If you’ve ever talked about digital marketing techniques, you’ve probably heard the term “search engine optimization.” You probably know that SEO is important and related to search engines. But what exactly is SEO? In this article, we’ll explain SEO, why it’s good for your business, and why you need it.
1. A brief overview of SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In the simplest terms, good SEO optimizes your online visibility. This means the more people who visit your website, the more your online traffic increases, and the greater your chances of offering your product or service to more people. The importance of SEO can be explained in a few words.
Google search results are displayed on infinite scroll, which means new results are populated as you continue to scroll down. While this means your results may appear on the first page (even as the 100th result), after the first 5-10 links, the number of clicks and impressions the page receives will drop significantly. When you type in a Google search, how many times do you risk scrolling down to the tenth or twentieth result? You rarely need to do this because the first few options at the top (beneath the ads, of course) contain the information you requested in your search query.
If a potential customer enters a topic related to what your business can offer, wouldn’t you want to be at the top of that page alongside your competitors? If you don’t, another business just gained a new customer, or you just lost one.
This is why SEO is important for your business: SEO gives you the ability to answer your potential customers’ questions. In addition to increasing visibility and traffic, SEO can also help strengthen your authoritative voice in your field. Authority leads to brand trust and ultimately brand loyalty.
When asking why SEO is good for business, the answer is that SEO not only attracts new customers but also allows you to deepen your business relationships with those customers over time because you build trust with them.
2. How SEO works
SEO is closely related to quantity and quality. The better your website’s backend and frontend are, the more traffic you’ll get, and the more search engines will improve your search rankings. Build SEO by combining SEO elements using a data-driven approach. These factors include:
- Keyword analysis
- backlink building
- content creation
Let’s take a look at how each of these can enhance your digital marketing’s SEO.
1) Keyword analysis
Words are powerful, and certain words have the power to control your online rankings. It is common for people to use keywords to find what they are looking for, whether they are single words or phrases. Keywords need to be researched and strategically placed within your content so that your content is of high quality while still leveraging frequently searched terms.
Keywords are one of the reasons your business needs SEO. Potential customers will use certain words or phrases to search for products or services. If your content contains words and phrases that your customers use, you will increase your visibility because you are providing answers by specifically leveraging appropriate keywords. SEO keywords that have been carefully researched and analyzed will be the most effective.
2) Backlink building
Backlinks are elements on your website that link back to other trusted, high-quality websites. Building backlinks increases your credibility because you are citing sources relevant to your area of expertise. For example, including current trending events directly from the source can increase your credibility.
Backlink building should be done strategically so that your content doesn’t get lost in a sea of other sources, which can be problematic. As an example, plagiarism is taken very seriously, and you should never present someone else’s content as your own. Donsafe will perform backlink cleaning if necessary for your website. Backlink building can definitely enhance your SEO, but it needs to be done carefully and ethically.
3) Content creation
Content is where your SEO really delivers results. You can communicate directly with current and potential customers through your content. This is where your keywords can help you build authority, trust, consistency, and engagement. Powerful content balances the human touch of a customer-driven business with the data-driven analytics needed to optimize your digital presence.
Anything your audience sees or hears is content, including:
- blog
- Web page text
- information chart
- video
- social media posts
- podcast
- Newsletter
Your content drives SEO by directly engaging with current and potential customers, thereby increasing traffic. Your content tells your audience who you are and what you offer.
3. What SEO can do for your business
Using SEO services in business can bring you the following benefits.
1) Build trust with customers
SEO and user experience (UX) are closely related. SEO helps your business build trust organically. Your website’s user experience is how your audience interacts with it. When your customers have a positive experience with your business, you’ll get more web clicks, increase traffic, and ultimately improve your search engine optimization (SEO). Over time, this will happen naturally and your rankings on the search engine results pages (SERPs) will get closer and closer to those top positions.
User experience includes your customers’ ability to navigate your website. Solid and strong foundations are essential for a successful website. User experience is the combination of how web design, tone, and branding come together to make the user’s experience the best it can be.
Good SEO and user experience means your business will build trust organically. Organic searches are search results that appear on the SERP strictly through user searches. This means you don’t have to pay to be at the top of the SERPs. Building trust builds SEO organically, and over time you will continue to grow and optimize your digital marketing and overall business.
