Marketing

Next Level Marketing: 5 Things You Need to Know About SEO

Most business owners know that SEO is important and that it helps customers “find you online,” yet sometimes SEO stays on the peripheral of your marketing strategy like all the other things you should be doing but aren’t (like going to the gym). But just like going to the gym, you will never see measurable results in your digital marketing efforts without implementing an intentional SEO strategy.  

We understand that SEO can be confusing and intimidating to folks who are unfamiliar with the terms, so we created a website terms post to help you out. In today’s blog post, we hope to demystify the lingo and break things down into manageable chunks of information that can help you understand what SEO actually does and why it matters to your website.

1. Great SEO Delivers Qualified Leads to You

Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to search for great leads? If you could just sit back and wait for them to find your website, call in, and buy the service or product you are selling?

Believe it or not, this is not the nirvana of sales. We can actually help your ideal customer find you with a strategic and targeted SEO strategy. SEO ensures that people can find you and your services and products online.

You invested a lot of time (and money) into creating a website, it would be a shame if your target audience can’t find it. Think of it like this: an organic SEO strategy is equivalent to building roads that lead customers to your website. These roads are paved and marked with quality code, keyword rich content, intuitive scannable chunks of text, and other technical elements that make your website best possible result to your persona’s internet search. If there are not clear pathways for them to find you online, it’s likely that they never will.

Download out our FREE SEO field guide below for more information!

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2. SEO is NOT the Same as PPC

An important distinction to make is that SEO is not the same as Pay Per Click (PPC). SEO refers to the traffic you generate organically based on both the technical and content quality of your website. PPC is advertising that will get your website at the top of the search results page—for a fee.

PPC is typically faster and SEO—because it’s organic—takes longer to establish. That’s one of the primary differences.

Both strategies are effective but even if you have the budget to go after PPC traffic; you still need to ensure that the technical and content aspects of your website are up to par with great SEO. An integrated approach to both SEO and PPC is an ideal choice for brands with the budget for both.

3. SEO Success Requires Great Content

One small step you can take right away to improve your website’s SEO  is setting aside time to evaluate and improve your website content. Maybe your homepage needs a fresh set of eyes or new keywords need to be incorporated into your headlines. Be sure you have fully-developed personas that you are targeting with all of your content. Then tell your target personas stories that make them the hero because they used your brand.

Avoid solid walls of text—instead use videos, photos, graphics, and block quotes to make your content easy and enjoyable to read. If you’re not sure how your website content ranks, we offer a website audit that can reveal the SEO strengths and weaknesses of your website.

4. SEO Success Requires Quality Code

All websites are not created equal. This means that just because you’ve built one doesn’t mean customers will actually show up to visit. There is so much that goes into developing a high quality, search engine optimized website and, to be honest, some websites are running on code that is old, broken, or just plain sloppy.

It takes more than plug and play meta to ensure that technical side of your website search engine friendly. While the self-serve website builders offer various helpful features, it still takes a good bit of technical know-how to keep the site fast and lean. If you need help in this area, we would be happy to review your site for you and advise on the technical side of your SEO.

5. SEO Puts the User First

When building a website it is easy to get lost in all the bells and whistles. Did you know that if those flashy features don’t have a strategic purpose, they often just leave users feeling confused? Not only that, search engines use web crawlers that are searching for a variety of factors to determine a page’s ranking—and usability is one of the top considerations.

There is more to usability than just “easy to use.” Other considerations such as broken links, scan-ability, and usefulness are also considered. We talk a lot about the hero’s journey in terms of content creation but it is worth mentioned that the same idea applies to your website’s usability—make your customer the hero by giving them a website they can wield to save the day.  

Are you ready to get started? If so, we would love to help! First be sure to download our SEO field guide that unpacks more of the information listed above and gives your short exercises to help you evaluate and begin taking small steps to improve your website’s SEO. Next, give us a call so we can help you develop an SEO strategy for your website that is easy to understand and implement.