SEO is made up of many different parts. To understand why SEO is so important, you need to know what those parts are and how they work.
SEO makes your website more visible, which increases traffic and sales.
It’s a terrific method to promote your company, form relationships with potential customers, and establish yourself as a trusted expert. Here’s all you need to know about SEO in today’s digital environment.
The Most Important Parts of SEO Marketing
Keywords
Keywords are ideas and topics that show what your content is about. “Search queries” are another name for the words and phrases that people type into search engines. If you put everything on your page—pictures, videos, text, etc.—into one big pot, you’ll lose a lot.
When conducting keyword research, use high-search-rate, low-competition, short-tail, long-tail, and local keywords.
Along with a prime keyword, you should have secondary and tertiary keywords. Optimize titles, URLs, and other on-page SEO elements with keywords.
Content
Content is an important part of SEO because it’s how you reach and connect with people. It’s important to know your angle and write content that fits it.
Today’s content needs to be informative, but it also needs to be interesting, useful, and easy to share. Content comes in many different forms, such as:
- Web page content
- Videos
- Blogs (you can easily start your own to practice!)
- Infographics
- Podcasts
- Listicles
- How-to manuals
- E-books and whitepapers
- Social media posts
- Listings in your area
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is the process of optimizing things outside of your site, rather than on it.
Off-page SEO focuses on backlinks. When other sites connect to yours, search engines see your site as important and high-quality, boosting its authority.
Guest blogging, infographics, and influencer marketing are great ways to build backlinks.
Local SEO
Local SEO is getting more crucial as mobile searches rise. 60% of mobile searches are for local information.
Local SEO includes using local keywords, claiming directory entries, and creating location-specific pages (also called “doorway pages”).
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is paid marketing. It includes native ads, Google AdWords, ads on social media, pay-per-click (PPC) ads, ads on Google Shopping, display ads, and more.
Even though SEM isn’t always a big part of an SEO strategy, it does have its place because it can help you reach new and highly targeted audiences. SEO and SEM can also be made to work together.
Here are some examples of SEM advertising:
- Paid, specific campaigns
- Copy that is based on keywords and is related to your business or product
- Click-through rates (CTR) and cost-per-click (CPC) are two types of performance indicators (CPC)
Understanding the Importance of Search Engine Optimization for Modern Businesses
You’ve probably heard a hundred times that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a vital digital marketing tool. But do you really know how SEO works? Even if you have a basic understanding of what it entails, you may still not have a solid grasp of this complex and multifaceted process.
SEO is made up of multiple elements, and knowing what they are and how they work is key to understanding why SEO is so important. In short, SEO is crucial because it makes your website more visible, and that means more traffic and more opportunities to convert prospects into customers.
It’s also a valuable tool for brand awareness, building relationships with prospects, and positioning yourself as an authoritative and trustworthy expert in your field. So, here’s everything you need to know about SEO and why it’s vital to succeed in today’s digital world.
The Crucial Elements of SEO Marketing
Keywords
Long gone are the days when keywords were the only SEO technique that mattered, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still crucial. The difference is that today, keywords must be well-researched, carefully chosen, and judiciously used in your content in order to be effective.
But what are keywords, exactly? Keywords are words and phrases that prospects use to find online content, and that brands can then use to connect with prospects who are looking for their products and services.
When undertaking the key steps of keyword research, it’s important to look for ones that have high search rates and low competition and to choose short-tail keywords (such as a dog), long-tail keywords (such as terrier puppies for sale), and local keywords (such as puppies for sale in Boston) to work into your content. Along with a primary or seed keyword, you should also have secondary and tertiary keywords as they will still offer value to your business. Finally, use keywords to optimize all your titles, URLs, and other on-page SEO elements (more on that later…)
Content
Content is a vital part of SEO because it’s the vehicle you use to reach and engage audiences. Knowing your angle and crafting content that fits is essential.
For instance, if you owned a nursery and wanted to increase your visibility, you might publish a series of blogs about gardening, choosing the right species of plants, growing tips, and more. When a person who wanted to know about gardening went looking for that information, your blog would come up, and you’d be able to build a relationship with that prospect by providing valuable information. The idea is that when the time came for that prospect to buy a plant, for instance, you’d be the first nursery that came to mind.