When you provide products your customers need, you become a trustworthy source they can rely on. Users know what they want. Therefore, if you do not meet user standards, your SEO will suffer. If your platform provides content that users need—whether it’s information, answers to questions, products, or services—then you begin to build trust with your customers. The more trust you gain, the better your digital marketing SEO and user experience will be.
2) Visibility attracts customers
Attracting visibility organically means your website appears because of what your customers are searching for. Customers can find you based on their needs, and this is where keywords really come into play. When customers believe you can meet their needs, you stimulate engagement. Engagement cannot begin until they are aware of you. The importance of SEO is that it makes you visible to potential prospects, which means the engagement process can begin.
SEO is a way to increase visibility, and depending on your purposes, it may impact the buying cycle. Understanding what people are looking for by conducting thorough SEO research is key. This is where local SEO becomes crucial in understanding your audience and their needs and desires. So, when it comes to local SEO, what is business SEO?
Local SEO uses your business’s geographic location in search results. Your location can increase your online visibility. You want to be the first business that appears when potential customers search for “near me” or questions close to your geographic location. Increasing local SEO will increase your online visibility, thereby increasing your customer base.
3) Importance of SEO: Understand the difference between paid search and organic search
A large part of digital marketing is search engine marketing (SEM). SEM is paid search marketing. That’s not a bad thing; pay-per-click marketing campaigns leverage strategic research to help increase your return on investment (ROI). You just need to know that most people know which SERP results are ads and which are organic results. Getting organic traffic is the ultimate goal.
Organic traffic can be improved using tools like paid search campaigns to increase visibility. However, as a consumer, you may find that the results you want don’t have the word “ad” next to them in a Google search. It’s likely that your customers feel the same way.
Likewise, when done well, a paid search campaign can give you an advantage and intentionally market your business to your target audience. Organic search will utilize more SEO strategies such as keyword searches, which ultimately means your content will be exposed to a wider potential audience looking to satisfy a specific need.
4) Sharing is caring: How natural search brings clicks to share
First, you need to understand click share in order to understand SEO’s benefits. Click share is an estimate of all the clicks your business has received. You’ll only see this information in Search and Shopping campaigns. It is a tool to expand your business as it has the potential to get you more clicks. The better your SEO is, the more click share you will get because organic results will get a lot of click share.
Clickshare data is available at all levels of search and shopping activity, including keyword search campaigns, ad groups, product groups, and shopping attributes. The key to click shares is that they require impressions in order to get clicks.
What does it mean to increase impressions? You got it, SEO! Click share is an estimate, of course, but it’s an estimate based on your past digital footprint and the visibility your ads and other content have received. The quality, relevance, and quantity of your business’s digital presence will all contribute to visibility, which is driven by SEO.
4. The role of SEO in digital marketing
SEO is important, but where to start? And, once you get started, how do you know that what you’re doing will even have a positive impact on your business? Here’s the good news: we’re here to help.
There’s a reason we’re the leading experts in digital marketing. We take a data-driven approach to understanding the role of SEO in digital marketing, focusing our time and energy on creating content and websites that we know will produce results. The data is always honest and we know how to use research data to best suit your individual needs.
In addition to a data-driven approach, our SEO team also uses white hat SEO methods for optimization. White hat SEO is an alternative to unethical black hat SEO tactics. While black hat SEO can display results quickly, search engines have new techniques to find which companies are using sketchy techniques like keyword stuffing and cloaking.
Search engine intelligence is constantly updated, so trying to trick them to your advantage will only lead to harm and punishment. We live by the mantra of long-term growth in our SEO team. We believe that our patience in creating an ethical approach to SEO will pay off in the long run. The purpose of SEO is to establish credibility with search engines. Let us take the time to analyze the facts and figures to help you build a positive relationship with engines like Google, YouTube, and more.
5. Should I use SEO?
The short answer is yes! SEO is an intentional, data-driven approach to improving the quality of your business’s digital marketing and your business’s visibility. The benefits of SEO can only help your business and are worth taking the time to research. SEO requires a lot of thoughtful analysis. This is a complex, ever-changing practice.
As new technologies emerge and develop, so does search engine optimization (SEO). SEO can increase traffic, promote your brand, engage with customers, and is directly related to user experience. SEO is an integral part of successful digital marketing for your business.
6. Conclusion
Having a strong SEO team is crucial to your digital marketing success. If you have any questions about why SEO is so important for your business or SEO in general, contact Donsafe today!