Let’s see the answers to the question which is on everyone’s lips – How Does SEO Work? You’ve definitely seen it before… SEO is one of those acronyms you see everywhere online. It stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the process of optimizing your website to get unpaid, organic traffic from search engines.
In this article, we will discuss the following:
Whether it’s a new website or a complete redesign, knowing what SEO is all about is very important for every business which wants to have an online presence.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization, as previously discussed, is an all-encompassing term used to describe the processes, methods, and strategies focused on optimizing your website to get organic traffic.
In simpler words, SEO involves making changes to your website design and content in order to make it more attractive to search engines. All these efforts are made in the hope of attracting more traffic from search engines and getting a good position on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
While SEO often involves a complex strategy, with multiple methods and factors, the basic process is quite straightforward. Search engines want to provide their visitors with the best results for their queries.
To do this, they employ crawlers, which are special algorithms that scour the internet for information. These algorithms pay attention to a lot of factors: how your website is built, its content, how user-friendly it is, how other websites point back to your website and so on.
The search engines work with this information gathered by the crawlers and reward websites which are better built, more user-friendly and relevant, with higher rankings on the results page.
Simply put, SEO is the process of making your website rank better on these pages (SERPs). For instance, if you have an article on your website about repairing air conditioning units, you should optimize it so everyone looking for “how to repair an AC unit” sees it as a top result on the SERPs.
How to do SEO?
There are several basic SEO techniques you can start doing on your own. Here’s a short breakdown:
- keyword research – this is your first step for every successful SEO campaign. You might understand your industry’s jargon, the special terms, the products or services, but think about your consumers. What do they look for? What are they searching for online? How is the demand created and what is its specifics? Do an in-depth analysis of what people are searching for in your industry. There are excellent SEO tools to help you out. One of the best ones is Google’s Keyword Planner, where you can check every keyword, its competition, its reach, and many other factors.
- understand your competition – what are your main competitors doing? How are their websites ranking for the most popular keywords? What type of content are they using? How are they structuring their website and information? Also, study their reviews, social media presence, and online reputation.
- planning your strategy – make a list of the top keywords you want to focus on, what type of content you want to create, your website’s layout and create a schedule for your long term optimization strategy.
- website optimization (on-page SEO) – this is the hard part. You’ll have to start creating the website, its pages, create an e-commerce platform (if needed) and populate your website with content. You’ll have to make sure it is mobile-friendly, engaging and it works flawlessly on every type of device. There are a lot of factors and details to think about, so it might be a good idea to outsource some of the work before you become overwhelmed.
- promotion and public relations (off-page SEO) – your website has to attract high-quality links from another website in order to be relevant. Search engines love this link juice that flows to your website and you must make sure you get as much as possible. Google’s SEO guide advises webmasters to build high-quality websites that people want to talk about, share and revisit. This is one of the most important ways of getting links back to your website. Other methods include: interacting with bloggers, online magazines, hosting webinars, doing social media marketing or bookmarking and many others.
How to improve SEO?
If you already implemented a search engine optimization plan but want more, there are several ways to do it. Here’s how to get more from your SEO strategy:
- be consistent – SEO is an ongoing process and, to be successful, you must be active every day. Search engines love fresh content, updated frequently. And so do your visitors. Make sure you create content (text, audio, photos or videos) on a regular basis to keep your website fresh and updated.
- use metadata – each page has a space between the <head> tags to insert additional information about the content. Try to include your title metadata, description metadata, and keyword metadata. It only takes a couple of minutes, but it will add a little magic to your efforts.
- enable local SEO – this is ideal for businesses that have a local market. If you focus on local search, try to include it in your grand internet marketing strategy. This way, you’ll compete on a local level for every keyword and will have a much easier run to a good spot on the SERPs.
- focus on video marketing – video is huge now and everyone is trying to get a piece of the action. Try to be as active as possible in this direction: create a series, video intros, conferences, tutorials or reviews. People love watching videos and, if done properly, will boost your SEO results.
How much does SEO cost?
Basic SEO can be done in-house, using simple techniques and methods, and it does work, but the results are limited and usually inconsistent. If you want to get the good, long-term results, you will have to work with a professional digital marketing agency.
The prices for SEO services are varied and can accommodate most budgets:
- $200 to $500 per month – smaller packages, ideal for local SEO strategies; they include basic SEO strategies, content creation, and content marketing for small businesses;
- $500 to $1,000 per month – this is the most popular pricing tier; you’ll get a good SEO strategy for your website, content creation, content marketing, social media marketing, and other related services;
- $1,000 to $2,500 per month – this will get you a personalized SEO strategy with various types of content and related services;
- $2,500 to $5,000 per month (and up) – this tier will get you the best an agency has to offer: a fully customized SEO plan, every type of content and social media monitoring.
