“7 Reasons Why Your Business Should Invest In SEO”
“5 Reasons Why SEO Is Important For Small Businesses”
“The Ultimate List of Reasons Why YOU Need SEO!”
These are just three articles you can find on the internet regarding SEO. There are hundreds – no thousands (maybe millions?) – more like them. At this point you’re probably thinking, “Okay, I get it. I need SEO.”
But you might also be thinking, “Okay. I get it…but what is SEO?”
What a great question. I’m so glad you asked.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization
I admit it. When I first heard the phrase “SEO” a couple years ago I had to Google it. This is what I found:
Search. Engine. Optimization.
Well we know what a search engine is: Google. And Bing. And Yahoo. And…is Ask Jeeves still a thing? (Fun Fact: It’s now just Ask.com)
So SEO is optimizing your site or blog for search engines. This is how Google finds you and how you end up on the first page of search results. And that’s the goal right?
Keywords
So how do you optimize your site for search engines? It all begins with keywords. Keywords are the actual searches people make in their search engine of choice. For example:
“Christmas trees in Iowa.”
Well if you sell Christmas trees in Iowa, you’ll want to show up when someone Googles (Or Bings) that phrase. To do so, you want make sure those words – or words very similar – are present on your webpage. (To really optimize your keywords you have to start keyword research. Then you’ll go into implementing those keywords in your copy, headings, title tags and meta descriptions – but that’s a different blog post.)
By implementing your keywords on your web pages it allows search engines to know what your website is about. Google, for example, sends out robots – or spiders – to crawl through the web and find these keywords. If you do not implement keywords on your site Google’s spiders will have no idea what your website is about and they’ll report nothing back to Google. Subsequently, your site will not show up when people search your keywords.
Content. Content. Content.
Content is key for SEO. For starters, the more content you have, the more keywords you can implement in your site. This is always a win.
However, you don’t want to just create content for content’s sake. Make the content relevant to the visitors of your website. Keep your content short and include pictures or graphics. Make them want to read and share your content. In the SEO world sharing really is caring.
Building Your Presence
SEO also depends on your presence on the web. This can be measured by your Domain Authority, a score measured on a scale of 0-100 that indicates the strength of your website. A large portion of your Domain Authority is dependent upon the age of your site – not exactly something you can control (unless you don’t have a website, in which case…what are you waiting for?).
However, there are ways you can build your presence on the web. Creating a blog (content, remember?) and sharing your articles via different social media and internet platforms is a huge part. Being featured on other websites and online directories is also a great way to grow your presence. The more links back to your website the better.
Why? Because the bigger your presence, the more relevant you’ll be in Google’s eyes. And it’s really all about what Google thinks about you. (And yeah, sure, Bing too.)
Now you know what SEO stands for, and what it means. Thanks for going Back to the Basics with us.
