What is search engine optimization?

 

You've probably heard of search engine optimization (SEO), but what is it? And why should your small business or private practice care about it?

In a nutshell, SEO is the process of improving the visibility and ranking of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs). It's all about making sure your site comes up first when people are searching for keywords related to your business.

Why does this matter? Well, consider this: according to Go-Globe, 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results. So if your website doesn't show up on that first page, you're missing out on many potential traffic and customers.

Fortunately, there are several things you can do to improve your site's SEO and get it closer to that coveted first-page spot. Here's a quick overview of some key SEO strategies:

 

On-site SEO - optimizing your website for search engines.

 

On-site optimization refers to optimizing your actual website content for search engines and users. That means using targeted keywords throughout your site and making sure your site is fast, mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate. On-page SEO is all about optimizing your website to put it in a prime position on the search engine results pages. By ensuring all on-page elements, such as the page titles, tagging, content, and URLs, are optimized, you can create an experience on your website that works perfectly for humans and robots! This ensures that everybody knows exactly what they’re getting on your website. So if you want to maximize your web presence on search engines, look no further than creating strong on-site SEO content! You won’t be disappointed.

 

 

Off-site SEO - optimizing your web presence outside of your website.

 

Off-site optimization: Nobody likes spending hours upon hours optimizing their website for SEO only to have the effects wear off as soon as they stop. But if you thought on-site seo was tedious, try tackling off-page seo-- it’s a new frontier! This encompasses everything you do outside your website to promote it online. This can include link building (getting other websites to link to yours), social media marketing, and directory listings. Off-page SEO goes beyond your site to optimize your entire web presence. It’s often just as valuable when appropriately done but requires more serendipity than technical skill. Instead of adding meta tags or setting up redirects, you need a seo consultant who can help build relationships and partnerships. If properly executed, this includes link building, promoting content through social media outlets, and even bringing people to visit relevant tradeshows. All these methods will help boost your visibility across different platforms, making it much easier for potential customers to find you. Just remember– if you don't keep working at it, these off-page seo factors that increase your online visibility won’t do much!

 

 

Local SEO - targeting searches from people in your geographical area.

 

Local SEO: Local SEO is vital if you have a brick-and-mortar business or service area business. This includes optimizing your website and offline presence to ensure you show up in localized searches. This can be done by claiming your Google My Business listing and getting listed in directories like Yelp. When it comes to local SEO, searching out the best local seo companies and local seo consultants are two of the best ways to partner with experts for a successful regional SEO strategy and execution. With their expertise, businesses can tailor search engine optimization best practices specifically for their geographical area, allowing them to target customers in their immediate vicinity. For example, with their help, you can adjust content strategizing and your backlinks, so they appear first in organic searches relevant to the regional clients you wish to serve. Implementing these best practices gives your business an edge and ensures visitors are familiar with what you offer in your particular geographic area​ quickly and without fail. By investing in a best-in-class local SEO consultant or team, you will be well on your way to success!

 

 

E-commerce SEO - optimizing an online store for the search engines.

 

E-commerce SEO: If you run an online store, e-commerce SEO is vital to driving traffic and sales. Optimizing product descriptions and images for both users AND search engines can help increase click-through rates from SERPS pages to your store pages. You'll also want to use apps/plugins that help create sitemaps and generate Rich Snippets for products – these can all help boost how often your e-commerce store appears in SERPS results pages." Getting e-commerce SEO right is like hitting the bullseye with a bow and arrow - it takes precision, strategy, and skill. Don't settle for the average e-commerce seo services or e-commerce seo agency that promises success yet fails to deliver - they do more harm than good! For optimal e-commerce results, look to crack the code of e-commerce search engine optimization. It involves everything from optimizing your content to nailing technical details to give you an online store well-coordinated with today's digital landscape. When done right, e-commerce search engine optimization will help you generate more traffic and sales - plus keep those customers coming back for more!

 

 

YouTube SEO - making sure your videos show up in search results.

 

YouTube Optimization": If you've got a YouTube video to promote, you want it to appear in searches. For that, you've got to take advantage of the power of YouTube SEO. For any video - whether it user-generated videos(like testimonials) or company-produced ones (like explaining what we do)- Search Engine Optimization will become more critical than ever before." If someone wants to watch a video, they will go straight to YouTube or another hosting site rather than clicking through 10 different organic results and looking for the right one. “By optimizing each video title + description, we significantly increase the chances that our target audience will find us." Social media activity as a ranking factor: Social signals are becoming increasingly important in rankings. A recent study by Search metrics found that social movements are tied directly to better rankings. And not just any social signals, shares, likes, tweets, comments, and so forth from HIGH AUTHORITY profiles in specific networks. Coordinated strategy implementation will help YouTube videos rank higher in search results. With the right YouTube seo services, your videos can get noticed by more viewers and connect with the people interested in watching them! From optimizing titles and tags, creating playlists, and managing comments, there's so much that goes into ensuring your YouTube videos are ranked high in search results and seen by your target audience. The days when anyone could throw together a few low-quality contents along with some keywords and expect to rank highly are long gone ." So make sure to take advantage of all the visibility YouTube seo can bring. Optimize your YouTube videos today!

 

The takeaway is that if no one’s talking about your site, its social proof will suffer–hurting both Rankings & Conversions.) These days good ol’ fashioned high-quality content created for people first is still vitally important, but without proper distribution & audience engagement, it won’t accomplish much." Creating great content isn’t enough –aggressive promotion must amplify its utility if publishers expect any real ROI ." If you want to increase your website traffic, you need to make sure you're doing SEO. There are many different types of SEO, but the main ones are on-site SEO, off-site SEO, local SEO, e-commerce SEO, and YouTube SEO. You can do all these things yourself if you have the time and knowledge or hire someone to do it for you. Either way, if you want to see an increase in web traffic, make sure you're doing some form of search engine optimization.

This helps clear things up for anyone needing clarification about what Search Engine Optimization is about! Drop me a line below with any questions or thoughts! And if you need help getting started, we offer complimentary seo audits and strategy consultations. Call us today!