SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It is a set of practices that allows a website to get targeted traffic by ranking high in online searches. Studies show that 70% of marketers today see SEO as more effective than running ads.
Optimizing your website for search engines is not a straightforward process, though, requiring the expertise of digital marketing consultants.
In essence, SEO is about ranking on top of search results for keywords specific to your business – the exact keywords that online searchers use.
SEO is an ongoing process requiring site owners to always be up-to-date on any search engine algorithmic changes. An excellent digital marketing solution always includes SEO, which is why you need to have a good understanding of what it offers to your business.
Why Search Engine Positioning is Crucial
Search engine positioning is a necessary component to drive traffic to any site. Outstanding SEO implementation is like securing a location with a lot of foot traffic for a brick-and-mortar business. SEO is more powerful because these are highly-targeted traffic – site visitors you can quickly turn into customers or leads.
The click-through rate (CTR) shows how many online searchers will click a link in the search engine results and enter a site. Research shows that the websites in the top three positions of any search results take the lion’s share of organic clicks. If your page moves up by just one spot, it can significantly improve the CTR by up to 30%.
Fortunately, masters in digital marketing online can help you bypass the climb, even if your site is on page two or three of search results. Getting displayed on the featured snippets is one such method, appearing on top of the #1 position. Both B2B and B2C businesses will enjoy a steady and consistent flow of visitors if they have several of their pages in this position.
Critical Search Engine Ranking Factors
There are 200 Google ranking factors that every blog post or web page must adhere to if you want them to rank better in search results. Unless you’re a digital marketing master, you don’t have to be an expert in all of these. You can summarize these elements into these set of search engine ranking factors:
- Content quality: You should weave your keywords within long, informative content. Stuffing your relevant keywords in your page will get you nowhere since Google’s algorithm prioritizes quality content.
- Content uniqueness: Articles published on the website must be unique and plagiarism-free. The content will rank better by adding more value to what is already there since you’re not repeating what your competitors have on their site.
- The number of backlinks: The number of sites linking to your content shows the search engines powerful proof that other sites are endorsing you.
- Site performance: Your pages will rank better if your site loads faster than your competitors. Even if visitors land on your website, they will most likely leave if it takes too much time to load.
- Search intent: If your page shows up for the search keyword “best kitchen gadget,” the corresponding page should not contain unrelated products such as gardening tools.
What Makes an SEO-Friendly Web Design
Implementing an SEO strategy all comes down to an SEO-friendly web design. Your website may look fantastic with some flashy animation or graphics. But if it does not follow SEO best practices, you’ll end up spending more because you’ll solely resort to running ads to get traffic.
SEO Best Practices
Now that you know some of the most important factors to rank well in search engines, you need to apply SEO using these best practices on the pages you want to rank. Here are some of them:
- Add your keyword at the top of your page. Keyword placement makes a big difference, so you need to include it in the title and the first few paragraphs.
- Ensure that each of your content is always unique. While this can be pretty easy for informational articles, keeping your content unique for every product page can prove to be challenging. However, digital marketing consultants have specific techniques to maintain uniqueness, such as the canonical tag.
- Use compelling and share-worthy titles. A beautifully-crafted title will increase the number of visitors from search engines and attract backlinks from social media shares.
- Optimize your images. Use descriptive filenames for your photos. Also, ensure to include your target keyword on the alt text – a description that the algorithm uses to understand what the image is about.
Get Free Targeted Traffic with an Excellent SEO Strategy
SEO can help any local business acquire more clients, and eCommerce sites get more sales. Even if you understand the concept well, implementation can be pretty challenging. It’s always best to delegate this task to digital marketing consultants. This way, you can continue devoting your valuable time to other integral aspects of the business.
Contact Diffactory and avail of their award-winning digital marketing and SEO strategy.