search engine optimization for my website if I wanted prospective customers to find my business online. Is this true and what does it mean?”
Kudos to you for asking the question BEFORE you jump in with both feet and a large investment. Unfortunately, we have too many business owners ask this question after they have invested their limited funds and weren’t happy with the results. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a continually evolving science as people search differently and search engines work to bring the very best results for the end users.
Because of these ongoing changes, an amazing amount of misinformation exists around SEO. This leaves business owners like you trying to discern what information is accurate and which providers to trust. The following information will help provide a firm, accurate foundation of what to consider when implementing an SEO strategy.
Important SEO Questions You Should be Asking
1. What Really is SEO?
According to wikipedia.org, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or un-paid (“organic”) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked), and more frequently a site appears in the search engine results, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users.
There are more than 200 factors that search engines use in their algorithms to rank websites, and they give the most weight to organic characteristics such as content (web copy, videos, images, social media etc.) versus inorganic characteristics such as pay per click (paying per click to be placed on the first page of Google). Both organic and inorganic SEO are important.
2. Is Content Important to SEO?
Absolutely! Quality content (web copy, white papers, videos, infographics etc.) is the purest form of SEO. Search engines give relevance to high quality content that meets the searcher’s needs. You may hear terms such as content marketing, internet marketing, or inbound marketing. These are all terms used to describe using conten in such as way that you can turn strangers into people who want to do business with you.
3. How Important is Social Media to SEO?
Social search, coined from the intersection of SEO and social media, is extremely important. In social search, content is prioritized if it’s connected to you, such as through a Facebook connection for example. Search engines are giving significant priority to searches that are initiated through your social channels, thus incorporating social media into an SEO strategy is extremely important.
4. Do Online Directories Help SEO?
Directories (often called listings) work like the old yellow page listings in the phone book. When a visitor searches on-line, if your business is in a directory, the searcher may first find your business in that directory. There are hundreds of directories, some of which are industry-specific, and others generic, like Yelp for instance. There is benefit to having your business listed in directories with optimized information. Many directories allow you to run special campaigns that help promote your business.
5. How Many Pages Do I Need on My Website to Achieve Good SEO?
More is not always better! Understand that everything that you publish does not get indexed, and sometimes pages get indexed, but don’t remain in the index, and finally just because you have pages indexed don’t mean they will drive qualified traffic and leads. The focus should be to publish what is most relevant to your visitors!
6. How Important is an Encrypted Website for SEO?
As part of the 200+ algorithm factors that Google evaluates for search engine relevance, an encrypted website is a consideration. However, the investment in an encrypted website shouldn’t be based upon obtaining SEO. It should be based upon the security needs of the business and visitor first. For example, it makes perfect sense for a bank to have an encrypted website, but it doesn’t for a restaurant.
In summary, SEO is not a quick fix or a one size fits all approach. Just as every type of business is different, so is the best SEO strategy. A solid internet marketing strategy that focuses on how search engines work, how people search, and the actual search terms typed into the search engines is the one that will achieve long-term, sustainable results.
The strategy starts with research of the personas (your ideal target audience) along with the keywords and phrases they use when searching for your service or product. Research results will dictate the most effective SEO strategy which could include social media, videos, website enhancement, or pay per click (PPC). Just remember if you jump into any strategy without the research, you are guaranteed to be less than satisfied with the results!
Remember this: SEO is about the searcher experience and that begins the moment they enter a search query. The better their experience with you – experience includes your SERP listing, your social channels, the quality and relevancy of the content on your website, the ease with which users can move through your site, offsite directory listings, and more – the better your overall search engine optimization will be, too.
What has been your best SEO strategy?
