What is SEO and why it matters for businesses

Digital Marketing

18 Feb 2021

4 min read

SEO is quickly becoming a popular digital marketing channel that many businesses are starting to incorporate into their marketing strategies, and for good reason! If you’re not optimising your site you could be losing plenty of traffic and in turn money. According to Backlinko research, only 0.78% of Google searches clicked on something from the second page. In other words, if you’re ranking in position 11 onwards you’re basically invisible to users searching on the internet. But don’t stress because there is a way to improve your rankings, and that’s with a bit of SEO.

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Over the coming months I’ll be going through some SEO activities you should be completing in order to improve your site’s visibility and make sure you’re ranking. But for now, let’s go through some SEO basics:

What is SEO?

Search engine optimisation, most commonly known as SEO is the process of optimising a website in order for it to appear higher in search results. Optimising a site includes on and off-page tactics.

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO activities refers to optimisations made to your site in order to rank higher in search results. On-page includes changes on your site. This commonly includes things such as title tags, meta descriptions, content, and even HTML code optimisations, such as schema markup.

What is off-page SEO?

Off Page SEO activities refers to optimisations made offsite that help your site to rank higher in search results. Off-page is important to build trust and authority of your site and is commonly referred to as “link building” however there are many other forms of off-page activities that you can complete such as setting up a Google my business account or optimising other organic channels such as Youtube.

Why do businesses need SEO?

Businesses need SEO if they want to appear in search results. Without SEO a website will usually struggle to appear in the top 10 search results, particularly if its a competitive industry and its competitors have an optimised site. SEO can help you grow traffic, brand visibility, and in turn conversions.

Why does online visibility matter for businesses?

Search online visibility matters because for some businesses it can be the only way you will get customers. Think of it this way if you sell dog collars. A user jumps on Google and begins typing in dog collars for sale. If you don’t appear on that first page, you will not be seen by the user. Meaning a missed sale for you. Increased online visibility means new customers and more sales for you.

Can I rank without SEO?

It is possible. But only if you have no competitors, a very strong domain, lots of links and content and you’re a magical unicorn. Just kidding. It is possible but highly unlikely. 99.9% of the time you will not rank well. And if you do rank and a new competitor comes along with even basic SEO on their site. You’ll quickly disappear. There is a reason even the big companies of the world invest in SEO. So whether you’re a small, medium, or big business SEO can help you.

Can I do SEO myself?

Short answer, yes, SEO can be done yourself. However, there are many things you should consider. Whilst there are plenty of online SEO training and SEO courses it’s important to understand that it’s not an easy concept to master. You cannot do one SEO course and excel at SEO.

The one thing about SEO is that the tactics and SEO activities you need to complete in order to rank are constantly changing. 10 years ago you could type a keyword 100 times on one page and rank instantly. These days doing something like that could result in a Google penalty which means Google removes you from all search results, not something you want to happen.

You also need to consider the time it takes to rank a site, Performing SEO on your site takes lots of time and patience, something you may struggle to find if you run a business. For that reason, we say it's best to leave it to the SEO experts. At Salt and Fuessel we have years of experience ranking websites across a number of industries.

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As you can see SEO is important for your business to increase brand visibility, traffic, and in turn conversions! Want to know more about how SEO might help your business? Or have a specific SEO related question? Get in touch with the Salt and Fuessel SEO team today. We’ll review your website and let you know what traffic you could get with a strong SEO campaign in place.

Love all things SEO? Stay tuned for any upcoming SEO articles by our in-house specialist Bec by signing up for our newsletter below. We also write helpful articles on web design, web development, and other digital marketing channels.

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