Do you have created an online business and heard more about SEO but don’t have any idea about it? So, you have come to the right place. Here, I will help you to know about what SEO is, how it works and why it is important for your business.
As you know, when we make a business online, it helps us to increase brand awareness, reach targeted audiences and generate more revenue. So, I also created a business online to increase visibility and generate more income. But, I didn’t know how I could grow my business online.
I have researched a lot and found that Search Engine Optimization is a very important element to optimise the content to rank your business higher on search engines results pages (SERPs).
If you are also in the situation when you don’t know about SEO to grow a business or just for knowledge, then you have to read this guide carefully. Believe me, if you know the working of search engines and how to optimise the content on your website, then your website will easily rank on search engines.
So, In this guide, you will learn about SEO, its elements and benefits and why is it important for your business? How to do Search Engine Optimization on the website?
What is SEO?
SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization. Basically, it is the process by which we can improve or increase visibility of our business or website online. It is very important to increase visibility of any business to grow online to get more customers and more sales.
The more you will get online traffic, the more you will get customers and you will be able to sell your products or services to more customers.
Search Engine Optimization works to rank your website’s content in top search results on search engines. When a customer searches for any query online, then he will get the answers which are well optimized.
Mostly, the customer clicks on the top 3 search results or maybe he can click on the 10th search result, but I am sure he will not move to the next page of search results. So, it is very necessary for your website’s content to be on top search results.
If you have a business, SEO is very important and helpful for your business if you optimise your content according to customer’s queries.
When your business will get the top position in search results, then you will get more traffic and more customers. You will also build a good relationship with your customers.
What are The Elements of SEO?
There are some essential elements of SEO that you need to know.
Content
Content is a very important part of SEO which helps your business to interact with the audience. If your content is fully optimised and provides valuable information in an interesting way, then there is a high chance that customers will spend more time on your content and business.
The content can be created into many forms like
- Videos
- Blogs
- Podcasts
- Social media posts
- How to guides
- Web content
Keywords
Keywords are the most important element to increase the visibility of your business online. Some years ago, SEO only related to the selection of the best keywords for the content, but now keywords should be well researched and properly used in content to make it effective.
Keywords are basically the words and phrases that a customer uses on the search engine to solve their queries. If the keyword is relevant to your content, then Google will show your content to the customers.
Keywords are of many types like short tail keywords, long tail keywords, and local keywords. You should choose a keyword for your content which has a high search volume but low competition.
- Local SEO
You have to do local SEO of your content if you run a café, restaurant and small business in your city. It is very important because when anyone finds best nearby café, then they mostly use their mobile phones instead of desktop and laptop.
So, your content should be optimized mobile friendly and also with local keywords like best café in Modinagar, etc.
- Off-Page SEO
To increase domain authority and trust on search engines, Off-Page SEO is a best practice to do. You can build high quality backlinks on the websites with high domain authority to build authority of your website.
You can create backlinks by doing social bookmarking, directory submissions, guest blogging, etc. Off-Page SEO is very necessary because the website with high domain authority has a high chance to rank on the top search results.
- Search Engine Marketing
If the above elements don’t help your content to rank higher on search engines, then you can use paid marketing campaigns which is known as search engine marketing.
This includes Google AdWords, pay per click (PPC), Google Shopping Ads, etc. It is not necessary but can help your website to reach new audiences and grow faster.
What are the Benefits of SEO?
If you want to increase your website’s traffic and earn more revenue, then you should must follow Search Engines criteria. Following are some benefits you will get by doing so.
- No Cost
If you optimise your content in a better way, then you don’t need to go for paid marketing campaigns like pay per click. Your website will automatically grow on the search engine when you will create the better content by analysing the top ranking sites.
- Credibility Increases
When your site ranks higher on search engines, then it helps to build a relationship with your customers and also search engines consider high quality and trustworthy sites.
So, you need to update your content regularly and do keyword research to rank higher on search engines to increase the trust of your site in search engines.
- Increase Audience
Some of the marketing campaigns only help to get a defined targeted audience, but SEO can help you to reach every type of audience to any location.
You have to use the right keywords for your content which are highly searched and then the more customers will see your content when they search for a query relevant to your keyword.
You can use a keyword research tool to find out which keyword is highly searched. After that, you must do competitive research to find out what keywords your competitors are using to get higher rank and where they have created their backlinks. This is a best practice if you want to beat your competitors and rank higher on search engines.
- Improves Website Usability
If your website is highly optimised, then it will be search-engine friendly. You must create high-quality content, optimise speed, and create high quality backlinks to make an excellent website where users like to spend more time.
A search engine also gives top priority to the sites where users spend more time and the site provides high-quality content to the users and it doesn’t take more time to load.
- Increases PPC Campaigns
You can use both SEO and PPC campaigns to rank your content higher on paid search results. When you use both things together it helps to increase credibility of your site on search engines.
