When searching for digital marketing strategies, you’re likely to come across the term search engine optimisation, often referred to as SEO, and you’re probably wondering what it is.
Search engine optimisation is a digital marketing strategy that aims to improve your business’s visibility in search engine rankings, (ie google rankings) improving your web traffic and click-through rate. Everyone from e-Commerce businesses to news media sites utilises SEO to get people onto their site and increase sales. SEO is incredibly useful for success online and can be used across a variety of different formats.
In this blog post, we discuss what SEO is and how effective it is as a digital marketing strategy. Keep reading now to find out more.
What Is Search Engine Optimisation?
So, what actually is search engine optimisation (SEO)?
Search engine optimisation refers to the process of creating high-quality online content that is rich in keywords relating to the business or industry you are operating in. Optimisation techniques seek to improve the visibility of your website and help it to move up in the Google search rankings.
SEO involves a range of different techniques that also improve your website’s page authority (PA) and usability to increase traffic to your site and entice users to take action once they are on your site. SEO improves your click-through rate, decreases your bounce rate, and could even help you to achieve a better conversion rate.
What Does Search Engine Optimisation Include?
Search engine optimisation techniques include a variety of different efforts. These techniques can be split into two different kinds; on-page SEO and off-page SEO.
Examples of on-page SEO include:
- Quality, in-depth content
- Optimised meta titles and descriptions
- Related keywords
- Keyword optimised URL
- Using heading tags
- Optimised alt tags
- Boosting page speeds
- Internal linking
- Relevant imagery
- Mobile-friendliness
Examples of off-page SEO include:
- Backlinks and brand mentions
- Blog commenting
- Guest posts
A combination of SEO techniques is used by search engine optimisation specialists to boost the visibility of websites, improve their authority, and increase their usability.
Why Is SEO Important For Online Businesses?
Search engine optimisation is important for online businesses as visibility is key to success online.
Website visibility through google ranking is absolutely essential for online businesses. If users can’t see your site, then they’re not going to be able to click-through onto it and make purchases, engage with content, and generate revenue.
Search engine rankings refer to the spot that a particular website holds in relation to a specific search query and SEO techniques aim to get your site into the top spot. By pushing your website as high up the Google rankings as it can go, the more chance you’ve got of getting people onto your site.
What Makes Search Engine Optimisation An Effective Marketing Tool?
SEO improves web traffic, and an increase in web traffic is akin to getting more people into your physical store. If you’ve got more people to show off your wares to, you’ve got more chance of making a sale – which is why SEO is such an effective marketing tool to improve your google ranking.
On top of increasing web traffic, SEO also boosts the usability of your site. If a website is slow, difficult to navigate, or hard to read, people are more likely to leave without taking action. SEO helps improve this and decrease your bounce rate, ensuring that people stay on your site and take action.
SEO can help to improve your business’s online authority. By creating quality content and encouraging backlinks to your site, among other things, your brand will become more recognisable. Increasing page authority improves your brand’s reputation and standing within Google rankings as well as within the industry you operate in.
Finally, optimising your website helps you to grow organically. In contrast with paid ad space, SEO provides organic ranking success and helps you to truly understand your audience and entice them to your site in a way that builds loyalty.
As a digital marketing technique, SEO improves your business’s website in a variety of ways, helping you to build a loyal consumer base that keeps returning and keeps making you money.
How To Build A Search Engine Optimisation Strategy
While there is no one way to create a search engine optimisation strategy, there are a few key steps you should take to optimise your website. These steps are listed below.
Research your topics and keywords
A key aspect of SEO is the utilisation of keywords relating to your industry. A number of free tools exist where you can input a common search query relating to your industry and be given a long list of related keywords.
For lower ranking or newer websites, it is better to use long-chain keywords that are highly related to your niche. You should create a list of these keywords and related topics for use in the next step.
Implement keywords and other optimisation techniques
Your next step should be to create a plan to use these keywords. This could include building pages relating to each topic with keyword-rich content, including keywords on landing pages and product descriptions, and creating blog posts relating to individual topics and keywords.
Building a blog is a very good choice for those looking to enhance their visibility. Creating keyword-rich, quality blog content can help drive visitors to your site. Within these blogs, using backlinks can ensure visitors stay on your site and eventually take action.
Other methods of keyword use include optimised meta titles, meta descriptions, and alt texts as well as adding in imagery and heading tags.
Measure your optimisation success through google ranking
SEO is a measurable tool and you can watch the success of the techniques you implement by observing a few KPIs. KPIs, or key progress indicators, can help to show how well your optimisation efforts are working and where they may need improving.
There are quite a number of KPIs and so we recommend you pick a few of them to observe over a period of time.
Get in touch with a search engine optimisation specialist to improve google ranking
Search engine optimisation is a complex digital marketing tool. While it can be attempted on your own, it is best to leave it to the specialists.
If you’re looking for SEO services, why not get in contact with a search engine optimisation consultant in your area? They will optimise your website so that you can focus on growing your business in other ways.
Final Thoughts
Search engine optimisation is a digital marketing tool that boosts your business’s visibility, Google ranking, site usability, and page authority. SEO is an essential tool for all online businesses these days. It can be implemented by anyone looking to boost their online success.
If you’re looking to boost your SEO, why not get in contact with us today? Our SEO team are always on hand to answer any questions and help you out.
Frequently Asked Questions
How effective is search engine optimisation?
Search engine optimisation is considered an incredibly effective tool for digital marketing. The method of optimisation boosts a website’s search engine ranking, helping it to become more visible. Visibility boosts web traffic and therefore visitors who take action, to optimised websites, helping to generate revenue.
What are the pros and cons?
SEO comes with a number of pros. It helps your site become more visible, increases web traffic and decreases bounce rate. It also improves your site’s usability, and boosts its authority. A con of SEO could be that search engine ranking criteria can sometimes be tricky to navigate, meaning the best SEO techniques can shift at times.
Once I start SEO, how long will it take to get rankings?
SEO isn’t an overnight strategy. The first few months are dedicated to making updates to your site and waiting for the search engine spiders to crawl and index the changes. Depending on your website, the amount of work it requires, and the crawl frequency of the search engine spiders, it typically takes at least 3 months to begin seeing new rankings.
Should I also do PPC?
Pay Per Click is a great additional strategy to supplement your SEO efforts and can help enhance relevant traffic. Depending on your particular website, industry and the competitiveness of the keywords you want to go after, a good agency will recommend PPC on a case-per-case basis.
Why should I continue SEO once I’ve gotten good rankings?
Achieving the rankings is only half the battle. Since search engines are constantly evolving and updating their algorithms, your rankings can fluctuate from one day to the next. Maintaining current rankings is just as involved as getting new ones. It takes constant research, updates, and testing to keep your URL ranking in the top positions. Discontinuing SEO after you’ve achieved rankings will result in a loss of rankings fairly quickly.
Which Search Engines receive the majority of searches?
Statistics show that in January 2023, Google is undoubtedly the most popular search engine with 91.76% of market share. It is the most popular and most used search engine in the UK and Ireland, followed by Bing (5.86%). Other search engines with a market share of less than 1% include Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia and others.
Hi I’m Alex, Blog and PR Copywriter
