The Importance of SEO in a Digital Marketing Strategy
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results. By improving the visibility of a website, businesses can reach more potential customers and drive more traffic to their site. This can be achieved through a combination of technical optimisation (such as improving website speed and structure), content optimisation (such as creating high-quality, keyword-rich content), on page SEO (use of H tags, meta data, alt text etc.) local SEO if a local business and off page factors such as backlinks and citations.
SEO Strategy
As the world becomes increasingly digital, businesses must adapt their digital marketing strategies to keep up. One key element of a successful digital marketing strategy is SEO – search engine optimisation.
A strong SEO strategy can help your business attract more qualified leads, drive traffic to your website, and improve conversions.
If you’re not invested in SEO and you have a product or service that people are looking for online then now is the time to start.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) has become an increasingly important piece of the digital marketing puzzle.
In a nutshell, SEO is a system for helping websites appear higher up on search engine results pages (SERPs), allowing them to stand out from the crowd and be seen by more potential customers. To achieve this, websites are optimized to appear as close to the top of the first page of search results as possible through various techniques.
But it’s not just about ‘getting found’, it’s about getting found for the right thing. If you achieve this then not only will you drive more traffic to your website, but ultimately conversion rates improve and sales increase.
If this isn’t happening for you, then it’s time to review your SEO strategy. Contact us today to find out how we can help you form your SEO strategy.
How does SEO work?
As mentioned above SEO, or search engine optimisation, is an integral part in helping businesses reach their target customers.
It should form a comprehensive part of any company’s digital marketing activity and it’s something that needs to be done on an ongoing consistent basis to get the best results.
It starts with research, finding out what people are looking for and the sites that currently rank for those relevant keywords will help determine the SEO strategies needed.
There are four core pillars to SEO:
- Technical SEO
- On Page SEO
- Off Page SEO
- Local SEO (where relevant)
Each area needs attention and what that looks like will vary from business to business but there are SEO best practises and core tasks that should always be carried out once you understand the current position within the search results. This includes (but is not restricted to):
- keyword research
- meta data
- h tags
- Alt text
- image size
- content marketing
- scale / size of the website
- intern
- al linking
- conversion architecture
- technical elements all working
- navigation
- link building
- citations
- social sharing and engagement
- social media presence
- local business listings
- geo targetted content
- mobile usability
- security
- external links (linking out to other sites)
- site speed
- coding issues
- plugin updates
- site map submissions
When done correctly, SEO can help businesses grow exponentially as the more visible they are in the search results, the more it leads them to a larger audience and provides better visibility for their content which can result in increased traffic, leads, conversions, and ales. Optimizing for SEO should be a core strategy for any business hoping to reach its potential clients.
The benefits of ranking higher in SERPs
If you’re trying to grow your business, ranking higher in search engine result pages (SERPs) is a critical step. Improving your search results (preferably high up the first page) increases visibility for your website, allowing more potential customers to find you.
Higher SERPs ranking is also beneficial in terms of making users trust your brand more than lower ranking businesses’. After all, if search engines like Google give your web pages higher positioning on their results pages, users will assume it implies some strong indicator of quality or superiority over alternative providers.
Also, climbing the search engines also opens new opportunities as businesses grow and potentially gain exposure through increased organic traffic and social media conversations generated by a notable presence on top SERP spots.
A search engines core role is to match a search with a web page that offers information based on the perceived searchers intent. This means that SEO in digital marketing is all about demonstrating to a search engine that it’s web pages should be shown above that of it’s competition. That’s not an easy task, with potentially millions of results for each key phrase.
That’s why it’s no longer a case of writing SEO content and stuffing your meta keywords in there, then spamming the page with the keyword over and over again.
It’s about providing visitors with value, making sure that get the information they need, can navigate easily and enjoy a good user experience when they visit your website, whether on a desktop or mobile visitors you should be aiming for high quality content that adheres to all proper SEO best practise as part of your digital marketing and SEO strategies.
How to measure SEO Success
Measuring SEO success can seem like a complex process, but it doesn’t have to be.
Having the right metrics in place helps you to understand where you stand and be proactive about improving those numbers.
First, develop your KPIs – or key performance indicators. These could include things like tracking the number of visitors to a particular page, monitoring a how much time people spend on your landing pages, and recording organic traffic across devices.
Once you have these basics down, use more advanced strategies such as goal tracking and A/B testing to further evaluate your SEO success.
Google Analytics is a free tool that you can connect to your website to give you these metrics, however as time foes on the search engines are providing less and less detail around keyphrases that are driving traffic. So it looks likely that measurement will be more broad going forwards. Other search engines such as Bing also have analytics that you might find useful.
SEO is an essential piece to any digital marketing strategy because it helps businesses gain new customers and grow, sometimes it can even be about simply maintaining what they already enjoy.
When a business ranks higher in SERPs, they reap the benefits of increased traffic and brand awareness. So it’s no big shocker that it’s not easy, it takes time and it also takes consistent work. As far as digital marketing tactics go, its the one that can provide a really healthy ROI and so it’s worth investing in, BUT be ready for it to take a year or sometimes more for you to start reaping the benefits.
If you would like a free SEO website audit, please get in touch today and we will also offer a free consultation with absolutely no pressure to buy.
