Anyone who has been in business for the last 10 years knows that majority customers now initiate the search for business online. That means that if your business does not have online presence you might as well close your doors. Having a website and pursuing an online lead generation strategy is a table stake to do business these days.
If you put yourself in your customers’ shoes you will realize that the first thing a potential customer will do when looking for a business to work with is to search for it on Google or other similar search engines. If your business does not show up quickly in the search results you stand to lose lot of new customers. This is where Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short, comes into play.
What is SEO?
In short, SEO is a strategy to have your website rank higher when someone searches for the product or services you are offering. Typically, user performs the search using a keyword that is related to the product they are looking for. The search engine uses internal algorithm to determine which websites have the best information related to that keyword. It then ranks those websites and shows the results to the user. Potentially, there could be thousands of websites that fit the keyword, but the search engine will only show the first 10 or 20 of them at a time. Having your website show up in that first page is what determines whether the user will click on your website or not.
How does SEO work?
As mentioned earlier, the search engine uses internal algorithm to rank the websites with the best results related to keyword. The algorithm looks at number of factors such as content on your website, words related to the keyword search, etc. It also factors in the “authority” of your website by looking at number of other websites that link to yours. How the search engine determines is somewhat of a black magic, but there are people who have a fairly good understanding of this algorithm. These SEO consultants have studied the inner workings of search engines and know how to tweak your website to rank higher.
How can you improve SEO?
There are several ways in which you can improve the way search engines rank your website for particular keywords. Here are some the most important ones:
- Website optimization – This is one of the most important actions you can take to rank higher in search results. Website optimization involves improving the speed and quality of website, making sure there are no errors on the web pages, removing any broken links and using the right keywords to describe your website to search engines.
- External Links – As mentioned earlier having other websites link to yours proves to search engines that you have content that is considered of good quality for others to link to, which will lead to higher “authority” for your website. This will lead to a higher ranking when a user searches for those keywords.
- Fresh Content – What content you have on your website and how often it is updated also determines the ranking by search engines. The search engines like the websites that have good quality content that is updated on a regular basis.
- External Consultants – Anyone who spends time and effort to learn how search engines work can do SEO himself and improve the ranking. Unfortunately, the algorithms evolve constantly and keeping up with them is not easy for majority of business owners. That is why it is advisable to seek help from external consultants such as LD Sydney SEO who do this for a living and can help you with the best technology and up-to-date insights.
SEO is one of the most important strategy to get traffic and customers to your website. Understanding it and getting an expert help will increase the visits to your website, get more customers and increase sales.
