Post No. 05

What is SEO? (And Why You Need It!)

Super Easy Opportunity? Some Extra Option? Stinky Egg Omelette?

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. Ultimately, it is the process of getting your website to show up at the top of search engine results for key terms related to your business. Good SEO makes it easy for potential customers to find you.

There are two types of SEO: local and organic.

Local SEO relates to the geographic location of the user. If you own a business with a physical location, this is important. Strengthening local SEO ensures that users searching in your location will see your business before they see your competitors’.

Organic SEO isn’t associated with a specific location. This is important for businesses that don’t have a physical location, such as online stores or even blogs.

Why You Need It
You need an SEO strategy because it is a huge factor in clients finding you. We search for everything on Google, from restaurants to candles to dog toys. And we rarely go past the first page. There’s a lot of competition. You can’t afford to not be at the top. You already know your product or service is amazing, but you have to prove that to search engines. And then search engines will prove it to users.

Ok, you convinced me. Now what?
There are a lot elements to building your search engine optimization. We’ll just name some of the major ones to get you started.

Keywords: If you do nothing else, do this! Research the words that your audience searches for most. The more research you do, the better you will reach your audience and show up in their searches. Then use those words throughout your content. Be sure to avoid keyword stuffing by incorporating your keywords into your content and not just listing keywords.

Quality Content: Creating helpful, quality content will boost your SEO and engage users. Consider adding a blog or additional content pages to your site. The important word here is quality; make sure your content is well-written and original.

Citations: Listing your company’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on credible, online directories will increase your SEO. Pay extra attention to list each submission consistently. Don’t use “Bob’s Bakery” some places and “Bob’s Bakery Co.” other places. (Citations are especially crucial for local SEO!)

Titles and Tags: Use keywords in the title tags, alt text, and meta descriptions of each page. This can seem time consuming at first. It’s much easier if you stay on top of it each time you post something new.

Links: Your SEO will strengthen if other authoritative sites link back to you. A great way to increase inbound links is by guest blogging. Find high-traffic sites that have similar audiences and request to guest blog for them. Your quality content will engage their readers and lead them to your site.

We can help!
If you’re overwhelmed, that’s OK. We’d love to make your life easy and handle SEO for you! If you’ve got SEO covered but need some help creating quality content, we can help with that too. Contact us – we can’t wait to hear from you!