How SEO Benefits Your Business
Why Is SEO Important?
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the work required to get your website to show up in search results or SERP (Search Engine Result Pages). If your website doesn’t show up within these results then your website isn’t bringing you in new customers and isn’t an asset to your business. Yes you can still refer people directly to the website.
What Is SEO?
On-Page SEO is work that is done on your website. It consists of the following;
- Header Tags. H1, H2, H3 etc. These tags show Google what to look for first. Fill these with keywords but make sure not to overload or “stuff” them.
- Alt Tags. These are tags within images that explain to Google what is in the image. As Google doesn’t have eyes.
- Image Optimisation. This focuses on the image load time. Having a fast loading website is crucial, so optimise your images and reduce the size and load times.
- Website Speed. Optimise your site to load faster, reduce drag and give your users a better experience.
- Keyword Research. Using the right keywords is crucial to getting your website ranked for relevant searches. If your website is new or has a low ranking or DA then focusing initially on long tail, low difficulty keywords can get you ranking faster.
Off-Page SEO is the work done off of the website that also affects rankings. It consists of the following;
- Backlink Building. Backlinks are what Google uses to determine if your website is relevant and resourceful. The more backlinks from high DA websites you have, the better your chances of ranking well.
- Citation Building. These are similar to backlinks except rather than coming from other websites, they come from other search engines such as Yelp, Facebook and other business directories.
- Domain Authority. DA is the ranking score that describes a websites relevance for a specific subject area or industry. Your Domain Authority has a direct impact on your websites SERP results.
- Trust Rank. This helps search engines like Google determine whether a website can be trusted or if it’s deemed too spammy. Google ranks pages that can be trusted higher than others.
Where Do I Find Out How My Website Is Ranking?
There are loads of paid SEO ranking tools, but we love a FREE tool called Ubersuggest. Built by a digital marketing guru called Neil Patel, it shows you an estimated number of organic rankings, backlinks, DA score as well as the keywords you’re ranking for and where abouts on Google you’re ranking for up to 25 keywords.
Google Search Console
You can also use Google Search Console to get a rough idea of how your website is performing. It will show you how many clicks, impressions, average click through rate and your average position.
Don’t pay too much attention to your average position. As you could be ranking number 1 for important keywords but a lot higher for keywords that aren’t necessarily relevant.
What Are The Benefits To SEO?
Long story short, more potential customers. Obviously depending on your business or website. Essentially the better your SEO, the higher your website will rank in SERP results. The higher you rank the better the chance of someone clicking on your website.
E.G. A quick search for “Plumber In Auckland” shows that a website on the front page of Google has over 800 organic monthly visitors. Whereas a website on page 2 of Google only has 150 organic visitors a month.
Getting seen higher on Google also gives your company brand more credibility. If someone is searching for a product or service and you come up in one of the first search results the better your chances of completing that sale or attaining that new customer/client.
What Are The Cons To SEO?
SEO isn’t all flowers and rainbows. The negative side is this, it takes time. You can’t rush Google. If you’re website or business is in a competitive industry it can take up to 6 months until you start seeing a real return or ROI. Consistency is key with SEO, so monthly updates and regular optimisation is essential as well as regular backlink building to improve DA.
Because of this, if you’re paying for SEO and not doing it yourself the costs can start to add up. Our SEO fee starts at $495 a month, so 6 months of this can equate to a minimum of $2,970. SEO should be looked at as a long term investment and if done right you’ll see a better rate of return the longer you stick with it. Ideally it should be a permanent feature to your marketing plan as this is how you see the best results over time.
If you’d like to know more or talk to us about your websites SEO contact us today.
