If you own a business, chances are you’ve been told the same thing as every other entrepreneur – SEO (search engine optimization) can be crucial to you and your business’s success. But what does SEO mean? How do you optimize for it? Where do you even start?

Hi I’m Sarah, your friendly neighborhood marketing gal, and today we’re talking about SEO. Why it’s important, what it is, how it works, plus how to assure your SEO doesn’t suck. Oh, and I do want to clarify, I’m going to be talking about optimizing for organic, non-paid, SEO. Okay, let’s dive in!

Why should you care about SEO

Why should you care about SEO? Look, I get it. SEO is just another acronym to throw on the large pile of all the other marketing acronyms. But hear me out, SEO is not going away. More and more people, 7 billion to be more precise, are searching the web each day and that means you want your business to be front and center when they have a problem you can solve. 

The second most important reason is because your general business perception and online reputation are becoming increasingly important. More than 80% of consumers say that they research a product or service before deciding whether or not to buy and  93% of consumers say that online reviews influenced their purchase decisions.

The Basics of SEO

The Basics of SEO (don’t worry, it’s easy). SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is the process of improving a business’s online prescense to increase its organic visibility on search engines. When done properly, it can improve both the quality and quantity of leads generated online. SEO can also be one of the most affordable and future-proof ways to grow and maintain your online authority. 

There are two main types of SEO, on-page and off-page. On-page SEO focuses on optimizing your website, and its pages, to improve search visibility and friendliness. Off-page SEO focuses on optimizations that take place off your website like link building, local business listings, and more, to drive traffic back to your website.

How to Make Your SEO Not Suck

Now it’s time to make your SEO not suck. Let’s do this! 

There are 3 essential components that help improve your business’s search engine optimization. Think of these as pieces of a Jenga tower, if set haphazardly they will create a shakey foundation that will hold for while but inevitably show it’s weakness overtime and well…you know how jenga ends.

Great SEO Component #1: Be as Consistent as Possible

First up is to be as consistent as possible. A good place to start is making sure your Google Business Profile is as accurate. That means you have the correct business name, address, and phone number listed. In addition to a brief description of what your company does. Honestly, I recommend adding as much information as possible like services provided, service area, and FAQ’s. Doing so will help potential customers get questions answered and help differentiate you from the competition. If you haven’t done this step yet I recommend checking out my How to Setup a Google Business Profile video where I run through the entire process.

And speaking of Google, as of mid-2022, Google holds over 90% of the market share for search engines. They’re also what’s known as a data aggregator, which in english means they disperse information to other business directory websites which distribute to other directories, and more directories. You get the picture. All that to say, you need to have consistent business information across as many directories and platforms as possible. Yes, that includes social media. 

Now, you may be wondering why I didn’t start with your website. Remember how I said there’s two parts to SEO? The off-page part of SEO is just as important and can provide some quick(er) wins to help your rankings. It’s also important because all those directories will be pointing back to your website… which I’ll talk about right now. 

But before I do, if you’ve found this video helpful please tap that like button so it can help others. Thanks!

Great SEO Component #2: Have a Technically Sound Website

Ok, the third component to great SEO addresses your website’s technical search engine optimization. Tech SEO is all about making your website easier to understand for search engine crawlers and bots, and, in my opinion, is essential but takes longer to reap the benefits. That’s why it’s #2. 

To be more specific, technical SEO addresses the following items on your website:

• How fast does your website loads on various devices? Is it under 3 seconds, what aspects are slowing it down? How crawlable is your website? Does it have proper meta data? Does the overall structure of the site make sense?  How many bad, broken, duplicate or orphan pages does your website have? How much internal linking is there? How many backlinks need updating? What kind of keywords are your pages ranking for? How are they ranking? Do they need to be changed? What is your competition ranking for? What do your webpage urls look like? Are they helping or hurting you? 

Along with a whole lot more. This is why website optimizations can cost more and take longer than you think. Most of these questions are asked for every single page on your website, including blog posts and any other special pages. That’s also why many businesses choose to have an SEO company take care of this. It’s a lot of work.

Great SEO Component #3: Have Relevant and Informative Content

The final and 3rd essential component to great SEO is having and creating content on your website, like blogs, that address specific areas of your business, your sales funnel, and/or customer journey. This can be the funnest component but a lot of businesses get stuck here and stop short of creating actual content. A great way to get started with this is to create content that answers the most common questions your customers ask you, then branch out from there.

Overall, SEO can be a lot of work, I won’t lie, but it’s extremely important if you want your business to be front and center. Great search engine optimization ultimately helps your customers find and contact your company… and not the competition.  If you have tried to do your business’s SEO and want to scream every time you do something, Reach out! Third Angle offers SEO services for busy businesses that want to rank better. We can also help with website optimizations or even Local SEO services. But even if you don’t use us, you now have the knowledge to ask the right questions when looking for an SEO expert.