You’ve probably landed on this blog because you searched for something like ‘SEO for beginners’ or ‘What is SEO?’. We know this because that’s what this blog post is optimised for. How do we know this? Because we are a bunch of SEO experts that love nothing more than to practice what we preach.
We get asked a lot of questions by businesses of all sizes, across a range of industries, about search engine optimisation (SEO) – what it is, whether it should form part of their digital marketing strategy, and indeed if it is worth the investment.
So, in this blog, we’ll lay out the basics of SEO for those new to it, explain what it actually is and why it’s so important for your digital marketing strategy – keep reading to find out more about SEO for beginners ….
What exactly is SEO?
Put simply, search engine optimisation is the process of improving both the quality and quantity of traffic to your website through organic (non-paid) search engine results. So basically, improving how people get to your website without having to pay Google for the privilege! And this is important because the more people that land on your website looking for your product or service, the more sales you are going to make.
Even though it sounds very technical, it’s people, not technology, that are at the heart of good SEO. Understanding your audience – who they are, what they care about, what information they are searching for, how and why they are searching for it and the type of content they are seeking to provide the answers – is the key to effective SEO.
Step one for anyone new to SEO is to create audience personas. Find out more about this here.
Why is SEO important?
Google handles 3.8 million searches per minute – that’s because it has become our go-to source for finding out information, for shopping, for researching product information, for booking holidays and everything else in between.
So regardless of what you are selling, whether it’s shoes, software or a service, your audience will be using Google to search for information relating to your offering. But if your website is not optimised properly, they won’t be able to find you and you will be missing out on a huge amount of potential web traffic, and therefore new business, as a result.
In addition, we are increasingly weary of clicking on ads when searching online, meaning that organic searches are a huge potential source of website traffic. Whereas advertising requires continuous investment over time, SEO (when engaged with in the correct way) will pay dividends well after you have published a piece of quality content online.
How can I get started with SEO?
If your website is not generating any enquiries, then the chances are that to Google, you are invisible. That’s a fairly good indication that you should be investing in SEO. To get started, the mega-important thing to remember is that your focus should be on fulfilling user intent above all else.
Whether users are searching for a simple answer to a question, a pizza delivery service or an adorable dog photo, your site should be optimised to provide the information your users are seeking. This helps make your site more credible and trustworthy, both for users and search engines. So start there.
Once you understand user intent, it’s then about analysing what search terms your target audience is looking for relating to your business offering and optimising your website for those terms accordingly, before building the authority of your site.
These are all things we will be bringing to you as part of our ‘SEO for beginners’ blog series, but if you can’t wait then simply get in touch – we’d love to discuss your SEO requirements.