What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
SEO is a term coined by digital marketers with the focus of organically growing your online traffic through search results. This is a technical and innovative practice that requires skill and knowledge to accomplish. When done correctly it can improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase traffic. There are a plethora of tactics used such as optimizing the number of words on a page, the specific word choice on said page, and correctly linking to and from your website. Other times it can be as easy as making sure your site is being read properly by search engines.
SEO is key especially if you run a business that relies on it’s online presence for sales. A big part of this is making it easy for search engines to track and rank, and the other part is making sure the site is easily understood by your customers as well.
Why does my website need SEO?
We’ve all heard of Google, Bing, and Yahoo, these are the major search engines in North America. Admittedly social media and other types of traffic does drive traffic to your website, search engines are the main method of navigation for most browsers.
Search engines are skilled at finding a specific demographic and targeting them to the right place— people looking for what you offer. Search engines are the roadways make this possible. If search engines are unable to track your website, or add your content, you miss out on incredible opportunities to drive traffic to your site.
Search queries — the words that consumers type into the search box — are of incredible importance. It has been proven that search engine traffic directly affects the success of a business. Targeted traffic to a website can provide publicity, revenue, and exposure like no other channel of marketing. Investing in SEO can have an exceptional rate of return compared to other types of marketing and advertising.
Why can’t the search engines figure out my site without SEO?
Search engines are intelligent, this is true, but think of it like a lock and key. You need a key to fit into the lock to work, you can’t just try and open it with a sock. Similarly, you need the information to be presented to the search engine in a way that it understands, lock and key. Search engines are smart, but they still need help. The major engines are always working to improve their technology to crawl the web more deeply and return better results to users. Unfortunately, if you do the SEO process wrong, you run the risk of burying your site deep in the search results where visibility is minimal.
Can I do SEO for myself?
As you can see by now, becoming a master at SEO takes time and can be pretty complex. That doesn’t mean you can’t understand and do the basics if your knowledge with coding or developing is strong enough. Any amount of knowledge can make a difference, and we never know until we try. Free SEO tips and tricks is available all across the web. Though we do suggest that if you aren’t planning on making a living out of this, it does make sense to hire a professional to do your SEO work.
In any case, its good to have a firm grasp of the core concepts.
Over the next few weeks I intend on continuously writing on SEO in hopes to educate those interested.
Until then, happy reading.