You’ll be surprised at the amount you can learn about SEO. But your business depends on you understanding the basics. Only web designers that learn SEO can build profit-driven websites.
SEO is the most widely discussed marketing technique in online business. It’s central to engagement and the success of your website. And most of its components are more approachable than you think.
Search engines drive 64% of all traffic for websites on average. The only alternative is paying for advertising. Even Google AdWords become costly if you’re on a budget.
Proper SEO is entirely in your control. All your work on SEO is directed towards your own website. You can invest time, effort, or money any way you see fit.
Here’s Why You Need to Learn SEO
There are two different types of traffic: organic and paid. We already talked about what paid traffic entails. Organic traffic arrives at your site naturally via search.
The better your SEO, the more likely your target audience will find you. This is the only ‘free’ method to draw traffic to your site. Ignoring SEO is a disservice to your business.
It Works
SEO is effective. This holds true even after recent search engine changes. Methodical SEO paired with a great user experience will produce ideal results.
It won’t go away anytime soon, either. But it has already evolved a lot. Audio, video and interactive content are becoming essential for effective SEO.
Think of SEO as a journey. Learn SEO now and see results right away. Refine your abilities as these evolutions continue.
It’s Affordable
Nothing comes for free. Whether its cash or labor, you pay something for results. But SEO doesn’t require you to pay a third party to succeed.
Your alternatives are PPC, social media, or email marketing programs. These promise good results but are expensive. Even for large companies, they are secondary to pure SEO.
Budget or not, this is where you start. But SEO is proven to provide good ROI. Build your base and expand your marketing from there.
It’s Great for Mobile and Local Search
Mobile will be the preferred platform for searches soon. This opens up opportunities for small businesses. They can begin targeting audiences via local search optimization.
Cape Town residents already provide location data when they search online. Search engines can leverage this data to find the local solutions. Local search optimized sites will reap the benefits.
Your Local Competitors Are Using SEO
It’s simple math. Without SEO, your target audience will find your competitors first. Many of them will never discover you to compare.
Don’t worry. Getting started with SEO is easy. We’ll walk through the basics and give you a head start.
5 Ways to Get Started with SEO
You don’t have to be a genius to learn SEO. You Just need a willingness to see it through.
We’ve identified five ways you can start your website’s SEO transformation. Learn the basics in each area to build a foundation. You can build your expertise in SEO best practices from there.
1. Content is King
This old internet adage has held true for years. It continues to hold true today. What’s more, search engines have improved the ways they find good content.
You need quality content on your site to attract search engines. That means reaching beyond marketing and sales materials. You need helpful, objective assets that add value to visitors’ lives.
Most websites start with a blog. Use important keywords while keeping your language natural. Search engines know when you’re piling on keywords for effect.
Publish several of pages of good content as well. Make sure it’s easy to navigate between pages. Your user experience will contribute to your search rankings also.
2. Keep Visitors Engaged
As mentioned, search criteria are always evolving. For example, engagement has become increasingly important to search results. It’s much less talked about than standard SEO methods.
Google now ranks engagement based on click-through rate (CTR) and dwell time. These metrics represent visitors’ pages clicked and time spent on your website. That means the more appealing and engaging your website, the better your rankings.
Think about how you would keep visitors engaged for long periods. You can leverage a combination of solutions in addition to your blog. Live chat, videos, and special incentives come to mind.
3. Do Some Link Building
Link building involves adding links to your content and securing links to your website. Use links in appropriate places directing traffic to reputable sources. You’ll want to find ways to get an authoritative site to link to yours as well.
The key to strong link building is to be conservative. Only link to sites when your anchor text is relevant. Your anchor text is simply the linked text in your content.
You shouldn’t use too many links either. This is distracting and lowers your search rankings. Keep in mind your links should be a service to your visitors.
You can reach out to other websites to link to your own. As you improve your site, other sites will discover you as well. This is all the more reason to create content with true value.
4. Improve Your Navigation
Good navigation is not only crucial for dwell time. It’s critical to the user experience, which in turn drives revenue. Search engines can tell if your site has good navigation as well.
The first step is to avoid clutter. That means having too many pages along with unnecessary ones. Each body of content should be succinct and useful to your visitors and your business.
You should also reduce friction for your visitors. They’ll leave if they can’t find the content they want right away. Plan your site around your homepage, logical page arrangements, and clear navigation tools.
5. Align SEO with Business Value
As you learn SEO, keep your long-term business goals in mind. That means adding calls to action at the ends of your blog posts. You can provide valuable content and navigation while driving visitors to sales.
Google has developed into an intuitive machine. It favors sites much as an interested visitor will favor them. Keep these natural aspects and essential tips in mind as you learn more.
Take the Next Step in Your SEO Adventure
You need a holistic approach to business SEO. As you master the basics, think about your long-term objectives. Oonie is a team of SEO experts and creatives that can bring your website to a new level of performance.
Contact us now, and we’ll answer all your SEO questions. We’d like to learn more about your business goals as well.