The use of the Internet has grown more popular for the past years, and most of us have encountered or heard the word ‘SEO’. And yes, we also wonder what it stands for, its definition and how important it is.
Most of the business owners who have websites are taking advantage of the different benefits of SEO because they know how vital it is, for them to achieve growth and success in their industry. So, what does it mean? Let’s continue, shall we?
So what is SEO? SEO or Search Engine Optimization is an important digital marketing strategy applied to websites, and it can affect its performance on the Internet. To get a better understanding of its importance, let us get to know the common questions that are being asked on the web, especially to those who own a business or would like to start up a new one.
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What Does SEO Stands For
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a popular process of optimizing one’s website to increase its visibility. Unlike Search Engine Marketing (or SEM), SEO is used to generate organic or unpaid traffic. You can see it on the results page of the different search engines such as Google, Bing and the like. It aims in helping the website become number one or be at the top rank.
Well, it may sound easy, but if you think about the thousands of other similar websites on the Internet, it is a tight competition out there. If we want to be competitive with our ranking, we need to understand the nature of this process to identify the proper strategy for your website. It may involve changing up your site’s design and content, making it look more appealing.
Search engines are looking into websites; it checks the different elements it has to know if the site matches the user’s needs. This process is known as ‘crawling’.
Search engines will understand and index the content of your websites. You will get positive results if you improve the SEO for your business. It will become highly recommended if your website is appealing, especially if it contains keywords that are connected to what your business offers.
Improving SEO and boosting its ranking can be done by applying simple to complex changes. If you want customers, then you need people to notice you. How can that be done? Well, you have to keep in mind only using keywords, phrases that are connected to your business so that Google will find your website appealing and rank it higher and be more competitive.
There are many ways to improve your SEO, and you might want to read on for you to know more.
SERP Ranking: What Does It Mean?
Aside from knowing SEO, let’s move on to another and most frequently asked topic; SERP Ranking. Let’s get an in-depth understanding.
The SERP or Search Engine Results Pages ranking of your company’s website shows its position on where it ranks on the search engines. If you improve your website’s search engine optimization, it will become more visible on the web and will boost its rank. You will be discovered by your potential users or visitors if your rank is high on the SERP. Using keywords and phrases that are appropriate is very important. The more visible your website is, the more visitors it will have.
When we search something, let’s say on Google, we tend to look at the first page only, and we don’t click on pages 2, 3 and so on. This is why if we can have an excellent ranking on SERP, we get the attention of our prospective clients, but this can only work if we improve our website.
The Basics Of Increasing SEO Ranking
SEO Ranking is not as easy as you think. It requires analyzing, effort and time. There are certain factors that we need to consider for us to get the rank that we want. There are no shortcuts to achieve this. However, if we have a basic idea of how we can do it; it could be a good foundation for your business. You might want to take note of the following if you want to increase your website’s ranking on the search engine results page.
- Research Keywords. You can try to use different keywords for you to get a clear comparison of what works and what doesn’t. This step is important before creating content. You can identify what type of content to create if you know what your customers are looking for. With this, you can also make sure that your website’s SERP ranking is competitive.
- Only High and Good-Quality Content Must Be Produced. Why? If you want to attract your potential clients, you need to make sure you don’t just put anything unrelated to what your business offers. Again, use phrases and keywords that you can connect to your services and products. This way, search engines such as Google, Bing, as well as your clients will get a good understanding of what your business is all about.
- Website is Accessible and Easy to use on Mobile Phones. People nowadays are commonly using their mobile phones because it is more convenient. Make sure that the website works on phones and other gadgets for excellent user experience. This also contributes to your site’s ranking.
- Voice Search of Website Must Also Be Optimized. Many find the use of voice search as one of the most convenient and faster ways to look for something on the Internet. Statistics from Google shows that 55% of teens and 41% of adults are using this method every day. It is good for your company to adapt to changes on the Internet. According to research made by Gartner, in the year 2020, most of the searches will be done without typing on a screen.
However, you have to take note that the typed phrases and keywords will not be exactly similar to those that are using voice search. Let’s say a person typed “cheap furniture” on a search engine, but in voice search, it may be longer like “where can I find cheap furniture?” People tend to ask longer phrases.
