When you’re just starting out with your website or small business online, gaining the necessary traffic to keep your site up and running can be hard. It’s difficult to know the ins and outs of online marketing, and it can be detrimental to your business to not know.
So, what can you do? What is the proper procedure for making a website go from brand new to showing up regularly on search engines and gaining traffic? The secret to this? Search Engine Optimization.
What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
So, let’s say you know that SEO is the secret many businesses use to progress their site and gain traffic. But let’s also say you have no clue what SEO is or how to use it for your site. If you’re in this position, look no further.
Today, we will be deep diving into the world of SEO. What is it, how do we as business owners use it, and how do we make the most of our small business using SEO? This and more will be covered here today.
So, what exactly is SEO? Let’s start here. Search Engine Optimization is the process of using specific and free methods to increase traffic to your website. It is the process of using certain methods to improve your visibility on search engines and gain a higher footing on search engine results, therefore gaining traffic for your site.
Basically, it helps your site land a higher place on search engine results, and this helps your site gain traffic. It’s a perfect and completely free way to gain traffic and bring success to your site. But how does it all work exactly? How do you as a site owner go from zero site views to a thousand using SEO techniques?
How Do We Use SEO?
Now that we know in simple terms what SEO is, how do we know how to use it for our website, and how does it work?
Simply put, SEO optimizes your website’s content to create better results when users search for something related to the content on your website. But to understand how it does this, we must first know a few key terms and techniques that make SEO what it is.
Key Terms
Before we get into the details of SEO and how to use it for your business, let’s dive into some key terms we need to know when learning about SEO. They are as follows:
- Query – The words that are typed into the search bar by a user.
- Search Intent – The intention behind the query used. Understanding the search intent behind the query leads to better results.
- Crawling – The process of search engines following your links and finding your webpage. Simply put, it is the process of search engines discovering your page.
- Indexing – The storing and organizing of content found during crawling; how the search engine stores your content.
- Organic – Earned place in search results which was earned without paying/the use of advertisements.
Now that we are more familiar with some of these terms, let’s put them all together to understand the process of using SEO.
The Process of SEO
Understanding the process of SEO is the first step in knowing how to use SEO to your benefit. Think of this as the earliest stage in using SEO for your site. So, how does the process work?
First, let’s start with the query. As previously discussed, the query is what the user types into their search engine that will produce a search results page. Our goal is to appear on this page, preferable as one of the first few results.
The search intent is the intention behind the query. So, for example, let’s say someone is worried about their car not starting. They may search “why is my car not starting” or “reasons for Honda Civic not starting” if that’s their car model. The search intent behind this is that they want a solution because their car isn’t starting.
If you can correctly address their search intent and simultaneously appear when the query is searched, your site is using SEO techniques to improve visibility. Now, let’s dive even further.
Crawling and Indexing
Now that we understand a bit more about search intent and gaining traffic this way, how do search engines find our site? Well, they do this through a process called crawling. Crawling is the process of search engines following your links and finding your web page. They follow links until they discover your webpage or others.
Through the process of indexing, the information found during crawling is stored and organized for better search engine optimization. For this to work to your benefit, you must match search intent with key terms from different queries, giving your site a better chance of being discovered during crawling.
Now, putting all of this information together, how can SEO benefit you and your site?
Benefits of SEO
There are many benefits to using SEO for your small business. Companies all over the world big and small are using SEO every day to gain traffic and potential customers. But what are the real visible benefits of using SEO techniques?
No Cost
SEO can greatly benefit your site and give you the necessary traffic to gain customers and progress as a business, and it can do this at little to no cost. Using SEO techniques doesn’t have to cost anything, sites offer paid memberships to SEO newbies, but using SEO techniques is something that doesn’t have to cost a cent.
Plenty of big-name sites can get you started for free, and yes, many more can help you out for a cost. But using SEO tools is something that anyone who does the proper research can do for free.
Rank Better and Reach More
SEO techniques have been proven time and time again that they are the #1 tool for ranking on the search page, and this will further increase your reach as a business. Having a wide reach is very important to your website growing and gaining organic traffic, and will also eventually bring in some cash.
Why SEO?
So, why choose SEO? SEO could be just the thing you need to progress your business’s site, and can help you get started in the right direction at no cost. You can try it out for free and if you’re starting out your site with zero views, all you can go is up. This guide is the first step you take in your SEO journey, don’t let it be the last.