Consumers are using search engines every day to find answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. In fact, according to Google, they process 3.5 billion searches every single day. With so many people trusting a search engine to find answers and solutions, you have an unprecedented marketing opportunity to put your brand front and center for these searchers to find.

Search engine optimization (SEO) lets you do all of that without ever spending a dime.

WHAT IS SEO?

SEO is a collection of efforts designed to attract organic, or unpaid, traffic to a website by boosting its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPS). Through the strategic use of keywords, meta content, backlinks, and more, you can grow your website’s authority and begin ranking higher in SERPs to attract that qualified, organic traffic to your website.

THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF SEO

Even with just the basic elements of SEO, you can create a customized strategy that supports the specific user experience you want to offer to your web visitors.

Keywords

Keywords can be either long-tail (four or more words) or short-tail (one to three words). They are what tie your website pages, blogs, and landing pages to specific search terms that users enter into search engines. By building your content around keywords, you can tell search engines when to pull up your content in SERPS.

Meta Content

Meta content, like meta titles and meta descriptions, gives you control over what content search engines use to describe your web pages when they include them in SERPs.

Backlinks

Getting other prominent sites to link to your website either through guest posts, features, or collaboration is taken into account when search engines are determining the prominence and authority of your website.

Search Engine Indexing

Once your website is up and running and you have strong meta content in place for each page, you can submit your website to all the major search engines to be indexed. This is a proactive way of telling search engines that you exist and that you want to be considered for placement in SERPs.

Content

Content is king and will likely stay that way for a long time. Keeping your website updated and relevant through new content and resources not only gives you more opportunity to rank for additional keywords, but it also shows search engines that you’re actively seeking to meet searchers’ needs.

As you invest in each item above and grow your content and website optimization, your authority and rank increases. This increase helps you rank for more competitive keywords as well as rise in SERPs to higher positions, giving you more visibility to searchers.

WHY DO I NEED SEO?

Let’s face it. You can’t rely on your current customer base to keep you in business forever. But, through the thoughtful and strategic application of SEO’s basic elements, you can increase traffic to your website, giving you a steady stream of new leads to convert into new customers. You don’t need a Ph.D. to see that the ROI on leads obtained from organic website traffic is huge.

Need help getting your SEO off the ground? We have a team of dedicated experts who can help you put a strong strategy in place that’ll grow your brand’s visibility and increase organic traffic to your website. Contact us.