If you use a single thing at a time like SEO or PPC campaigns, then your site can take too much time to rank higher and get trust on search engines. On the other hand, applying both together provides results in less time.
Why is SEO important for your business?
As we know, SEO is very important for a content to rank higher on search engines, but is it also necessary if you run a business.
There are some points from which you will know why SEO is important for your business.
- To Engage with More Customers
If you want to grow your business then SEO helps you to know what your customers want and what are their requirements.
You can easily know about a customer’s intent from SEO data like SERP analysis, Search query data, Analytics data, etc.
- To Build Trust
The main aim of any SEO is to build a strong trust on search engines with high quality content and better user experience. The more your trust will build, the more your website will be easy to discover.
On search engines like Google, you have to increase the authority of your website. But keep in mind that it cannot happen overnight, it increases over time.
The authority of your site will depend on.
- Backlinks
- User behaviour
- Optimised Content
- Get More Organic Traffic
Your site must have more organic traffic than the paid traffic for the growth of your business. It is because organic traffic can help you to get leads and sales while paid traffic doesn’t.
As we know, Google now occupies almost 75% of the search market. So, it is very necessary for your site to get more traffic from Google.
Google is now a mostly used search engine platform in the world with more than 1 billion users. Every person comes daily on Google to search for a query. It is a best opportunity for your site to rank your site higher on Google to get more visitors which may turn into customers.
How to do SEO on a website?
After knowing the benefits and importance of SEO, now you need to know how you can implement it on your site to get better results.
SEO are of three types:
- Technical
- ON-Page
- OFF-Page
Technical SEO
It is a very complicated part of SEO in which you optimize the content to easily get crawled and indexed by search engines when anyone is looking for a query.
There are some elements of technical SEO.
- Fix Broken Links
There may be broken links present on your site. So, to rank higher and create better user experience you have to fix all broken links present on your site.
The broken links can be internal links or external links. There are lots of free online tools available which help you to find the broken links.
- Make your content mobile-friendly
As we know, now mostly people use mobile phones while searching for a query, so it is very important to create your website’s content mobile-friendly.
You can use Search Console if your content is mobile friendly or not. If it is not, contact your developer to make the content mobile friendly.
- Optimize Speed
The loading speed of a website also creates a big impact on the performance of the website. If any website takes more than 5 seconds to load, then there is a high chance that the user will move to another site.
As a result, your site will be bounced which gives a negative impact to search engines. So for better results, your site must load in 2 to 3 seconds.
On-Page SEO
On-Page is a real optimization of the website to rank higher. In this, the selection of keywords for a content mostly matters.
There are some elements of On-Page :
- Keywords
Before creating a content, keyword selection is the main part of SEO. So, you have to find out which keyword relates to your business and search on search engines. The keyword should not be too competitive.
If your site is new or having low domain authority, then choose a keyword with high search rate and low competition.
You can choose from two types of keywords: short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords contain one or two keywords with high competition while long-tail keywords contain phrases of three to six keywords with low competition.
- Content
After selecting the best keyword for your content, now you have to create the content by using those keywords. It is very important to use keywords in important parts by which users can easily relate to your content.
Google also gives top priority to the contents which are created with keeping in mind about keywords.
- Title
When a user searches for a query on a search engine, then he first sees the title of a content. So, any title having the exact keywords that the user is searching for will be more likely to get clicked.
You must include keywords in the beginning of the title and always try to make the title short and catchy.
- Headings
Headings improve the readability and quality of any written content. You must use H1, H2, H3, and H4 in your content to present it in an effective way.
Off-Page SEO
Off-Page is also important part of SEO which can be done through other websites.
There are some elements of Off-Page .
- Backlinks
Backlinks help you to build your trust on search engines. The search engines see you as trustworthy when your content is shared by other domains. They signify that your content is helpful so other domains are sharing your link.
It also helps to increase the domain authority which in future also helps to get higher ranking in search results.
- Social Media Sharing
Apart from search engines, Social media is also a widely used platform. Almost 80% of people in this world spend their 1 hour daily on social Media. This is a best opportunity for content creators and online business holders to promote their content on social media platforms.
You can get more user engagement and more organic traffic from social media sharing.
Conclusion
This was all about SEO and now you know why it is important for your business. Without SEO, your hard work on creating a website and content is a total waste of time and money.
There are three main parts – Technical , On-Page , and Off-Page that you need to follow to increase the growth of your website or online business.
I hope you enjoyed this post and get valuable information. If you have any suggestions and queries, then mention them in the comment section.
Frequently Asked Questions
What SEO Stands for?
SEO Stands for Search Engine Optimization which is the process of optimising the content to get higher rank and increase visibility on search engines.
What are the main types of SEO?
There are four types of SEO:
- Technical
- ON-Page
- OFF-Page
- Local
How are SEO categorised?
SEO are categorised in three ways- White Hat , Grey Hat , and Black Hat .