Many business owners often find that marketing and advertising professionals speak a language that’s all their own. They often pepper their conversation with abbreviations foreign to those who aren’t part of the industry. One very common abbreviation used in the marketing industry is SEO. SEO, an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization, is the process of getting traffic to your website via a search engine such as Google, YouTube, and Microsoft Bing.
We’re going to answer six questions business owners commonly ask about SEO.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves techniques that help your website become more visible in the organic search results when someone does a search for your product, service, or topic. The word optimization is the important part because that involves improving your website’s rankings in the nonpaid section or organic search results. Your ranking in the search is crucial because you’ve got lots of competition. You want to be one of the top results of a search.
A marketing expert experienced in search engine marketing works to build the online presence and authority of their clients so that their business is recognized by search engines like Google.
A keyword is simply a word you use on your website so a search engine such as Google can find your website and recognize you as an authority on the particular subject. For example, if you own a bakery in Jacksonville, Florida, you would use SEO keywords such as “Jacksonville bakery” or “Jacksonville cakes”. It will help someone searching for “bakery near me” or “best cakes in Jacksonville” to find you in their search results.
To optimize your search results an experienced web designer should create SEO keywords and keyword phrases and incorporate those into the content on your website or blog. These keywords should be words that highlight your business as an authority in your field.
Use the SEO keywords several times, but don’t be excessive. Avoid just getting all the keywords onto the page as many times as possible, hoping that Google will reward the effort. In fact, the practice of “keyword stuffing” is actual detrimental to your results. Google responds to your all your content, including your website, blogs, and visual content. Don’t forget to incorporate the keyword in the title tag so visitors are clear as to what your content is about. Use keywords in your SEO meta tags to convince the visitor to click on your result.
The bottom line for a business owner to remember is to use SEO keywords to connect visitors to your website with useful content.
The best way to keep people on your website is to offer them a great experience on a website they want to visit. After all, your website should be for your target audience—prospective customers—not strictly for SEO marketing. One way to do this is by offering compelling, original content. Know your target customer and what they want. This will help you create the content your audience is looking for, which ultimately helps determine valuable keywords.
A second way to keep people on your site is to have an abundance of content that will keep them viewing longer. As long as the content is relevant and amazing, visitors will stay longer to check it out. Just make sure you’re not substituting wordy blocks of text for relevant, compelling content.
Here’s another odd term marketing and advertising people use often—organic traffic. It’s actually easier to start with a discussion of inorganic or nonorganic traffic. You know how ads appear at the top of your search results? Many companies pay for the privilege of appearing first, at the top or side, in the search results. The organic or nonpaid results follow the paid results. These organic results appear in an order determined by the search engine, such as Google, based on an algorithm which is influenced by hundreds of different factors.
Here’s a list of just a few:
Being high in the rankings is tremendously important in terms of the number of visitors per month to your site. Since paid advertisers pay by the click, this is a very costly way to increase the traffic to your site. You can see, then, why obtaining a high search ranking organically is so cost effective for your business. Getting ranked in the top pages of search engines, preferably page 1, is critical if you want your site to be found organically.
The answer to this question is a definite “yes”. Visual content, including graphics, lists, videos, and charts, is favorable to search engines. Audio files and video are especially valuable. Did you know that YouTube now ranks second in most popular search engines behind Google? Facebook is another high-power search engine that will bring up your video in a search result. Videos can easily to used in blog pages which should be updated consistently.
Many business owners are intimidated about using video and are surprised how simple it really is to shoot a video that provides a Q&A about your product, customer testimonial, or tour of your facility. Videos such as these build your name as an online authority. A marketing expert will add titles and meta descriptions to incorporate keywords, adding even more bang for your buck.
Take a look at this video filmed by Write Now Marketing and notice how much value the video adds to the content.
Several factors influence how quickly your website will see results in achieving a higher organic search engine rank, including quality and quantity of your content, how well received your content is with your audience, the size of your site, and the strength or weakness of your domain authority. After implementing a new SEO strategy, be patient and give it some time. Some smaller websites take three to six months to notice an increase in visitor traffic. While you wait, continue adding content and updating the site. Keep it fresh. This will show Google that you are staying relevant and offering visitors something useful.
Search Engine Optimization takes time. It’s tempting to speed up the process with paid ads, but there’s really no shortcuts to creating a strong, compelling website with strategic SEO marketing techniques.
An experienced marketing company like Write Now Marketing, LLC can help. We have knowledgeable web designers and SEO strategists who implement SEO marketing techniques and content strategy in every website and web page we create.
Click here to visit our Get Started page or call us at 502.939.5882.
We can’t wait to discuss your business and how we can help you find your best place in the Search Engine ranks.
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