Are you a local businessperson who has just started advertising online or a person who loves writing and is intending to start a blog. If yes, then you should be very well acquainted with Search Engine Optimization, because it is the backbone of Digital Marketing. This article will explain in detail, the importance of SEO and why you should know everything about it.
What is it?
To understand what SEO is, for a moment think from a customer’s point of view. Let’s say that you want to buy a dress. Well, the very first step in doing so would be typing your query in Search Engine. The search engine will show you millions of relevant results. You are more likely to click on the very first link you are shown. The second step is, you go to the site, and navigate through it to look for a dress. Now just imagine, if the site takes forever to load, will you still stay on that site? Chances are that you will leave it and consider other sites. Also if it is difficult to navigate through the site, it can put you off.
Now, this is exactly where SEO comes into play. SEO is all about optimizing your site to provide customers a consistent and clear experience by creating good and relevant content, embedding relevant keywords, and providing easy navigation and search options on your site which ultimately results in getting a higher rank for your site in search engine result pages.
Why is it important?
You must be wondering that what you will get from optimizing your website.
The answer is A LOT.
Search Engines have millions of websites that provide the same service as your brand. And these Search Engines want the best for customers. They want their customers to have a pleasant experience. These Search Engines have page rankings which determine how visible you will be to your customers. If you are on the first page and rank first, then your chances of being seen by your potential customers increase exponentially, than those who are visible after first pages. So good content, convenient landing experience and easy navigation ensures that your customers get the best.
Also, the chances of your first-time customer getting converted into your loyal customer increases if they have a good experience with your site. These loyal customers can become your future brand advocates too, who can speak highly of your brand and promote them on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram etc. All these factors are small but essential steps in expanding your business.
Types of SEO
SEO can be categorized into two broad categories.
White hat SEO
In White Hat SEO, marketers strictly follow the rules and regulations of Search Engines to get higher rankings in SERP. This includes creating good quality content, HTML optimization, and restructuring websites. Though the results generated by this type of SEO are slow but they are long lasting.
Black Hat SEO
In Black Hat SEO, marketers rank higher on SERP by finding loopholes and weaknesses in Search Engine’s algorithm. This includes spam links, keywords stuffing, cloaking, hidden text and hidden links. The results generated by this practice are fast but they are not long lasting.
Is content really the king?
The answer is a YES. Content plays a major role in SEO. It is determined by two key factors: Quality and Quantity.
Quality- Whenever a customer visits a site he expects that he will learn something fresh, something he hasn’t known before. He doesn't want plagiarized content that is copy and then pasted from other sites. He seeks genuine content, which is informative. Also, the quality of the content should be good, free from grammatical errors, and all the facts that are put up in the content should be cross-checked. You don’t want your customers to think that you don’t have an idea of what you are serving them.
Quantity- Creating good content isn’t enough, if you don’t upload it to sites frequently. The customer doesn’t want to see the same content he had seen before when he last visited your site. Updating new content is as necessary as uploading good content so that customers keep visiting your site again and again.
This is what SEO is all about. If practiced religiously and in the right manner, it can do wonders for your business. Create good content, optimize your websites, ensure customers have great landing page experience and as a result see your business grow and expand.