If you have noticed, our language has become overrun with acronyms. LOL, BFF, YOLO, LOJO, haha, just kidding! But seriously, we use acronyms daily. SEO is another acronym that is used in the business world. So what does it mean? SEO is short for “Search Engine Optimization”. Search Engine Optimization is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine, including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. Did I lose you yet? Let me break it down for you so it’s easier to understand.
Search Engine Optimization is about trying to rank higher in search engines. To rank higher you make changes to your website that make it easier for search engines to understand your content. This basically means that when someone types into a search engine, lets say “Best Bagels in Sacramento”, you want your Bagel companies website to be one of the top 10 websites to show up. If done correctly, this can cause you to get more leads from these search engines, which means more traffic, more sales, and more revenue. Consumers rarely will click to the second page of a web search, so your goal should be to have your company on that first page of web search results.
The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. Although social media, such as Facebook, Instagram and twitter, can generate visits to your website, search engines are the primary method of navigation for most Internet users. This is true whether your site provides content, services, products or information.
The top 4 reasons your website could benefit by effectively utilizing SEO are:
Increased Traffic: By effectively using SEO you will automatically increase the traffic to your website. The higher up on the search result list you are, the more people will have your website available to them.
Cost-effectiveness – SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies because it targets users who are actively looking for your products and services online. It costs nothing to write targeted keywords, links or hyper-links into blog articles on your website. These words or links are what is used in the algorithm of web searches to decide which websites make it to the coveted front page.
Increased site usability – In an effort to make your website easier to navigate for the search engines, SEO simultaneously helps to make your website easier to navigate for users as well. If using SEO properly, your website should become very well structured and will make it easy for searchers to find information on your web page.
Brand Awareness – Since top position rankings result in significant web traffic, having your website in these top positions on the result pages translates to more exposure for your website. It becomes a domino effect, more brand awareness means more traffic. More traffic means more customers. More customers mean more revenue.
Like I stated earlier, there are, on average, ten positions on the top search results page. The pages that fill those positions are ordered by rank. The higher your page is on the search results page, the better your click-through rate and ability to attract searchers. Results in positions 1, 2, and 3 receive much more traffic than results down the page, and significantly more than results on deeper pages. The fact that so much attention goes to so few listings means that there will always be a financial motivation for search engine rankings. No matter how search engines may change in the future, websites and businesses will always compete with one another for these positions, and for the user traffic and brand visibility it provides. So make sure you are using the amazing powers of SEO to your benefit, and strive for the front page results!
Written by Kim Ganir
