About 91 percent of all online content receives zero organic traffic from Google. That’s a brutal fact, given that there are more than 50 zettabytes of digital data as of this year.
Ranking highly on search engine result pages is critical for your website to receive traffic. Indeed, website owners have always looked for ways to climb to the top of search engine rankings.
Initially, all it took to boost a website’s ranking was to add a bunch of keywords to copies. Today, search engines have become more sophisticated, and you need a sound website marketing strategy to attract attention from your target audience.
With over 1.5 billion websites on the internet competing for visitors at the moment, you need to be creative to stand out from the crowd. One way to boost your chances of ranking highly is by adopting good search engine optimization (SEO).
But what is SEO? What does good SEO constitute? More importantly, how can it boost your business website?
These are some of the issues we address in this comprehensive guide on search engine optimization. Read on to learn more about SEO for your site.
What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization refers to the combination of various strategies that a website owner can use to enhance the chances of their website appearing in search engine results. The aim of good SEO is to help your content appear in the first pages of search engines, where the vast majority of internet users end their searches.
What Constitutes Good SEO?
Before publishing content on your website, you need to make sure that it’s SEO-ready. Below, we outline five top characteristics of an SEO-ready copy.
Quality
The most important feature of content that’s search engine optimized is top-notch quality. One of the biggest misconceptions people have is that keyword density is what good SEO is all about. Sure, a good keyword density can help, but it’s the quality of your content that you need to pay the most attention to.
Search engines will recognize the quality of the content you’re publishing and determine how to rank it. But more importantly, people will only want to read a copy if it adds value to them. Moreover, other website owners will link to your content based on its merit, not on anything else.
Keyword Density
We already hinted that a good keyword density is essential. But how exactly can you tell that you’ve used the right keyword density? The trick is to avoid keyword stuffing, as search engines will detect it and rank you lower.
Stick to a keyword density of 1-3 percent.
Readability
You want your content to be easily readable. Adopt a writing style that your target audience won’t struggle to understand. That means avoiding technical jargon that confuses the general public.
Originality
Your SEO efforts will amount to nothing if the content you publish is unoriginal. Don’t keep reusing the same content over and over again, or copy someone else’s work. To avoid getting penalized for such content, always publish original and authentic copies.
Good Grammar
Before publishing content, you need to proofread and edit it to make sure there are no grammatical errors and misspellings. Top search engines will instantly detect these errors, and it could affect your SEO efforts. Of course, you don’t have to be perfect, but content that’s riddled with errors will certainly be penalized. Investing in an effective grammar checker program will help your SEO efforts substantially.
How Can SEO Benefit Your Website Marketing Strategy?
Search engine optimization can significantly impact your digital marketing efforts in many ways. Let’s look at five of them.
It Helps Make Your Website More User-Friendly
SEO isn’t just about optimizing your website for search engines; it’s also about creating a user-friendly website. You want to make sure that your site is smoother and faster. Most web users will abandon a slow website within seconds, and that affects your traffic.
Strive for a clean, uncluttered, and well-structured website that encourages casual visitors to stay longer. Good SEO ensures that your content is highly relevant to keep readers engaged. When done correctly, on-page SEO inspires visitors to stick around your website longer and even share your content.
SEO Helps You Reach Each Member of Your Target Audience
A major benefit of search engine marketing is that it helps you reach audiences in each step of the buying funnel. You also get to connect with various types of audiences who may be interested in the products or services you offer.
For instance, if you provide lawn care services, it’s likely that you will divide your services into residential and commercial services. Each of these services targets a different audience, and each audience’s purchase journey may be different.
SEO helps you reach each of these audiences by targeting keywords specific to the intents of a particular audience.
You Get to Build Brand Awareness
The higher you rank on SERPs, the better the chances of attracting more traffic. Potential customers are more likely to view your brand favorably when you appear on the first page of top search engines as opposed to when you have a weak web presence.
Even if users don’t click on your website, the fact that your brand is in front of their eyes on the first pages of SERPs makes an impression on their minds subconsciously. Over time, they’re likely to click on your website and get to see what you have to offer.
SEO Boosts the Success of Your PPC Campaigns
Pay-per-click is another internet marketing strategy that depends on traffic to increase sales. Chances are you plan to invest in PPC if you want to maximize the potential of your online marketing efforts.
PPC works well with SEO, although one is a paid strategy while the latter is non-paid. By combining the two, you get to reinforce your presence in search engines. Work with a reputable company that provides a variety of essential digital marketing services for the best results.
SEO Can Boost Your Website Marketing Strategy Significantly
As you can see, search engine optimization plays a central role in a good website marketing strategy. Not only does it help your rankings on mainstream search engines, but it also keeps visitors to your website happy. Ultimately, you stand to experience more conversions with guest posting, backlinks building, and increased organic traffic on Google.
Would you like to read more great content like this on website marketing strategy? Keep reading our Everything Entrepreneur business blog to learn more about search engine optimization strategies. Visit the SEO section of our site right now.
