What is SEO & How Can It Benefit Your Business?

Content Marketing

Whenever a business owner is looking to ramp up their digital marketing efforts, one of their first questions is, “What is SEO and how does it work?” It’s one of those things that most business owners know they need, but they’re not actually 100% sure what it is and how it works.

So, what do you say we take out the jargon and not make this too complicated?

What Is SEO & How Does It Work?

First off, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and basically, it helps your website show up, or rank higher in search results, whether that’s Google Search Results or another search engine such as Bing.

Let’s say you sell kitchen faucets in Birmingham, AL. If you Google “kitchen faucets in Birmingham AL,” Google is going to show you a bunch of websites of businesses that sell kitchen faucets in and around that area.

Don’t you want this user to go to YOUR website and not your competitor’s? Of course! They’re a prime lead looking for exactly what your business sells!

But in order for them to go to YOUR website, Google must display your website in the search results; otherwise, the user may never even know your company exists and/or offers what they’re currently searching for online.

Note: The higher your website is in the search results, the more likely someone is to go to YOUR website. Users rarely make it over to the second page of search results.

How Do You Get Google To Display Your Website When A User Searches For A Product Or Service You Offer?

You must inform Google on what your website is all about!

Google learns what your site is about by crawling your website, and this simply means it looks around your website, reads your content and so on. Of course, there are certain elements it looks at more closely, such as the URL, metadata and headers, and these are some of the most important elements of on-site SEO.

If your site is about “kitchen faucets in Birmingham, AL,” then you need to include this phrase on your website. This way, Google knows to show your website when someone searches for it in Google.

Note: Be sure to do your keyword research so you know what your potential customers are searching for online. Don’t just guess – because you’ll probably be wrong!

Now keep in mind, Google’s pretty smart.

It understands semantic relationships between words; for instance, it knows that vehicle could also mean the same thing as automobile, car or truck. For this reason, inserting the exact same keywords over and over on your website is not necessary, and really, it should come naturally.

Though keywords are important, Google wants to show sites that ultimately help its users.

This is why your website must provide good, quality information. Any good SEO Specialist knows that anyone can insert keywords on a website and increase rankings to a certain degree (remember, rankings are how high up you show on the Google Search Results Page,) but in order to jump above your competition, you must provide helpful information to your visitors.

This is why you must ask yourself why users are coming to your site in the first place. What problem are they having? Help them solve that problem! Google will notice your website visitors staying and engaging with your site.

And you know what? It’ll rank your site higher because of it!

Is This The Full Scope On SEO? Not In The Least!

There are plenty of other off-site ranking factors that can contribute to whether or not your site shows up as the first listing on the first search results page, or the last listing on the second page that might as well be lost in space.

This is only the beginning to show you in plain terms what SEO is, and why it matters when it comes to getting found by your potential customers online. In fact, Springboard released an infographic about the State of SEO in 2021, check it out below!

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Interested In Developing An SEO Strategy?

As we said, this is just the beginning! Interested in developing a strategy for your business that will leverage the potential of SEO? Contact us today for a free consultation.

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