One key focus when running a business is to maximize your customer reach. The wider the target audience is the larger will be the opportunity of the business to grow. reaches your business has, the chances of turning those potential customers into buyers of your product increases. This is the sole objective behind marketing your products and services, selling customers the idea that your product or service is the best in the market. Before you physically sell the product, you first need to sell the idea to the customers.
SEO Intro
Having an appropriate marketing strategy would result in an increased number of customers for your business. Therefore, you must reach out to your target audience in all the possible ways. One such method is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We will delve into the nitty-gritty details later, but for now, let us see what SEO is?
SEO is an online marketing tool to increase traffic to your website. We talked about reaching your audience, and this is one way to do just that: pop up in the internet search when people ask for products or services which you sell. Search engines have an extensive back-end algorithm attached to them. These research engines work in a matter of seconds to produce the results for your research. Search Engine Optimization works in a way that when you type in a certain keyword it immediately suggests words similar to the key-word which you have typed in. For example, if you put ‘Dallas SEO services Company,’ it would immediately give you a series of potential SEO agencies that it would see fit for your search. But how does Google decide what to put up as the search results?
When you search for an item or a query, the Google algorithm selects results based on relevancy, accuracy, and usefulness. In a few seconds, the Google engine scans through billions of pages and drops down the topmost appropriate content for you. This is the point where SEO steps in. Search Engine Optimization aims at working around this scanning algorithm and increasing your chances of appearing at the top of the searches. It, in turn, increases traffic to your website, which can later turn into sales, meaning increased business and profits!
Now that we have a rudimentary knowledge of what SEO is and how it works let us look through the fundamentals of how to use Search Engine Optimization for your business.
The following are 5 of the primary fundamentals of SEO:
1. Know What Your Customers Search For
To rank yourself on top of the search engine, firstly, you need to know what the customers search for when they look for products and services that you sell. It is not rocket science to know that if you own a baby clothing store, your customers would be searching for things like ‘cute baby dresses,’ ‘baby clothing for toddlers,’ ‘clothing for babies,’ etc.
Moreover, you need to define the most common phrases or words that the customers use to search for your business. Additionally, you should also look for other relating keywords and phrases that the customers might be using, which google may be referring to the most common keyword and showing in the search result. For example, when talking about a kids' clothing store, the most common keyword used by your customers may be ‘baby clothing.’ By most common, we mean that this may be the term which is found in almost every search made by your audience, such as:
1. Where to find baby clothing?
2. Stores for baby clothing.
3. Baby clothing in the US, etc.
If you notice, all these three phrases have two common words, i.e., baby clothing. It is the most common keyword and should be used for optimization. Additionally, you might also have to look into several related keywords and phrases that are most likely to include your business name at the top of the list in the search engine. Examples of relating keywords might include ‘baby dresses,’ baby rompers,’ etc.
2. Optimizing Your Website
One thing we need to understand is that to land yourself on top of the search results, for that you need to align your webpage to the keyword search you identified in the first step. Your webpage should have quality content, and it should ensure that the traffic which reaches your webpage goes through smoothly. Your website content should be easy to absorb with catchy design and readable typography.
Creating quality content for your webpage is a crucial part of this step. Understanding the intent behind the customer behavior and designing your content around the intention is essential. You need to make sure that when a search is made relating to your business, Google picks you as one of the relevant, accurate, and useful resources to be shown in the search result. Some valuable ways to do this are posting quality content on your webpage, keeping the URL business-related, optimizing webpage images, and creating compelling titles and descriptions.
3. Make Sure You Are Accessible To The Search Engine
The objective behind SEO is to reach the target audience, and this needs to be through the internet search engine. It means that you need to be accessible to the customers and the search engine.
There are a few factors that increase your chances of being picked by the search tool. Firstly, your website needs to load fast. Nobody likes visiting a slow webpage, and hence, a search engine is less likely to choose such a site. Secondly, make your webpage mobile friendly. According to research, almost sixty percent of the searches today are made through a mobile phone. Thirdly, create a sitemap. It is an XML file that includes all the webpages on your website. The search tool would use this to analyze the content on your webpage and its relevance to the made search.
Additionally, creating links between the content on your website increases the chances of the search engine algorithm to track down your content.
4. Linking Your Website To Other Webpages Through Backlinks
Out of the top three ranking factors that Google uses to bring your webpage up, one is backlinking. Therefore, you should spend as much time you do in content making to produce quality backlinks to your webpage.
What is a backlink? It is when your webpage, through keywords, is situated in the content of some other webpages. It means when people go through other websites, they have the potential to jump onto your webpage through the link given. This technique will help optimize your webpage on the search engine.
5. Track The Success Of Your SEO Strategy
Now that you have invested enough resources in building traffic to your website, you should analyze whether your plan was a success or not. There are a few methods that can be used to measure this. One way is to use Google Analytics to measure your incoming traffic on your website.
You should also be measuring your search engine ranking on Google over time. It would show how effective SEO has been for your webpage. You can do this through the Google Search Console, which provides information on your average position, impressions, and clicks you receive for different keywords.
