Many business owners want to increase their online presence to attract more customers and spread the word about their goods or services. In recent years, many have begun to recognize that most people use search engines, like Google, to find information about the products they are looking for, but they don’t know how to make their website show up higher on these search engines. Some business owners opt to purchase a monthly content plan that promises to be SEO-Optimized, but what does that even mean?
Learn more about what SEO-Optimization is and how it can benefit your online presence below.
What Is SEO?
For starters, the acronym SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This term boils down to attempting to format your website, and its content, in a way that puts it higher on a search engine results page. You can aim to rank higher in search engine results for certain keywords by producing content that features that keyword in an important way.
There are several small tweaks you can make here and there to improve your on-page SEO, which makes search engines “like” it more and display it higher. One of the most powerful SEO strategies, however, is through link building, where other websites link to yours. This makes your website seem like an authority in the eyes of a search engine, so producing or displaying quality content on your website can help increase your traffic over time substantially.
What Are Keywords?
Keywords are the phrases that people enter into a search engine to find what they are looking for. They can be as short as a celebrity’s name or as long as an entire quote if someone is trying to find out who originally said it. When producing content for your website, it’s helpful to do some keyword research to learn about what types of terms people actually enter when searching for goods or services like those that you offer.
There are several free or low-cost keyword search tools, but it can be difficult to understand how to navigate them and how to choose which keywords to actually pursue. There are other keyword research tools that cost hundreds of dollars per month, but they tend to be more user-friendly and provide helpful suggestions using artificial intelligence or other such technology.
Targeting Less Competitive Keywords
Shooting for keywords that already have millions of competitive results, like “Bagels NYC” might be tricky, so it’s helpful to go after keywords that are less competitive. Instead of the above keyword, maybe you aim to capture a higher ranking by producing content with the keywords “Best Onion Bagel NYC”.
This might still be competitive, but your website will stand a better chance of showing up on a higher list than it would for a more general search term. Plus, people who are actually looking for onion bagels will be delighted to find a bagel shop that features onion bagels so high on the list.
When in Doubt, Leave it to the Pros
This is just a basic overview of SEO and keyword targeting, and the world of SEO is often much more nuanced and complex. As a result, many small businesses see curated content and keyword research done by a professional as an excellent investment that pays for itself in increased views and revenue in no time.
If you don’t have time to create loads of high-quality content or use traditional methods of link-building, it’s often more efficient to let professionals handle these aspects of your website for you. This negates the need for you to learn SEO from scratch, and it allows you to spend more time doing what you do best: serving your customers.
