Any business in this day and age has heard the term search engine optimization (SEO). However, just because you have heard the term doesn’t mean you really understand it. Search engine marketing, also called SEM, is a topic that is simple in principle but which gets more complicated the more you research it. If you find yourself overwhelmed trying to create an SEO strategy, Amped can help you. Here are some basics of what SEO means and why it matters to you and your company.
Defining SEO
Before we discuss how SEO works, it’s important to understand what it is exactly. The acronym is short for search engine optimization. Essentially, this is optimizing your web pages so that search engines (like Google, Bing, or Yahoo) can catalog your content more easily.
A SERP, or search engine results page, does not appear by magic. Instead, search engines have bots that search your page for keywords. When people use these keywords in their search queries, the search engine shows pieces of content that are relevant to these keywords. Understanding how these bots determine relevance is key to optimizing your content.
SEO Basics
The bots that catalog the web do not interact with the pages on your site in the same way that a human being would. Instead, they have to rely on aspects of your site’s coding to guide them to what is important. These bots start with your title tag as the most important then move through different meta tags.
There are a variety of ranking factors that can boost your site’s SEO. The first and foremost is how keywords (the terms people use when they make a web search) appear. Your top keyword should appear in your title tag, H1 meta tags, and meta description. Beyond keywords, building links can boost SEO, as can avoiding duplicate content.
How SEO Helps Your Business
Even when you understand how SEO works, you might not be convinced of why it is important to your business. After all, your potential customers are human beings, not robots. However, even though the user experience is important, users will not even find your site if it does not rank high on the SERP.
In the modern age, 97% of customers will learn about a local business online. When making searches for products and services, 92% of people also tend to stay on the first page of their preferred search engine. If you don’t appear here, you won’t get the business you need. Pay per click advertising can help, but studies show that the majority of consumers prefer pages that appear in the organic search results.
Understanding SEO basics can help you create a website that draws in more leads and gets you more business. However, if you want to grow your business, you will need to go beyond the basics. Here at Amped, our team of SEO experts will boost your site’s SEO with blog posts, strategic landing page content, and more. Contact us today at 520.777.8309 and find out how we can get you to the first page of Google.
