How SEO Works

Search engines like Google and Bing use complex algorithms to rank websites based on relevance and authority, which is called Search Engine Optimization (or SEO for short).

These algorithms search engines use analyze various factors such as keywords, content quality, content length, website speed, user experience, backlinks, mobile-friendly design, loading speed, and many other metrics to determine a website’s ranking on Search Engine Ranking Pages (called SERPs for short). So now that you know what SEO is, also know that all the moving parts that make up SEO use these factors to improve (or push down) a website’s ranking.

Using SEO Correctly

There are several steps involved in using SEO correctly, actually quite alot. For the sake of brevity, we’re just going to tackle some of the most determinant factors.

Those are:

Keyword Research: This is where we identify the keywords and phrases that your target audience is searching for. A great example of this in action would be “Denver Pizza” if our business were a pizza restaurants located in Denver, Colorado. If we had a national business with multiple locations, we’d pick a broader term that (hopefully) there would not be too much competition for.

On-page Optimization: This is where we optimize your website’s content (such as blog posts and website pages), title tags, meta descriptions, images (where we’d use ALT tags), and SEO-friendly URLs to make posts and pages more relevant to specific types of keyword or phrase searches.

Off-page Optimization: This is where we’d build high-quality backlinks from other websites to improve your website’s authority and relevance. When we talk about back-links, bear in mind that these are often time-consuming and difficult to accrue, so they’re valuable referring sources for search engines.

These are links from other websites that link to pages of your website, blog posts you may have written, or your website itself. Examples could be mentions in podcast descriptions of specific pages, posts, special offers, or your general website link. Teaching workshops where you refer to free giveaways on your site, reference materials, specific posts, those all help.

Technical Optimization: This is the process of improving your website’s technical structure, such as site speed, mobile-responsiveness, and website security.

To look at some examples, a hacked site isn’t going to do too well in search results if it’s even listed, a slow-loading site (while it may not be your fault necessarily) isn’t going to help ranking one bit, a website that won’t load or look decent on mobile phones will be pushed down search results (or could be). All of these are important factors worth looking into when analyzing SEO.

Tracking and Analysis: This is where we use analytics tools to track your website’s traffic, rankings, and conversions, and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly and examine such things as bounce rate and time spent on pages or posts. Google Web Master Tools / Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are both pretty good, useful tools for starting out with this. If you want to dig deeper, of course, there are other types of tools and procedures.

Value of SEO to Business Owners

SEO is crucial for business owners because it helps them reach their target audience(s) faster than ever before and increase website traffic. This in turn helps them build brand awareness, credibility, and trust. Taking this a step further to its logical conclusion, improving SEO helps a business gain traction in local or national SERPs results.

SEO can help business owners generate leads, increase sales, and improve their ROI.

Without SEO, businesses are missing out on potential customers who are searching for their products or services and essentially handing market share over to their competitors who are more willing to embrace change.

Estimated Costs for Utilizing SEO

The cost of SEO varies depending on the size of the business, the industry, the competition, and the scope of the project. Small businesses can expect to pay between $500 and $1,500 per month for basic SEO services, while larger businesses can expect to pay between $2,500 and $10,000 per month for comprehensive SEO services.

However, it’s important to bear in mind that these are estimates and can vary widely depending on your market type and size, competition, and what you have (or have not) done to date so far to work with. For example, if you have a  “free” DIY template site with practically no content and incorrect SEO or no SEO at all, it’s not realistic to expect an SEO expert to be able to move the needle without overhauling the site and putting massive changes into action first before beginning an actual campaign.

This is also something an SEO professional should tell you up front, be able to explain and discuss with you, and help you resolve if you’re at that stage and ready to accelerate.

Why Businesses Must Use SEO in Order to Expand into New Markets

Businesses that are committed to long-term growth over time need to use SEO to expand into new markets and increase exposure online simply because it helps them reach a wider audience and increase their visibility. this is a given.

By optimizing their website for relevant keywords along with the other factors mentioned, businesses stand a greater chance of reaching an undecided potential customer or client. SEO is in many ways like a small snowball falling down a steep ski slope in the winter in that if it’s timed correctly, shaped correctly, maintained, it gathers force and focus as it continues travelling along.

Once you start building content, back-links internal links to other pages and posts, links to scholarly external sources, links to associations and organizations and publications (which are just examples of back-links really), then combined with different PPC campaigns you test every few months to see how they’re delivering or not, combining with local events and advertising, after a while will bear fruit; and it’ll do so for a quarter of the costs involved in traditional marketing.

Projected SEO Trends Going Forward into the Future

The SEO landscape is constantly evolving, and it’s important for businesses to stay up-to-date with the latest trends. Some of the projected SEO trends going forward into the future include:

1. Voice Search Optimization: As more people use voice assistants like Alexa and Siri, optimizing for voice search will become increasingly important. Yes, we’re not totally there yet, but this is a trend that’s slowly evolving and certainly not going away any time soon if ever.

1. Artificial Intelligence: AI-powered algorithms will continue to play a significant role in SEO, helping search engines better understand content and deliver more relevant results. Again, this will only increase with time and use.

1. Local SEO: As more people search for local businesses on their mobile devices, optimizing for local search will become more and more vital. As I’ve blogged about elsewhere on this site, I’ve turned around many businesses in the past using just local SEO combined with traditional “boots on the ground” marketing and non-traditional marketing efforts. I’ve also used the power of reinforced local SEO for my own web design business for a while when I lived in Denver, outpacing corporate digital marketing firms for weeks on end, at one point receiving calls and emails from new prospects approximately every 15 minutes. It last until I changed my local SEO.

1. Video SEO: YouTube is owned by Google, which makes it the second largest search engine or search source on the planet, wtih many people relying on it as a separate individual network, and others building careers as YouTube vloggers (video bloggers). Having content redistributed or recreated for video, cross-linking, with complementary SEO terms, added to blog posts and website pages, referencing local SEO in links and event links, could seriously go to furthering a site moving up SERPs if executed correctly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, SEO is an essential marketing strategy for businesses of all sizes, that’s quite frankly vital if you’re going to reach more customers or clients. By optimizing their company website for search engines, businesses can increase SERP visibility, attract new customers while encouraging previous customers to return, and improve their overall ROI.

As the SEO landscape continues to evolve, it’s important for businesses to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices and take SEO seriously.