You know what SEO is, but still not sure how it benefits digital marketing? Read on to learn the importance of SEO and the benefits of SEO in digital marketing.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an important marketing activity to make a website or business visible on the internet. However, it also offers various other benefits to businesses.
In this blog, we will explore the intricacies of SEO and the benefits it offers in digital marketing. Read on to learn more.
Here are some of the ways SEO plays an important role in improving your digital marketing.
- Builds trust and credibility
Websites that rank high in the SERPs are considered to be of particularly high quality and trustworthy. The results that appear on the first page are the most relevant, which leads to higher credibility for the business or website. Having the right content on the website and a good user experience will help the website rank better.
- Provides a competitive advantage
When good search engine optimization is implemented consistently, those that do it more often and better will outrank the competition. Many companies believe they can not afford not to be on the first page of a search result. But when a team works toward that goal and stays one step ahead of the competition, they have a competitive advantage.
- Reaches more people
SEO helps reach every user who has an intent at any given time, regardless of what stage of the customer journey they are in. It relies on keywords and phrases to attract audiences to specific products and services. Businesses can create a list of keywords they would like to rank for and then create content around those keywords.
- Supports content marketing
When you have a list of keywords you want to rank for and build content around those keywords, users are more likely to find the information they are looking for. Content and SEO work in harmony with each other. A website will rank better if it creates useful, high-quality content that is optimized for those keywords. Making sure the keywords appear in headings, meta descriptions, and the body of the content will improve rankings for those terms.
Here are some tips for creating an SEO strategy for content marketing.
- Rank better for local search queries
Local searches are becoming more common as users search for products or services “near me” To improve rankings in these searches, a business can create a Google My Business account and optimize the listing for local searches. Along with localized content on the site, a user is then more likely to see local search results for their queries.
- Understanding the web environment
Users who keep up to date with the ever-changing Internet are better able to meet the ongoing SEO needs for a website. By staying current, businesses can better understand how search works and make more informed decisions about how to change and adapt their strategies.
- Relatively inexpensive
For an effective SEO strategy to be effective, companies must invest time and resources. There are companies that can be hired as SEO experts to manage the strategies, but companies that have the right team can also do it themselves.
- Achieve quantifiable results
There are tools and analytics data that can be used to measure the effectiveness of SEO efforts. Google Analytics can provide comprehensive data on organic traffic. Data includes the pages customers engaged with and the keywords used in searches. This data can then be compared to intended actions to see how SEO has played a role in customer retention or acquisition.
SEO techniques
There are three main components – or pillars – of SEO that go into building effective SEO strategies:
- Technical Optimisation. This is the performance of activities in the creation or maintenance of a website to improve search engine optimisation. It often has nothing to do with the content of the page itself. Technical optimisation options include an XML sitemap, structuring content in a way that is intuitive to the user, and improving site performance – such as page load times, the right size of images, and hosting environment.
- On-page optimisation. This is the process of ensuring that the content of a website is relevant to users. This content includes the right keywords or phrases in the headings and text, and ensures that each page includes meta descriptions, internal links within the website and external links to other reputable websites, and a good URL with the focus keyword. Website administrators use content management systems (CMS) to maintain on-page content.
- Off-page optimisation. This technique is used to improve a website’s rankings through off-site activity. This type of activity is mainly driven by backlinks. Companies can generate these through partnerships, social media marketing and guest blogging on other websites.
These three components help marketers focus on the activities and techniques they can use to build strong rankings for their websites.
Here are some additional techniques you can use within each of the three pillars:
- Keyword research and selection. Conduct keyword research on the terms for which ranking well is most desirable. Companies should focus on keywords that have a high search volume to be relevant to search engines. Looking at competitors’ keywords that perform best will give you the opportunity to develop a strategy to compete with them.
- Create quality content. Once the keyword strategy is in place, the content strategy follows. If you create high-quality content that is relevant to readers and their search queries, pages are more likely to appear higher in the SERPs.
- Develop unique page titles and meta descriptions. Page titles should include the keyword that the page focuses on. And meta descriptions should be short summaries of what a user expects to find on the page. These elements will show up in the SERPs and are likely what users will use to click.
- Use pay-per-click to supplement organic traffic. Paid advertising can help improve organic click-through rates by giving marketers the opportunity to test title tags and meta descriptions that are displayed in the SERPs. These ads ensure placement on the first page and mimic the organic search results to see which texts entice users to click. This can be used to align page titles and meta descriptions with the organic results.
- Use alt text on images. Alt text is used to describe an image on a web page. This is important so that bots crawling the site understand what the image represents. It also verbally describes what the image represents to people with visual impairments. This is also another way to enter keywords.
- URL keyword. A URL slug is the part of the URL that is unique to a particular page. Again, it is important to place the keyword that relates to the content of the page.
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