What Is SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of increasing the organic ranking position within search engines such as Google and Bing. By optimizing a website we increase its relevancy for specific keywords related to the audience the website is trying to reach. SEO is a handy tool in any digital marketing campaign as it works to support other services, such as PPC advertising. Good SEO can actually help decrease the cost, and increase the visibility of PPC ads run on search engines. This is why it is often the first step in any Digital Marketing campaign.
Now I bet you are wondering, how do I improve my own SEO? Well, SEO is made up of over 200 ranking factors, thanks to Backlinko.com we have that list here; Google’s 200 ranking factors (2022). Search engines grade and average these factors to come up with a website authority score and keyword relevancy score. The higher your website authority, as well as the higher the relevancy for each keyword, the higher you rank above your competitors for that keyword. A couple of key components of SEO are;
Relevant Keywords:
Keywords are words or phrases that are relevant to the product or service you are offering. Words such as “Orthodontic”, “Cosmetic”, “Emergency”, Etc, are keywords that would be relevant for a dentist to add to their website, depending on the services they provide.
Relevant Content:
Search engines love to see content. Infographics and blogs related to industry trending topics help boost organic ranking and provide something for potential customers to click on when searching for informational content, which can lead to them becoming paying customers.
On and Off Page Links:
Links are how search engines rank authority. The more high-quality sites you link to (On-Page), and the more high-quality sites link to you (Off-Page), the higher your authority and the more visibility search engines will give you.
Meta Tags:
Meta tags are how search engines understand what the content of a page is about. These are things such as providing H1 tags to headlines in blogs so the algorithm knows what the title is. Providing the correct meta tags shows search engines you are a serious business and have done the work to make sure everything is up to code. Kind of like building a house.
Site Maps:
Site maps are how search engines scan websites. Uploading a sitemap to Google Search Console shows Google you are serious and provides the algorithm an easy way to index the site.
Robots.txt:
Robots.txt tells search engines what they can and can not explore on a website. If something is disallowed, search engines will not crawl or index it on their SERPs. Even if you want your whole site indexed, it is still important to add a Robots.txt file, so Google knows for sure everything needs to be indexed.
SEO can target very broad keywords to very specific phrases when done correctly. Keywords such as “Dentist” can be very broad and will show every kind of dentist in the area, as well as every bit of news on dentists, dental insurance, and even what a dentist is. The search term “orthodontic dentist near me” however, will only show up orthodontic dentists in the area, giving you a much better chance at competing in a keyword with a much higher conversion rate. SEO can also scale in reach radius and can target audiences in your local area to audiences around the world. With the correct keywords, we can also target individuals just looking for more information, or those with their wallets already out and ready to buy.
Finally the best part about SEO, it sticks around long after the work is done. Search engines will tinker with their algorithm every now and then, and as information gets old its relevancy rank decreases, as search engines are always looking to show the freshest and most relevant content. For the most part though, not much changes. This can give you, depending on your industry and competition, months to a couple of years of first-page ranking, even after the work is done. Making it cheaper than any other form of marketing.