We've all heard it's important. But unfortunately, not everyone knows what it means. SEO stands for "search engine optimization." In other words, the process of making your site easily reachable by people who Google (or Bing, I guess) your products or services. The higher your website's quality, the higher you rank on search engines. The higher you rank on search engines, the more people will visit your site. The more people visit your site, the more business you will likely get. See what I mean?
Glad you asked! SEO is generally overcomplicated by the people who explain it in order to sound smart, but at its core, it's simple.
Search engines make their money via ads that they show users so it makes sense that the more consistent users they have, the more they can charge for said ads. Let's take Google, for example. How does Google keep its users coming back for more? By providing them with the highest quality results for their searches. If you searched "how many calories in an apple" and the first link that popped up was "Bathing Suits 50% Off", I doubt you would be so fond of Google. However, by providing relevant results, people continue using the platform daily to find answers to their questions and solutions to their problems.
Now, this begs the question of how Google determines what websites are the most relevant. Think of every website as a book held in a library. Let's say this library gets new books every day, placed randomly. The team of librarians would have to routinely go through all the books and put them in the right spot so that it's easy for readers to find what they're looking for. (I'm sensing a pattern).
Search engines work in the same way. Thousands of new websites get posted daily, so Google sends bots to inspect the content and quality. These bots collect data from the website and forward it to a database. Once all that data is in the database, Google runs its secret algorithms and determines what order which websites should rank for different searches. For example, suppose a website's title is "How Many Calories In An Apple." In that case, it'll now show up first if someone searches "how many calories in an apple." To wrap the library example, Google is the lovely librarian that tells readers precisely what books to read to get the answers they want.
Now you may be saying to yourselves “Well Moza, this is great. The Google formula is out there, let’s just give them what they want to see and start ranking first on Google!”. This is the common myth among first-time SEO buyers and I’m here to clear it up for you. If there was a simple cold cut way to rank first, everybody would do it. I’ll let you in on a little secret/tip for the people that stuck around and read this far. When you’re looking for an agency to provide you with SEO services, you can find out if they’re legitimate by asking them the following question: “Can you guys guarantee first place on Google?”
If they agree to this, do not do business with them as they will do you more harm than good. Technically they’re not lying, though. They will likely rank you first but for irrelevant keywords that won’t improve your business at all. Another fun fact: nobody knows Google's ranking algorithm anymore, not even Google!
SEO is one of the core elements of the digital marketing trifecta. Trillions of searches are made every year, often with commercial intent to find information about products and services. Search is generally the main source of digital traffic for brands and its effects compound when used with the rest of the trifecta. When done properly, the higher you rank in the search engine pages, the more leads you pull in.
TLDR: SEO is one of the keys to unlocking online success for your business.
© 2022 Moza Media. All rights reserved.