The basics mentioned above are factors that you can easily oversee. However, your website’s performance may be influenced by the readers or visitors who are also known as off-page contributors. This is focused on the authority of your website wherein its quality is based on other sites or person’s linking or sharing to others. You will get a better or more established authority from high-quality websites that will link to your content.
It is also important to take note of the word “bouncing.” It is an off-page SEO that can also influence your website’s SERP ranking because it shows if the visitors stayed longer, engaged in the content, or if they left right away. This displays how great your content is on your website that will want to make your visitor stay and read on.
Negative Aspects That Can Affect SEO
It’s not just good things that you need to look out for when it comes to SEO. You also need to learn about the common mistakes that can affect your site’s SEO. Here are some points that you need to remember:
- Too many Keywords! Even if you could produce content, but you are still stuffed with keywords, which makes no sense at all anymore (let’s say about more than 15 times within a 100 words article), your site will be penalized by the search engines for this act since it has become unhelpful to the user.
- Content is lacking in body or substance. If Google sees that the content on your website is not helpful at all to users, you may be penalized for providing poor content. This will significantly affect your SEO.
- Images and Links are broken. Bad user experience in this aspect will surely hurt your site’s ranking due to an increase in bounce rate. Always check the links regularly by using different tools available.
- When you link to spam contents. Your website’s SERP ranking will negatively be affected if you do this. Always remember to stay away from linking your site’s content to any forums or blogs that are spamming.
If you don’t want to be penalized by search engines and affect the SEO performance of your website, be prudent with your actions for you to become successful and competitive with others. If you keep in mind these basic steps and even do a little more research, you will surely be ranking at the top.
Social Media: Does It Affect SEO?
Social media is very popular, and you can find a huge market here. But the question is do social media impact SEO?
Yes, social media activity can impact your SEO as well as your ranking in SERP. People who have social media accounts on different platforms like Facebook can share the links of your content as well as your website; this will generate traffic. You will be able to find leads that are potential for your business. It is also good exposure for your company.
Did you know that the social media profile of your company can also be ranked in the different search engines? If your social media accounts are always answering to queries and commenting positively at the same time, you will become more visible and thus rank in search engines. Just continue doing this to establish an excellent foundation for your business.
Also, it is best if you build the social authority of your company since it also affects SERP ranking. Search engines will see not just how active you are, but also the number of followers you have and how well-engaged you are to your profile.
Is SEO Important To Achieve Success In My Business?
Since you have an idea of what SEO is and what it can do, do you think your business would be better left alone without the help of doing this strategy? That would be a hard battle for anyone, especially if you compete against other businesses on the web.
Remember, people are finding almost everything on the Internet. If you want your products and services to be known in your community or even to the world, then the use of a search engine is your best way. Even small businesses utilize this strategy.
The Internet is one of the amazing ways that you can grow your business and eventually become successful. Therefore, YES! SEO is very important to succeed.
When people able see your website listed on the first page of the SERP and match the phrases and keywords that they are looking for, they will visit and navigate through your site.
It does pay off when you improve your SEO, and why?
- Your online visibility will be improved.
- With the right keywords used and relevant content, your potential client will find you.
- You will become successful with your online presence and achieve high rankings in SERP.
- More leads equate to more sales opportunities.
You can become competitive with others even with a tight budget in advertising. Do it slowly but surely, always take one step at a time. As your business grows in sales, so does your SEO strategy funding.
Think More For Your Business
Another best way to improve your ranking on SERP and develop your SEO is to focus on your visitors who are reading content and are spending time to navigate the website. Even if you think the content you have produced to be optimized in search engines is already awesome and perfect, but if the users find it unhelpful and irrelevant, then you have wasted your efforts.
And when designing your website, always consider the user experience (UX) as one of the top priorities. Ease of navigation, mobile friendly site is one of the ways to provide a good user experience. Make things simple yet appealing.
Lastly
SEO is not magic and as I’ve said, it requires analyzing, effort and time. You could be thinking right now the next step you should do after knowing what SEO is, and who can help you with this. Before doing anything else, you should make a record of your website as well as your blog content first by knowing what your current rank is in the search engine results pages of Google, Bing, etc…. This way, you will be able to track your improvements over time should you decide to push for this strategy.
The best thing about this method is that you don’t need to do this on your own since SEO is rather complex. Engage a competent SEO company to begin your successful journey to becoming one of the top-ranking websites on search engines.
