Introduction

Are you looking to digitize your business and you keep hearing about SEO and its importance to digital marketing, but still do not understand it? I got you! In this article, we will learn what SEO is and its role in digital marketing.

So, you know how when you search for something, let's say ‘auto parts’ on Google, websites where you can purchase auto parts pop up. One of the reasons why these websites come up is because they used the principles of SEO as I like to call it. Understanding SEO puts your business out there for people who need your services to reach you.

So, what is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. A search engine is a software program that enables people to find information online using some keywords, while optimization is the process of making something fully effective or functional. So, search engine optimization in simple terms is the process of making a search engine as effective as possible for your business. It is the act of improving your online presence on search engines.

It is a tool that enables businesses to advertise their services online for free. It improves your website’s ranking on Google or any other search engine. This means that when people search for products or services related to the one you offer on Google or Bing or any other search engine, your website comes up as a solution to their needs.

So let’s say your company sells auto parts and you decide to try digital marketing. You create your website and you tell family and friends about it so that they can follow and refer other people to do the same. Although this form of advertising works and pushes people to your website, there are other people you do not know who are already searching for your products and services. Understanding SEO helps you to reach them too.

Since your website is new, there is little to no traffic on there. You might want to try search engine optimization to help create that exposure your website needs. To rank highly on Google, your site has to be helpful and accessible. SEO helps with accessibility while the helpfulness of your content is determined by how effectively it offers solutions or answers to users.

Types of SEO

Four types of search engine optimization are: on-page seo, off-page seo, technical seo, and local seo.

On-Page SEO

This kind of SEO highlights all you do on your website to put it out there. Some of these things include:

• Improving your content: According to Rand Fishkin, “Better content is outweighing more content.”. People tend to think that the more articles you post, the higher your search engine ranking. On the contrary, what improves your search engine ranking is the quality of your articles. Google would not want to send its customers to your website if your website is not going to provide solutions to them. It is quality over quantity.

• Appropriate keywords: You need to find the right keywords. You want to find popularly searched terms related to the content you are creating or services you are offering and incorporate them into your content. These are the words customers are Googling and will aid the Google algorithm in picking your business. Use these keywords on your header and Meta tags (meta tags are descriptive tags displayed on Google’s result page) as well as the body or content of your work.

• Help Google trust your website: Google needs to trust your website to recommend you to people. You can help by attaching your profile and legitimate contact info to your business website. That way, Google sees that you have nothing to hide and visitors can reach you personally.

• Backlinks: Backlinks are links from other websites to your website. This also improves SEO especially if these sites are sites that Google already trusts. See these backlinks as letters of recommendation or votes from that site to yours.

• Use images, videos, and alt texts in your articles: The Google algorithm cannot see images so they use alt texts (Descriptive captions for the images uploaded) to understand what the images you uploaded say. These descriptions are another place to use your keywords.

• Choose SEO-friendly URLs: You may input your keywords in your domain. For instance, if your business name is Sam’s Clothing and you sell shirts, a good page name would be sam’sclothing.com/shirts.

Off-Page SEO

Unlike on-page SEO, off-page SEO has to do with everything you do on platforms outside your website to promote your business. These include:

• Social media marketing

• Commenting

• Influencing

• Paid Ads

• Pretty much all forms of creating awareness for your blog.

Technical SEO

This form of SEO makes it possible for search engines to index your website. An index is a database where that search engine - Google, for example - keeps records of all the websites it can find on a particular topic. So, if your website is not on Googles's index (database), users will not be able to find it.

Some technical SEO practices include:

• Optimize page speed: Ever visited a page but it took too long to load and so you had to leave? As a website owner, you want to reduce site load time to improve the user experience on your website.

• Make your site mobile-friendly: A mobile-friendly website adjusts to any device being used to access it. Making the same features accessible to users irrespective of what device they use.

• Avoid broken links or pages: Eliminate 404 (page not found) errors. You could do this by using a 301 redirect which indicates that your content has been moved to another page.

• Avoid duplicate content issues: Duplicate content problems occur when similar content appears on multiple websites. This not only confuses the search engine algorithm and it does not know which content to display on search engine result pages (SERPs), but it also reduces website ranking. This can be avoided by using canonical links to link pages with the same or similar content.

• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL): SSL is a technology that secures data and internet connection, and protects the information being exchanged between the user and the site from cyber criminals. Putting this in place optimizes the user experience on your website.

• Alt texts: The Google algorithm cannot see what image you used on your website, so using alt texts and inserting your keywords in the alt texts improves your page ranking on Google.

Local SEO

This kind of SEO is aimed at improving your site's visibility in local search results. Local search results pop up when a user searches for services within a particular geographic area. This form of SEO works whether or not your business has a physical branch.

Some forms of local SEO are:

• Using Google My Business: Create a business profile using Google My Business. Fill in your details then set it up. This puts your business on Google maps and enables Google's algorithm to find your business when people search for the services you render in that area.

• Create content based on local events: This could be by posting pictures and videos of the area or of news and events that go on in that area.

• Customer reviews: Have you ever wanted to visit somewhere for the first time and then you check their websites for reviews and you find none? Consequently, did you still go? A customer's positive review of your business makes new customers comfortable with patronizing you.

• Use keywords: Take note of the services your business offers and then identify the keywords that will attract and convert your target audience. Use local keywords which are location-specific phrases or words to help drive traffic to your site. Find and use high competition keywords related to the services you are offering in that region.

Some tools used in SEO

Here are some tools that can help you improve website rankings and traffic. These tools make it a lot easier for you. They are:

• Ahrefs

• SEMrush

• Google Search Console

• KWFinder

• Moz Pro

• SpyFu

And so much more. Some of these are free, some are paid for while the others have both free and premium (paid) packages.

Importance of SEO

Why should you invest in SEO? What can it do for your business?

Here are some of the importance of search engine optimization:

• Customers are always searching for solutions: Millions of searches are made on Google daily, so people are looking for the solutions/services that your business provides.

Understanding SEO helps them find your business. So, if your business cannot be found, you do not only lose business connections, but you also miss out on the free traffic SEO brings.

• SEO brings higher conversion rates for your business: This means that the people who visit your site are very likely to patronize you. This is because the customers SEO brings did not just stumble on your website, they were actively searching for your business content. With this, not only do you generate traffic, you see results as well.

• Cost: There is just so much that people are willing to pay for your services and as other advertisement strategies increase their cost for customer acquisition, you will need free traffic like SEO to keep running.

• Consistent growth: The traffic generated by SEO increases. If you create content with SEO, it remains unchanged and works like that for as many times as people search for your business, for years.

As good as all these sounds, some people still shy away from investing in search engine optimization and I’ll tell you why. SEO does not work overnight. It takes between four to six months to become effective. This is because it takes time for your website to be accurately set up and for Google to see your site as helpful and trustworthy.

In conclusion

It takes discipline, the right strategy, and consistency to be successful, not just at SEO, but at everything else in life. Understanding and implementing these search engine optimization techniques might just be the boost that your business needs.

Did I leave some techniques out? Did you enjoy reading this article? Please react and leave a comment below! 😊🤗