SPINKS CLASSROOM: SEO FOR DUMMIES

We’ve all gotta start somewhere. So, whether you’re just starting out or fully established, it’s important to know that when it comes to your marketing strategy, SEO is fundamental! 

SEO isn’t just one thing, it’s a whole number of elements, understanding what they are and how to make them work for your business is key and will help you understand exactly why SEO is SO important. 

So let’s get back to basics!

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? 

It’s all about fine-tuning your website so that you achieve higher rankings in search results. 

SEO is based on: 

• How humans interact with the content they see online 
• Understanding how Google and search engines interpret searchers’ intent and matching web content to that 

Google alone uses over 200 ranking factors, so establishing the basics is critical to help you get seen in your customer’s searches.

What does Google (and other search engines) want 

To Google, it doesn’t matter what your business is or does. It and other search engines have their own agendas and with SEO it’s all about rewarding high-ranking positions to pages that follow the below guidelines: 

• Quality content: How relevant, helpful and unique your content is and whether it provides the answers to the search queries from users
• Strong user experience: How user-friendly your website is 
• Engagement: How long users stay on your site and engage with your content 
• Accessibility: How readable is your site 
• Optimisation: How well your site is optimised for SEO 

How you can grow organic traffic

A challenge for any business is making sure that when people are looking for a service or product, they find your site and not your competitors. And there are plenty of ways you can increase organic traffic at little cost, so what can you be doing to drive traffic? 

Optimising (there’s that word again) 

You need to make sure your content is written for your buyer’s persona and not for search engines. Google can tell the difference! Creating quality, educational content for your readers will naturally improve your SEO. 

Frequent new content 

Google loves it when you update your site with new content – so it’s a no-brainer that you update your blog frequently with optimised content for your readers. Spammy or poorly written content can make rankings worse and not better so be careful. 

Linking 

Internal and external links to useful content can do wonders for your trustworthiness and authority. Consider link building as a marketing strategy and make sure to always internal link to other useful content in your blogs. 

Keywords 

Use keywords that are specific to your offering – don’t just go for the most popular or you could find yourself competing with the big giants and the needle will never move. Also think logically about how you use your keywords, if a blog or site page is targeted at a specific topic use only those keywords. 

Social Media 

Make a presence on social media to help get your name and website out there. It’s best to focus on just a couple of platforms and clinch your approach. 

Believe it when you see it

If you still don’t believe you need an SEO strategy to support your marketing, just take a look at these statistics: 

• 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine
• The top site listed in a Google search has an average click-through rate of 32%
• 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines
• B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those that don’t

You can check out our other blogs for more facts ‘n’ figures on why SEO is important for businesses and what the difference is between organic and paid.