Today’s content must be educational, but also interesting, relevant, and shareable. Content comes in a variety of forms, including:
- Web page content
- Videos
- Blogs (it’s easy to start your own blog to practice!)
- Infographics
- Podcasts
- Listicles
- How-to guides
- Whitepapers and e-books
- Social media posts
- Local Listings
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO involves external optimization practices that happen away from your site rather than on it.
The main technique used for off-page SEO is backlink building since quality backlinks to your site from external sites tell search engines that your site is valuable and high-quality which helps to build authority.
There are many tactics for backlink building, and some of the current best practices include guest blogging, creating lots of infographics that will be highly shared, and using influencer marketing in your content.
Local SEO
Local SEO is becoming increasingly important as more and more people use mobile devices for search. These days, 60% of all searches are performed on a mobile device, and nearly half of those searches have local intent.
So, let’s say you own a restaurant, then local SEO would ensure that when people in your area went looking for the best restaurants in town, they’ll come across your site.
Along with using local keywords, other local SEO best practices include claiming directory listings, creating location-specific pages for your site, and creating pages for your business (also called doorway pages) on Google My Business local directories and Google Maps.
Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to paid marketing efforts, and it includes things like native ads, Google AdWords, social media ads, pay-per-click (PPC), Google shopping ads, display ads, and more.
Although SEM isn’t always a major component of a comprehensive SEO strategy, it does have its place as it can help you reach new and highly targeted audiences. You can also make your SEO and SEM work together.
Examples of SEM advertising activities include:
- Paid and targeted campaigns
- Keyword-based copy that specifically relates to your business or product
- Performance indicators such as click-through-rates (CTR) and cost-per-click (CPC)
Featured Resource: On-Site SEO Audit Handbook and Toolkit
Understanding the Importance of SEO for Modern Businesses
Visibility and Rankings
Increased visibility, which means making it easier for prospects to find you when they search for something you have to offer, is one of the most important functions of SEO. Your rating is closely proportional to your visibility.
Because the higher you rank on a search engine result page (SERP), the more likely prospects will see you and click through to your site, increasing your organic page ranking is critical. The better your SEO efforts, the higher your ranking and visibility, which is especially important given that a quarter of web users never click past the first SERP.
Web Traffic
One of the main goals of SEO is to get more people to visit your website. You can do this by making your site more visible and higher up in the rankings. Think about this for a moment: the #1 spot on a Google search gets nearly 32% of clicks, and moving up just one spot in the search results can increase CTR by an amazing 30.8%.
The “Featured Snippet,” which is often called “position 0” because it comes before the first-ranked URL, is the holy grail for many marketers. This is usually content from a landing page on a blog that answers a question people are looking for and can give your organic click-through a huge boost.
So, if you want more people to find your website through a search engine, you need to use SEO techniques that help you rank in the top five, and ideally number one.
Outency is the place to go if you need help from an agency with SEO, content marketing, or paid media.
Authority
Page Authority (PA) is becoming more and more important to both search engines and people who use the web. Basically, authority means that your website is reliable, of high quality, relevant, and has something to offer.
Scores range from 1 to 100, and the higher your score, the more authority your site has. Using tools like Moz, you can find out what your PA rating is. It’s hard to change, but many SEO experts think it has to do with your link profile, which means getting links from other sites that are trusted and well-visited.
Creating a Better Visitor Experience
SEO is also important because all the time you spend making great content and optimizing it for SEO on each page makes your site easier to use. This makes things easy and good for the customer.
For example, if you take steps to make your site responsive, it will work for people who visit on their phones as well as those who use a laptop or desktop. In the same way, if you make your pages load faster, your bounce rate will go down and people will stay on your site longer. People expect a page to load as quickly as possible and not take more than three seconds. The more time it takes to load, the more people leave your site and the less money you make.
Keep in Mind That Search Engines Can Fail
Search engines aren’t perfect, so SEO is important. If you don’t do anything to fix their problems, your website will suffer.
For example, if a site doesn’t have the right structure for its links, search engines might not be able to crawl and index it correctly, which can hurt its ranking. Coding mistakes can stop search engines from crawling your site at all, no matter how much time you spend on other SEO techniques. Other places where search engines often have trouble are:
- Duplicate pages
- Forms
- Images, flash, audio files, video, and other non-text content
- Language and what it means
