How Can Basic SEO Help Your Business?

In this day and age, no company can afford to be left behind when it comes to marketing and growing their audience. So many businesses have been left floundering and in need of help when it comes to advertising and widening their customer base. The benefits of digital marketing are undeniable, but it can be very difficult to get started. You might not know where to begin or how to make the right decisions. That's why we're here for you!

Digital marketing is a great way for brands to stay connected with their customers. They can reach a larger audience, generate sales, optimise conversion rates, and track their success rates. In 2022, it is crucial for businesses to use digital marketing to succeed.

A few of the most popular online marketing strategies are SEO, email marketing, PPC, SEM, and SMM. In this post, we'll outline the benefits of basic on-page SEO.

What is search engine optimisation?

The process of SEO has two main goals: 1) getting your site to rank well on search engines for relevant search results without having to pay every time someone clicks through to it (this is PPC marketing), and 2) attracting a wider audience.

You can generate leads and drive sales by looking for keyword phrases that are relevant to your business, then making sure that each page on your website is optimised for those keywords, including ensuring your title tags are relevant, adding captivating meta descriptions, and using H1 tags to draw attention. We'll look more into this further down this post.

Keyword research

The keywords you use for your website are vitally important. Many people don't even make it past the first page of a search engine. This can be because of bad keywords used, or because there is no relevance between the keywords to the site whatsoever.

The most important thing is to use relevant keywords in your content. Other things you should do include:

• Adding image alt tags and keyword optimised meta descriptions and title tags (take a look at our “how to write meta titles” blog here).

• Building a backlinking strategy.

• Creating high-value, shareable content for readers.

SEO vs. SEM

As you research the best way to increase your company's visibility in search, you may come across the acronym SEM. If you're unfamiliar with this term, it stands for "search engine marketing." Though some marketers use this term interchangeably with SEO, it's important to understand that SEM is different from SEO.

SEM is a term that encompasses two techniques: search engine optimisation and pay-per-click. The former refers to earning placement on search engine results pages through keyword research, on-site optimisation, and link building. The latter involves paying for ad placement on search engines.

So, SEM is a broad term that encompasses a variety of tactics. SEO is one, but it's not the only one.

Keep this distinction in mind when you are reading about search visibility. It will help you understand whether the information you are reading is about paid, or unpaid, tactics.

How can SEO benefit your business?

Improving your SEO benefits your site in a number of ways. It's not difficult, and the rewards are totally worth it! The main benefit of SEO is to improve your visibility on search engines. As you know, improving your search ranking will grow your website's reach and bring in more organic traffic. This, in turn, will attract new customers and increase sales.

SEO gets more clicks than PPC

Even though paid ads appear on top, organic search results are still king. 71.33% of all searches result in a click on an organic result on the first page.

There are many reasons why this could be, but one logical conclusion is that people trust Google's algorithm. They know which ads are paid for, and they choose to instead visit the pages the search engine has determined to be the best.

But regardless of the reason for this, it is evident that most clicks for any given search will go to an organic result.

SEO helps PR

PR and SEO might seem like separate marketing strategies, but they can actually work together to maximise your marketing ROI.

A key connection between PR and SEO is in link building. Link building is a significant part of any SEO campaign. One the most important tasks for an SEO professional is to identify opportunities for placement or coverage on industry blogs, news publications, and other relevant sites.

And considering that a PR strategy is all about getting influential publications and individuals to talk about your company, you can easily see how PR and SEO can interlink.

Link building is a powerful way to get your brand in front of consumers. The practice is an excellent tool for distributing content to potential customers and clients.

3 Myths About SEO

There's a wealth of information available about SEO. And, sadly, not all of it is accurate. That's why it's important to know about SEO myths to avoid. Here are a few that you should be mindful of to steer clear of any SEO professionals that perpetuate them.

If you want to find out more about black hat SEO techniques and techniques to avoid, you can view our “What is Black Hat SEO” blog.

Myth 1: Keyword optimisation is the most important part of SEO

The idea that keywords are the most important part of SEO is outdated. Google Hummingbird update, introduced in 2013, has shifted sites' priority from keywords to user intent.

That means that you don't need to focus as much on specific words and phrases today.

To be clear, keywords are still an important part of SEO, and keyword research can still help you guide your strategy. However, adding keywords naturally is the best way to incorporate them into your content. A good way to do this is by addressing the intent behind them and writing your content in a way that prioritises the intent over repeating the same keywords over and over again on your page.

Myth 2: Optimising a site is quick and easy

Beware of anyone promising you search engine optimisation results in two weeks. Though it may seem like a good idea, this is not actually possible. Generally speaking, it takes four to six months before any SEO strategy will start to show results.

However, that's not to say you won't yield some results quickly. For example, if we were to create a page on our website targeting a low to medium competition keyword, for example, "SEO agency lincoln" we would likely be able to create the page, content and get the page to rank on the first page of Google within a few days. But this is only step one. We then need to optimise the page further by utilising the data we'll gather about the page over the next few weeks to continue to increase the page ranking until it's up into the top spot (or to keep it there if it's already there!).

Myth 3: You should focus on keywords with high search volume

New site owners often make the mistake of trying to rank for keywords with high search volumes. But suppose you sell clothes, for example. In that case, you don't want to be competing for keywords such as "clothes online" as there are incredible amounts of competition from huge brands pumping millions into their SEO strategy every year. It's just not realistic to compete with these businesses.

A better way to get visitors is to focus on long, less competitive keywords. A whopping 70% of search queries are long-tail keywords so instead of focusing on "clothes online" focus on "designer skirts for sale UK" for example.

If you need help or advice creating your SEO strategy, don't hesitate to reach out to us today.