What is SEO?
You may have heard of SEO before, but it sometimes feels like web jargon that’s easier to ignore. But, ignore it at your peril - SEO is key to guiding people to your website.
So, what is SEO and why do I need it?
Search Engine Optimization, (we’ll stick with the shorter SEO), is a process dedicated to guiding users to your site organically (e.g. without ads) on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. A good SEO strategy is important to improve the quality and quantity of user traffic to your website.
Remember the last time you wanted to learn or buy something online? Your first instinct is probably to head to Google. Once you’ve got your search results, how often do you click an advertisement or head beyond the first page of results? Almost never; and you’re not alone, the first page of search results earns over 95% of clicks!
The purpose of SEO is to make sure your website appears in the top search engine results when potential customers search for you.
How does it actually work?
Search engines, like Google, use “crawlers” to gather information from all over the internet. The crawler starts from a web page and follows internal links to pages within that site as well as external links to pages on other sites. The content and links on those pages help the crawler understand what each page is about. This information is then stored within the search engine’s database – normally called an index.
When someone types a query into the search box, the search engine pulls from the index what it believes to be the most accurate and useful list of results for that query. These organic results can include web pages full of text, news articles, images, videos, local business listings, and other content.
The aim of SEO is to optimise your site as the top answer that appears on Google when potential customers are on the hunt for information or products. There’s a whole range of strategies that can be implemented to do this, but a good SEO strategy always covers the following skills and practices:
Technical requirements to ensure your site can be found online
Deep understanding of your target customer
Content creation and development
Optimising content for keyword phrases and themes
How to make SEO work for you
Getting more people on your site doesn't mean much if those visitors aren't relevant to your business. For SEO to work for you, you need to guide the right customers to your site and make sure your business is providing the answer they’re searching for.
Your site shouldn't show up on Google for people searching for unrelated topics. You want to spend your time and money attracting people most likely to become customers; it's efficient, smart, and just good business. A strong SEO strategy is tailored to your business goals, builds trust in your brand, and supports almost every other aspect of marketing.
SEO isn’t a one-time thing. It's an ongoing process that supports your site for the duration of its existence. It's as unique to your own business as your mission statement or your quarterly goals and deserves the same level of care and consideration if you want it to be effective and worthwhile.
So what’s next?
It isn't impossible to learn SEO and implement it yourself, but if you choose this route, be aware that it requires a huge amount of time and self-training to implement it, keep up with industry trends and changes, and measure the success of your efforts.
At Finch Design Co, we will optimise your website for search engines whether it’s your first time with SEO or you’re looking to improve your current SEO strategy. We can help you! Get in touch to find out how we can optimise your website with a custom SEO plan.
