What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In short, it helps to increase your visibility online, which in turn can lead to more customers, more sales, and a stronger brand image. Despite the prevalence of the term today, a lot of companies still don't understand the complexities of SEO and how it affects their businesses. Let's take a look at what SEO is and how it works.
How Does SEO Work?
At its core, SEO is all about making sure that your website is easily found by potential customers when they search for something related to your business or industry. Search engines like Google or Bing use algorithms to determine which websites are relevant for each query, or search. These algorithms consider several factors such as keyword usage, page titles, backlinks, and a number of other things. By optimizing these factors for your website, you can improve its ranking in search engine results.
Search engines frequently update their algorithms, and the factor weights can shift as a result. While no one knows the true intricacies and details of these algorithms, one of the best things a business can do is produce quality, relevant content for their target audience. While easier said than done, this process typically starts with keyword research to determine what terms people are likely to use when searching for products or services like yours. Once you've identified those keywords, you need to incorporate them into your content (blog posts, product descriptions, etc.) so that search engines like Google can recognize them and rank your website higher in the search results.
The Benefits of SEO
Now that we know what SEO is and how it works, let's talk about some of the amazing benefits SEO can offer businesses looking to increase their online presence.
Increased Website Traffic
This is the most obvious benefit SEO offers. When a website ranks higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), more people are likely to click on it than if it were further down the list. If you couple this increased traffic with an optimized website, then this increased visibility will result in more leads and sales for your business over time.
Increased Brand Awareness
Because SEO leads to an increase in website traffic, it makes sense that this would also lead to an increase in overall brand visibility. On top of that, users who find your website through organic search results are more likely to remember your brand name than those who come across it through other means, such as paid advertisement.
Relevance
Increased website traffic and brand visibility is great; however, it doesn't do your business a whole lot of good if the new users finding you aren't a part of your target audience. With print marketing and some forms of media marketing, this can be a big issue depending on your brand and the services/products you offer. By targeting specific keywords in your SEO strategy that pertain to your business, you're ensuring that only relevant users see your content and services.
Making the Most Out of Your SEO Strategy
As we discussed above, incorporating relevant keywords into your content is an important part of any successful SEO strategy; however, there are other steps you can take as well. For example, setting up backlinks from other websites will boost both your credibility and rankings. Simply put, backlinks are when other sites link back to your business site. While there are different types of backlinks, with some definitely being better than others, Google (and other search engines) view these back links as an indication that you have something valuable to offer its users. This in turn translates into higher rankings for you! Additionally, optimizing your images by adding proper tags and descriptions helps make sure they show up in image searches as well as regular text-based searches. Finally, making sure all aspects of your site are loading quickly—including mobile versions—will ensure that users are not turned off by slow page loading speeds; this will also help contribute towards better rankings!
Getting Started
To sum up, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an essential tool for businesses looking to increase their online visibility and reach new potential customers. Through careful keyword research and strategic implementation of those words into content on a website or blog post (coupled with various other tactics such as backlink building) businesses can enjoy an array of benefits from implementing an effective SEO strategy. It's important for C-suite executives and small business owners alike to be aware of the power of utilizing proper SEO techniques. While SEO may be overwhelming at first and time consuming, if you want your company's online presence and business goals to succeed in today's competitive digital landscape, you need a strong SEO strategy. CR Software Solutions offers several different SEO packages to assist businesses of all sizes in increasing their online presence. See our packages below or schedule a call to craft your perfect SEO package.