What is SEO and How Can it Help Your Website?

One of the most challenging things to do in the world of the website is to get people to visit the website. The habit of most online users is to go to Google or another search engine, enter what they’re looking for, and click on a website from the search engine results. But, how does a website appear in the search engine results? This is the magic of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. It’s the practice of enhancing a website to help generate more traffic to the site. In other words, a website can take extra steps to improve the user experience and help bring it to the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Why is SEO so Important?

In a nutshell, the ability to drive more traffic to your website is valuable to your business. Reaching quality people will help you achieve your desired business goals. Whether the goal is to sell a product or service, increase brand awareness, or engage with the audience, a website needs traffic. Companies indeed can advertise via online ads such as Pay Per Click (PPC) or social media, but traffic gained from paid advertising is short-lived. In contrast, organic traffic from search engine optimization will generate long-lasting traffic that can grow over time.

Moreover, SEO drives approximately 20x more traffic opportunities than PPC. Plus, users feel organic search results are more credible and reliable than PPC ads. So investing in SEO is worth the effort.

Pay Per Click ad is indicated with bold “Ad” at the top left where an organic search result does not have “Ad” next to it.

How To Optimize Your Website for Search

First, it’s important to note that Google, 92% of the search engine market, wants to provide the best user experience to its audience. Google’s search result page aims to quickly give users what they are looking for. Therefore the recommendations to improve your website’s ability to be on the top of the search results page are also helpful in improving your website user’s experience. It’s a win-win-win for your website, search engines, and, most importantly, the users.

Here are some key ways to Optimize your site for Search Engines:

Provide your user with the best website experience. Keep your website simple and use design conventions like information hierarchy so users can easily find what they’re looking for. Here’s a quick blog post to learn about website best practices that enhance the user experience.
Research the keywords your audience is using when they perform a search. Once you know these keywords, begin to create helpful content for your users. In addition to driving traffic, you are providing useful information to your audience, which helps build trust in your brand. For example, although the sporting equipment company REI sells mountain bikes and equipment when someone searched using the words: mountain biking, REI appeared on the first page of the search results providing a friendly article for beginning mountain bikers. REI did not sell anything; instead, they provided information for their audience and gained brand awareness.

REI article appearing in an organic search result for “mountain biking”

Make sure your content is relevant and regularly updated. Take the time to update your website and keep it seasonally appropriate. Killington resort is very much dependent on the weather; therefore, they update their website with each season, showcasing golf and mounting biking in the summer months and then skiing and snowboarding in the winter. Regular updates keep your site fresh and give your audience a reason to return, helping you get repeat traffic.

Make your website mobile optimized. With over 50% of web traffic coming from smartphones or tablets, it’s crucial for any business to have a mobile-friendly site. A mobile-optimized site will load fast on a mobile device, resize text to be legible, and is easy to navigate.
Maximize your website load speed. If your website doesn’t load within 5 seconds, a person’s likelihood of leaving is 90%! Look at your website and see where you can consolidate pages or optimize images. If that’s not enough, you may have to consider using a better website hosting provider.
Get quality links to your website. The number of links that come to your website from other sites affects where your website lands in the search engine results. In addition to writing authoritative, helpful content, you can also enlist the help of influencers or bloggers to write about your brand and link to your site.
Double-check your website metadata and HTML to make them descriptive and concise. Use plain language in your URLs and make sure your meta descriptions explain your website in 1-2 sentences using some of your keywords. Also, include clear page titles and use H1 tags. This backend information is some of the things search engines look for when crawling through a website. (Image of metadata)

Example of how the Page Title and Meta Description appear in a search engine results page

This list is only the tip of the search engine optimization iceberg. Each of the items listed are things you can start doing on your own. However, if the idea of SEO feels overwhelming, there are experts available to help, or if you’re willing to learn, Google has created an entire SEO YouTube channel with step-by-step advice.

References

Due, Matteo. 9 Quick Ways to Improve Page Loading Speed. Hubspot. Retrieved from: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-reduce-your-websites-page-speed

Five Ways to Improve your Site’s Ranking (SEO). Michigan Tech. Retrieved from: https://www.mtu.edu/umc/services/websites/seo/

Hathaway, Patrick. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Mailchimp. Retrieved from: https://mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/seo/

Muller, Britney. SEO 101: The Beginners Guide To SEO. Moz.com. Retrieved from: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary

What is SEO? (Search Engine Optimization). Michigan Tech. Retrieved from: https://www.mtu.edu/umc/services/websites/seo/what-is/