This year, Covid-19 forced businesses big and small to close their doors, some for a few months, others for the foreseeable future. As brick and mortar stores are adapting to this strange new world of remote working, it’s never been more important to build a strong digital presence to attract new customers.
If you’re wondering how to make your business successful online, one tactic that can’t be ignored is SEO. Let’s have a look into what SEO is, how it works, and how it can help your business.
What does SEO stand for?
If you’re wondering what on earth SEO is, then you’re not alone. Short for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’, it’s basically the art of increasing traffic to your website through organic search results.
Still confused? Let’s dive into it a bit more and see what we mean by ‘traffic’ and ‘organic search’.
Key terms:
- Traffic – refers to the visitors coming to your site.
- Organic search – refers to the search results of a search engine (like Google) that don’t appear as a result of paid advertising. They are ranked according to their relevance to a search term. So, if someone types into Google ‘what is SEO?’ The top results that will appear will be websites with information that most closely matches that search query.
So, why is organic traffic important?
Organic traffic is important because it is relevant. Visitors that land on your site from a search engine’s organic results are looking for specific products and services you offer. This means that they are more likely to convert.
SEO uses a number of tactics to influence the position of your website in the search engine results pages to drive more conversions. And SEO works because lots and lots of people search for things on the internet.
How does SEO work?
Google’s algorithm determines which websites are the most relevant and should appear at the top of search results. It looks for high-quality information that is relevant to the searcher’s query.
Google looks at your website’s content to evaluate how useful it is in answering what the searcher is looking for.
The simple basis is that Google provides the most relevant and useful information based on the search query.
How can SEO help your business?
SEO is one of the most popular digital marketing tools out there, and for good reason. Here’s how SEO can help your business succeed online:
- Relevant traffic – SEO puts your business in front of people who are looking for the services you provide, which means they are more likely to convert.
- Increases profit – With organic search traffic driving conversions, your profit will increase and you won’t need to pay as much on paid advertising – win, win!
- Long-term gain – Organic traffic doesn’t just come all at once and then stop – if done properly, SEO will bring you a steady stream of traffic for months (and even years!) to come.
- Bypasses competitors – If you’ve ever searched for something on Google yourself (which you probably have), then you’ll know first-hand that most of us only click on the first search result. If there are two businesses in the same industry, selling similar products or services, then which one are you likely to go for, the first search result or the second? We know what our answer would be…
- Brand awareness – Last but not least, increasing your search rankings is a great way to build your brand awareness amongst consumers. If your website appears at the top of Google or Bing, then customers will be more likely to trust your business – simple.
All this talk of SEO getting you in a wobble? You can hire an SEO specialist on Bark – they’ll be highly skilled in building your brand awareness and driving the quantity and quality of traffic to your site.
