Written by Mollie Adams

You may have found yourself here because you are wondering: what is SEO? Short for “Search Engine Optimization”, SEO is the number one method you can employ to get your business noticed online. SEO is a strategic process of optimizing your web pages so that when relevant search terms are searched by a user (or potential client), your website shows up ahead of others on search engines, which in turn drives users to your website. Want to know more? In this blog, we will dive into what SEO is, how it works, why it matters, and how to start implementing it into your business and marketing. Let’s dive in!

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What is SEO?

Let’s start with the basics: What is SEO? Search engine optimization is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. When your client or potential client searches for something relevant to your business, you want to be among the top results so that they click your link first. Let’s say you own a flower shop and market to people planning weddings, special events, etc. A potential client would search, “Best flowers in (fill in the blank) city”. Based on the background knowledge that a search engine has on your site (we will get to how they get that), your webpage will be ranked with all the other websites with similar relevance (probably other flower shop websites) and listed on the search engine result page. The higher the relevance you have to the searcher’s question, the higher your ranking.

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A Quick Breakdown of How SEO Works

So you may be wondering, how does a search engine have all that background knowledge and insight on your website? Well, let me explain. For example, Google (the main search engine out there) will “crawl” your website, looking for relevant words, photos, and information that will relate back to what people are searching. Imagine a bunch of google ants crawling all over your website, gathering information in order to report back and form the google results list. Based on various factors, such as the order you type certain words, Google will then decide how relevant your info is to specific searches, and ranks you accordingly. Below is a list of some of those factors:

Keywords

Based on the keyword or phrase that you choose, Google will decide how relevant you are to people searching this word. Say you are writing a blog on the best old-fashioned recipe. Your keyword could simply be “Best Old Fashioned Recipe.”

Layered keywords

These are words in your website or blog that are similar to the keyword, but not exactly the same. Going back to the old-fashioned example, your layered keywords for that could be cocktail, whiskey, old-fashioned recipe, whiskey cocktail, bourbon whiskey.

Website speed

Is your website fast enough to load quickly for the person performing the search?

User experience

Is your website easy to navigate and make sense to a user?

Format and Word placement

How you format your blogs and where you put keywords within the web page is so important. To learn more about this, head to our blog on the Five Simple Rules for SEO!

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Why SEO Matters

By now, you should know what SEO is and how it works, but let’s get deeper into why SEO matters. SEO is so important to the longevity and success of your business. Here are some benefits of putting the work into improving your website’s SEO:

• SEO is basically an extension of your marketing strategy. SEO is another method of getting your name out there!
• Showing up on the first page of google consistently builds knowledge of your brand, but also helps you gain trust with your potential clients. They understand your business to be a leader in the market. 75% of search engine users do not click beyond the first results page while performing a Google search.
•  By not keeping your website up to date with relevant information, you may be not even show up to potential clients.

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How To Start Implementing SEO Today

If you are like me, you are probably thinking right now, “Woah! I have to start working on this!”, and I’m so stoked you are into it! Below, I have a few resources for you to check out:

Download our free guides where we walk you through the essential tools to get started with SEO.

Head to our blog post on the simple rules for SEO