SEO: A Startup Guide

SEO is an essential marketing technique that is focused on bringing organic, non-paid traffic to your website by using high quality content to get to the top of a search engine results page. Think of SEO as both an art and a science. It combines the creativity and ability to create high-quality, engaging content that users value, with a strong understanding of analytics and of your prospective customers. Reaping the benefits of your SEO labour may be a bit of a slow process at first, but once you’ve managed to achieve some results, your success will build upon itself. It's important to remember that SEO is only focused on organic ranking. You cannot pay to rank higher with SEO. The only way to rank higher on SEO is to ensure you're satisfying the search engine’s requirements. Listed are some business boosting advantages of SEO : 1. It Boosts Your Credibility A site that ranks high on search engine results pages is typically considered high-quality and trustworthy by search engines, and this, in turn, boosts the credibility of your business. 2. It Doesn't Have To Cost You Anything Search engines crawl your site 24/7, promoting useful content and helping you find new customers organically. To make the most of your SEO efforts, allocate some of your time to reviewing the content on higher ranking sites within your niche, and aim to write content that's better than theirs. 3. It Supports Content Marketing Original content and SEO work hand in hand; by creating helpful content for visitors, including text, images and videos. Make sure that your content is high quality and optimized for keywords you want to rank for, and since search engines like freshness, update your content regularly. 4. It Gives You A Competitive Advantage Your competitors will likely be investing in SEO, which means you should too. Those who invest heavily in SEO often outrank the competition in search engine results and gain market share. If you consider that results on the first page of a Google search get over 90% of traffic, you cannot afford not to be there, especially if your competitors are. Start by identifying your competitors, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, and creating and managing your online reputation. 5. It Can Help You Reach More People While many marketing campaigns tend to focus on a defined target audience, SEO can help you attract anyone with intent at a given point in time, no matter what stage of the buying funnel they are in. If you target keywords rather than demographics as you might with PPC or social advertising, you can attract more prospects who may be interested in doing business with you. 6. It Helps You Rank Better In Local Searches Local searches such as "plumbers near me" are becoming more common. And nearly 80% of local searches on mobile lead to conversions. Local SEO strategies can help you attract these searchers who are often ready to buy. 7. It Improves Website Usability SEO is about making your site search engine-friendly, but it also can improve the experience a customer has when visiting your website. If you put the work in to generate useful and high-quality content, make your site faster and more responsive, add backlinks and enhance every page, you typically get an excellent website in addition to one that's optimised for search engines. 8. You Get Quantifiable Results With SEO, you can track changes in rankings, conversions and website traffic. Platforms like Google Analytics provide a comprehensive suite of information, allowing you to drill down to an incredibly granular level. For example, you can see every website user's buying journey — including the pages they engaged with, the keywords they used to search and whether they completed specific actions. 9. It Improves User Engagement Rates An optimized site brings in quality traffic. If you have a site with useful content that matches the searcher's intent, they will likely spend more time browsing, which ultimately can lead to more conversions and increased ROI. Customers who engage longer with a website tend to connect to the brand more — this can lead to customer advocacy and long-term revenue.