7 Reasons Why You Need An SEO Strategy

These days, building a website isn’t enough to keep small businesses competitive. Thanks to the constant evolution of search engines and their ever-changing algorithms, getting quality traffic from the web can seem like a challenging feat. For this reason, think of SEO as your liferaft for being found in the neverending ocean of the world wide web. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

What Is SEO?

SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

Let’s break it down a bit more to clarify:

• Quality: Having a ton of site visitors sounds pretty impressive, but if they view your site just because Google tells them to, you may or may not be getting serious leads to your site. When it comes to quality, the goal is to attract visitors that are likely to take action on your site and engage with you online.
• Quantity: Once you’ve got the right audience to click through to your site from search engine results pages (SERPs), the more traffic, the better!
• Organic Search Results: Many platforms now are pay-to-play. You want organic search results that are not from paid advertising through search engines.

The Inner Workings Of SEO

The first thing that may come to mind when you think about SEO is a search engine like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go, etc., that serves up a list of results once you enter your search criteria. This thought is true to a certain extent. In fact, these sites have crawlers that gather information about all the content they find on the web. The crawlers bring their findings back to the search engines to build an index. That index is then fed through an algorithm that tries to match all the data to your initial inquiry.

Many factors go into a search engine algorithm:

• Domain-Level Keyword – Agnostic Features (e.g., domain name length, response times, etc.)
• Domain-Level Keyword Usage – Exact match or partial match keywords.
• Social Metrics – Quality of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. shares, comments, likes, etc.
• User/Traffic Inquiries – Traffic, Diversity, Toolbars, Clickstream, etc.
• Domain-Level Brand Features – Offline usage of brand/domain name. News, media, and press mentions.
• Domain-Level Link Features – Quality of links.
• Page-Level Keyword Agnostics – Content length, readability, and uniqueness.
• Page-Level Link Features – Page ranking, quality of links, and anchor links.
• Relevant Keywords & Content Features – Content quality and quantity.

The list above is what attracts search engines to your site. However, the optimization piece can be anything from internal/external links, title tags, and metadata descriptions.

Now that you know what SEO means and how it works let’s explore the benefits a solid SEO strategy can provide to your small business.

1.  Boost Your Credibility Online

If your site ranks high on Google search results, this means it’s deemed high-quality and trustworthy by the search engine gods. This also boosts your credibility online and puts you on the top of the list when someone searches for your specific product or service.

2.  Supports Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content and SEO go together like peanut butter and jelly. They complement each other in just the right ways. Fresh new high-quality content on your website and social media channels will only help elevate your Google ranking.

3.  Maximize PPC Campaigns

Organic and paid marketing campaigns work well together for optimal results. PPC helps increase your ranking on search engines, while SEO content does the same thing organically. It’s like a marketing campaign on steroids. Having both campaigns acting simultaneously can really be the boost you need to dominate search.

4.  Gain A Competitive Advantage

If you’re not currently investing in SEO, you better believe your competition is. Those who pay to play will outrank those who don’t every time. Let’s put it into perspective. The first page of Google search gets 90% of the traffic. If that’s not a sobering fact, we don’t know what is. An excellent place to start is getting to know your competition and how they are using SEO to attract customers. You can easily conduct a SWAT analysis to formulate your SEO strategy.

5.  Broaden Your Reach

Part of the branding process is defining a target audience and then amplifying efforts to reach those specific people. The beauty of SEO is that it can help you attract anyone at any stage of the sales funnel.

TIP: Use keywords for targeting rather than demographics to broaden your reach and attract more customers who want to do business with you.

6.  Rank Higher In Local Searches

Nearly 80% of local searches on mobile lead to a conversion. Take advantage of the popular local search terms such as “hair salon near me.” One way to do this is by optimizing your Google my Business page. If you don’t have one, you need to head on over to Google and claim yours right now. It’s what we consider low-hanging fruit that can offer big rewards if managed properly. This means requesting reviews from clients and getting users to engage with your page. Post updates and share the latest news from your business. Another idea is to include local keywords and also create listings in local business directories.

7.  Quantifiable Results

Once you’ve got your SEO strategy in play, it’s easy to track changes in rankings, conversion, and website traffic. You can use the analytics through your website provider or Google Analytics to keep an eye on your progress. This makes it super flexible to try new things and adjust quickly as needed.

If you can’t tell, we here at Teal Marketing, LLC are super fans of SEO and the benefits it can provide any business. If you’re looking for a bit of help optimizing your website to get it back in good graces with the SEO gods, please feel free to give us a call or contact us!

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Sincerely,

Anna Teal