Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is a very popular term in today’s online world. Yet, for a catch word that is thrown around a lot, there are still many misconceptions about what SEO is – and what it is not.
Today, we’re diving into what SEO is, the basics you need to know, and why it’s so important for EVERY company.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is comprised of the tools and techniques to help your website perform better in organic search results. In short, SEO is how search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing rank your website and online presence.
And while it may have been easy to have good SEO by keyword spamming a few years back, this is no longer the case. Search engines are becoming smarter and smarter each year, and the strategies for SEO best practices are constantly evolving.
What does Search Engine Optimization Include?
There are many different aspects of SEO. Everything from internal factors like keywords and content to external factors like site-linking affect your website’s search engine optimization.
Essentially, search engines like Google want to provide the best service to their users. They do this by offering the most relevant, quality results. Your SEO is your website’s grade on being a valuable, relevant result.
In practical terms, if you have good SEO, then if I’m searching for a company like yours, Google should show your business on the first page.
So how do search engines decide which websites are relevant and valuable? There are many factors that affect SEO, including:
- Title tags
- Image alt tags
- Keyword density
- Mobile-responsiveness
- Inbound Links
- Usability
- User Experience
- Speed of loading time
- Visitor Behavior
- Content (relevance, quality, frequency, length, uniqueness)
- and more!
Needless to say, there’s a whole range of items that fall under Search Engine Optimization.
AKA – There is no quick fix to “Good SEO.”
How to Optimize Your Website’s SEO
While there may not be a “quick fix,” there are certainly many ways that you can help optimize your SEO. Before we dive into some high-level tips, there’s one thing you need to understand:
SEO is all about providing the best service and information to the visitor.
No matter which strategies you employ, each one should work to help your audience find you, and then help your visitors find the information they need about your business.
This is an important disclaimer, because Search Engine Optimization has come a long way from its spammy beginnings. No longer can you write the word “beanie babies” one hundred times on your website to rank #1 for Beanie Baby toys.
In fact, these kind of “black hat” tactics will actually hurt your SEO today.
Instead, your focus should be on how to create the best online experience for your visitors.
3 Things You Can Do TODAY To Boost Your SEO
As you probably get the gist of by now, there are many intricacies to ranking well on Google (or any search engine for that matter). For that reason, we’re going to share three easy things you can do for your business TODAY to help optimize your website:
1. Use Heading Tags
Heading tags are a simple, yet powerful way to help search engines understand what your website is about. These tags are html codes that you can add to any content on your website and assign importance to certain phrases, titles, or subheadings. You can learn more about heading tags in this blog post!
2. Validate Google My Business
Google runs SEO. We all know that if we’re not showing up on Google, then people are not finding our business. And while there are plenty of factors that go into how you show up on Google, there is one factor that you can create and control yourself: Google My Business.
3. Start a Blog
Content play a huge factor in SEO. Not just the quality and uniqueness of your content, but its frequency and timeliness as well. If you have a website that stays static and not updated for months or years at a time, then Google thinks that this information is becoming outdated and may no longer be relevant for users.
This is why it is SO important for businesses to blog. It not only plays a factor in your SEO, but it is a great opportunity to provide even more valuable information to your visitors, customers, and clients.
While this article is just a high-level overview of Search Engine Optimization, it’s one of our key specialties at Shoobie Media. If you have any questions about SEO or would like to learn more about our services, please feel free to contact us!