One of the most talked about – yet little understood – digital marketing techniques of the past decade has been SEO.
Search engine optimization has developed a reputation for being a complicated, difficult-to-implement strategy that, if you manage to ‘crack’ it, delivers bountiful quantities of organic search traffic to your website.
A key reason why SEO has built this notoriety is that it relies upon search engine algorithm trends, which are prone to changing countless times every year.
Therefore, many businesses wrongly believe that there is no point in chasing the algorithm if it is going to change on a whim.
In truth, SEO is an essential element of any successful website’s digital marketing strategy, delivering an increase in organic search traffic and complementing other elements of your campaign.
This is what you need to know:
SEO is the bedrock of search engine algorithms
Search engine optimization is crucial for gaining the trust of search engine algorithms. This is vital to understand because it is these algorithms that decide the overall order of websites on search results pages.
Therefore, the better your SEO, the higher up the rankings you are likely to be.
In essence, search algorithms want to provide the best possible service for their customers and encourage them to stay on the search engine for as long as possible.
They will therefore strive to position the websites which provide the most value to a particular user’s search query at the top of the results page.
To ascertain a website’s value, these algorithms crawl each visible page for important metrics – such as how well-researched, engaging, and original the content is, whether it contains the searched-for keyword, whether the website itself is easy to navigate, and how many other websites link to yours.
To improve your chances of a favorable ranking, you should use SEO. As you might have guessed, this involves ensuring your website performs well, creating engaging and well-researched content which contains the right keywords, and backlinking to your site.
If you are struggling with your SEO strategy, then consider using a consultant. SEO consultants can help increase your organic presence, speeding the process up and ensuring you experience strong results.
It can form the basis of your entire digital marketing strategy
Far from simply being a gimmick, SEO should form the foundation of your entire marketing effort.
This is because you can create content – whether for your website or on social media – with SEO in mind. The research you conduct for your SEO strategy can be repurposed in other areas, meaning all the time and money spent on increasing organic search can be used to boost your performance in other areas – such as cultivating an audience on social media.
SEO is vital if you want to improve organic search traffic
At this point, you may be weighing up whether SEO is worth the effort or not for your home or business IT network.
Although it takes time (usually a few months at the very least) to experience success with SEO, the results speak for themselves.
When you gain consistent organic search traffic, you will likely find it easier to convert prospects into customers, spend less in other areas of marketing and increase your market share as a result.
