SEO stands for search engine optimization and is one of the two main pillars of online marketing. Even if your website is beautifully designed and built, it won’t appear in the search results if search engines can’t find it. Likewise, customers can’t buy from you if they can’t find you. Search Engine Optimization ensures your website is coded in a way that search engines understand. This starts with your website’s URL – what appears in the browser address bar–the name search engines use to index your site, better known as your Domain Name.
Next is your page’s meta description. The meta description is an HTML tag that provides a short and accurate webpage summary. Search engines use the meta description to identify a web page’s topic and provide relevant search results. You can typically find out where to update the meta description for your page by simply searching for the term ‘meta descriptions’ along with how your page is built out. E.g., Shopify or WordPress.
Throughout building your site, it is essential to keep keywords in mind. Keywords are search terms your customers use to find your products or services and must be included in your website’s content so that Google knows it is relevant to what people are looking for. To add value to your site, you must ensure that your website content is well-written, engaging, concise, accurate, and interesting. If your site isn’t structured with proper SEO in mind, even if you have done everything you can to optimize the look and function, it will unlikely ever rank high.
A keyword is a word or set of words that a webmaster (you) intends to rank better for their page. For example, if your website is about skincare, the keywords ‘skincare’ and ‘best lotion for dry skin’ are keywords you might try to incorporate. When a web searcher enters these keywords into the search bar, the search engine will give them a list of search results based on the websites containing similar words. Good SEO means making your web pages look attractive to search engine algorithms and more appealing to searchers.
The key to increasing your SEO rankings is to produce content that is both engaging and relevant to your audience. Using relevant keywords within your content helps you to be found on search engines. However, search engines like Google and Bing use complex algorithms to adjust the ranking of websites. These algorithms use metadata and coding to determine the outcome of a website’s rank. So, while good content and keywords are most important, you also need to monitor backlinks and several other on-page factors. Google and other search engines will even consider your site speed. 78% of shoppers expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less, so how your website performs isn’t just about how it looks but how people use it. Fast websites build trust, generate sales, and help convert traffic into buyers. Website speed is a significant factor in digital marketing because Google’s algorithm favors the most relevant websites, and then the fastest sites rank higher in the search results. Websites with a rapid loading time also tend to hold the viewer’s attention for much longer, increasing the likelihood of them submitting a contact form or making a purchase.
In conclusion, the benefits of having a high SEO ranking are numerous. When search engines encounter your website, they run their algorithms, and the work you put into good SEO will ensure that your site is where it needs to be. A high search engine ranking means that your website will appear high up the search result list when someone searches for the keywords or phrases relevant to your website. The higher up that list your website appears, the more people are likely to click on your site, which means that you stand a better chance of attracting a more comprehensive range of visitors to your website, ultimately increasing sales.
You can get your free SEO report at distinctlySEO.com. Stay on top of your SEO, and you can save thousands in ad spend each year.