Grow As An SEO Pro
Search Engine Optimization is not a goal, it is an ongoing process. If you are consistent with the resource investment, SEO can drive numerous traffic to your webpage. This method multiplies customer reach overtime to bring massive incoming to your business page. Even though there is cut-throat competition, search engine optimization is still the most effective technique to bring traffic and potential sales to your business webpage.
Having an appropriate marketing strategy would result in an increased number of customers for your business. Therefore, you must reach out to your target audience in all the possible ways. One such method is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We will delve into the nitty-gritty details later, but for now, let us see what SEO is?
SEO is an online marketing tool to increase traffic to your website. We talked about reaching your audience, and this is one way to do just that: pop up in the internet search when people ask for products or services which you sell. Search engines have an extensive back-end algorithm attached to them. These research engines work in a matter of seconds to produce the results for your research. Search Engine Optimization works in a way that when you type in a certain keyword it immediately suggests words similar to the key-word which you have typed in. For example, if you put ‘Dallas SEO services Company,’ it would immediately give you a series of potential SEO agencies that it would see fit for your search. But how does Google decide what to put up as the search results?
When you search for an item or a query, the Google algorithm selects results based on relevancy, accuracy, and usefulness. In a few seconds, the Google engine scans through billions of pages and drops down the topmost appropriate content for you. This is the point where SEO steps in. Search Engine Optimization aims at working around this scanning algorithm and increasing your chances of appearing at the top of the searches. It, in turn, increases traffic to your website, which can later turn into sales, meaning increased business and profits!
Now that we have a rudimentary knowledge of what SEO is and how it works let us look through the fundamentals of how to use Search Engine Optimization for your business.
The following are 5 of the primary fundamentals of SEO:
1. Know What Your Customers Search For
To rank yourself on top of the search engine, firstly, you need to know what the customers search for when they look for products and services that you sell. It is not rocket science to know that if you own a baby clothing store, your customers would be searching for things like ‘cute baby dresses,’ ‘baby clothing for toddlers,’ ‘clothing for babies,’ etc.
Moreover, you need to define the most common phrases or words that the customers use to search for your business. Additionally, you should also look for other relating keywords and phrases that the customers might be using, which google may be referring to the most common keyword and showing in the search result. For example, when talking about a kids' clothing store, the most common keyword used by your customers may be ‘baby clothing.’ By most common, we mean that this may be the term which is found in almost every search made by your audience, such as:
1. Where to find baby clothing?
2. Stores for baby clothing.
3. Baby clothing in the US, etc.
If you notice, all these three phrases have two common words, i.e., baby clothing. It is the most common keyword and should be used for optimization. Additionally, you might also have to look into several related keywords and phrases that are most likely to include your business name at the top of the list in the search engine. Examples of relating keywords might include ‘baby dresses,’ baby rompers,’ etc.
2. Optimizing Your Website
One thing we need to understand is that to land yourself on top of the search results, for that you need to align your webpage to the keyword search you identified in the first step. Your webpage should have quality content, and it should ensure that the traffic which reaches your webpage goes through smoothly. Your website content should be easy to absorb with catchy design and readable typography.
Creating quality content for your webpage is a crucial part of this step. Understanding the intent behind the customer behavior and designing your content around the intention is essential. You need to make sure that when a search is made relating to your business, Google picks you as one of the relevant, accurate, and useful resources to be shown in the search result. Some valuable ways to do this are posting quality content on your webpage, keeping the URL business-related, optimizing webpage images, and creating compelling titles and descriptions.
3. Make Sure You Are Accessible To The Search Engine
The objective behind SEO is to reach the target audience, and this needs to be through the internet search engine. It means that you need to be accessible to the customers and the search engine.
There are a few factors that increase your chances of being picked by the search tool. Firstly, your website needs to load fast. Nobody likes visiting a slow webpage, and hence, a search engine is less likely to choose such a site. Secondly, make your webpage mobile friendly. According to research, almost sixty percent of the searches today are made through a mobile phone. Thirdly, create a sitemap. It is an XML file that includes all the webpages on your website. The search tool would use this to analyze the content on your webpage and its relevance to the made search.
Additionally, creating links between the content on your website increases the chances of the search engine algorithm to track down your content.
4. Linking Your Website To Other Webpages Through Backlinks
Out of the top three ranking factors that Google uses to bring your webpage up, one is backlinking. Therefore, you should spend as much time you do in content making to produce quality backlinks to your webpage.
What is a backlink? It is when your webpage, through keywords, is situated in the content of some other webpages. It means when people go through other websites, they have the potential to jump onto your webpage through the link given. This technique will help optimize your webpage on the search engine.
5. Track The Success Of Your SEO Strategy
Now that you have invested enough resources in building traffic to your website, you should analyze whether your plan was a success or not. There are a few methods that can be used to measure this. One way is to use Google Analytics to measure your incoming traffic on your website.
You should also be measuring your search engine ranking on Google over time. It would show how effective SEO has been for your webpage. You can do this through the Google Search Console, which provides information on your average position, impressions, and clicks you receive for different keywords.
Grow As An SEO Pro
Search Engine Optimization is not a goal, it is an ongoing process. If you are consistent with the resource investment, SEO can drive numerous traffic to your webpage. This method multiplies customer reach overtime to bring massive incoming to your business page. Even though there is cut-throat competition, search engine optimization is still the most effective technique to bring traffic and potential sales to your business webpage.
