What Is SEO and How Does it Work?
If you run your own business, the chances are you have heard of search engine optimization (SEO). You may have even dabbled in it yourself. On the other hand, maybe you have no idea what SEO is and would like some help understanding it in plain language. Wherever you are with your understanding of the world that is SEO, we’ve got you covered. Today, we discuss what SEO is and how it works.
How Do You Define SEO?
Put simply, SEO is a set of practices (on-page SEO and off-page SEO) that are put into place to help a website rank higher on a search engine results page (SERP). It stands for search engine optimization. SEO is organic, meaning no paid advertising is involved, although you can pay a consultant or agency to help you with SEO. SEO is important as it helps you optimize your website. Doing so means your website will show up high on a SERP when people search for keywords that relate to what you do.
Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you own a dental practice in San Diego, CA and know it’s important for your website to show up on the first SERP for the keywords “Dentist in San Diego.” If your website does not show up in a Google search for those keywords, you will want to make some changes. After all, according to Moz, “93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.” Additionally, 75% of searchers don’t even bother to scroll past the first search engine results page. So, you’re going to want to get that coveted spot on the first SERP to reach more potential clients/customers.
How Do You Optimize a Website for SEO?
Here are some key areas you should work on when optimizing a website for SEO:
Search engines want to provide their searchers with the most valuable, informative, and user-friendly content possible. Before writing content, it is beneficial to understand your target audience, and what they might be searching for, and also utilize keyword tools such as Keywords Everywhere Ahrefs, Moz, and the People Also Asked feature on Google to gain some insights.
Meta title and descriptions
These two areas are what search engine crawlers look at first before determining how to rank a website. You want to make sure that your meta title and meta description contain the keywords you want that page to rank for specifically. You also want to make sure these titles and descriptions are not too long or too short. Many website hosting platforms like Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace will tell you how long each should be.
Headings
You want to make sure each page contains headings. The Heading 1 of each page should contain the most important keyword you would like to rank for followed by Heading 2s and then Heading 3s, which are subheadings of Heading 2s. Search engine crawlers will read the content in this order.
Make sure you do not have the same keywords in your headings for multiple pages as this could lead to keyword cannibalization.
Technical audit
Search engines will penalize you for certain technical issues on a website, including but not limited to site speed, broken links, 404 redirect errors, and duplicate content. You can do a free site audit online on Moz or have an SEO agency or consultant run one for you.
Looking for an SEO on-page checklist you can refer to when optimizing your website pages? Check out our SEO best practices checklist online today.
How Does SEO Work?
SEO helps potential customers or clients find you online when they use a search engine like Google! To do so, you need to optimize your website for search engines but also remember the importance of creating relevant and helpful information for searchers too. Today, search engines use more than 200 different factors to generate search results, which means you need a solid understanding of SEO and how to optimize a website to rank high on a SERP.
Who Can Help You With SEO?
SEO agencies and SEO consultants can help you by creating an SEO strategy and putting it into place for you. We recommend working with an SEO company for at least 6 months. If you’re in a competitive market, we’d say at least 1 year. Remember SEO is a long-term investment and it takes time to see results from efforts. Make sure you know what to look for too before hiring an SEO company as well.
Do you have questions about SEO? Maybe you want to find a company that can help you optimize a website, but do not know where to look? TM SEO Services offers an introductory SEO strategy call to go over all your basic needs.