Ok, what the (bleep) is SEO?
It’s an acronym (yes, another damn acronym) that’s being thrown around a lot these days and anyone remotely familiar with the digital world knows what I’m talking about. SEO (Search Engine Optimization), in basic terms, is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. The better the visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to gain attention and attract potential and existing customers to your business.
How does it work?
Imagine it this way. Search engines such as Google and Bing have little spiders whose job is to crawl around pages on the web, going from site to site, collecting information about those pages and putting them in a giant library. Then a librarian can pull up a book (web page) to help you find exactly what you’re looking for at that given time.
Consistently, algorithms analyze pages in the library, taking into account hundreds of ranking factors or signals, to determine the order that pages should appear in the search results. In terms of our library concept, the librarian has read every single book in the library and can tell you exactly which one will have the answers to your questions.
SEO ranking factors are what the little spiders we talked about are looking for. These are how search bots estimate exactly how well a website or web page can give you what you’re looking for. These factors include page speed, your webpage security and accessibility, optimized content, mobile friendliness, technical SEO, domain authority, age and more.
Unlike paid search ads, you can not pay search engines to get higher search rankings, which means SEO experts have to put in the work. That’s where we at Crunch Fource come in. The important thing to keep in mind about SEO is that results are not immediate. It takes time and work. That means that you’re not going to see your website jump to first position rankings the very day you implement SEO. You’re not going to see customers flooding your storefront, and your revenue isn’t going to increase in the first week of implementing your campaign. Instead, you can plan to wait around six months until you start seeing results. These results go beyond rankings, too. The best SEO campaigns will help your business rank for keywords that attract leads and sales.
Why is it important for digital marketing?
SEO is a fundamental part of digital marketing because people conduct trillions of searches every year, often with intentions of finding information about products and services. Search is often the primary source of digital traffic for brands and complements other marketing channels. Greater visibility and ranking higher in search results than your competition can have a huge impact on your bottom line.
There is numerous reasons why you should be using SEO. The discipline helps you position your brand throughout almost the entire buying journey. In turn, it can ensure that your marketing strategies match the new buying behavior. Because, as Google admitted themselves—customer behavior has changed forever.
Today, more people use search engines to find products or services than any other marketing channel. 18% more shoppers choose Google over Amazon. 136% more prefer the search engine to other retail websites. And B2B buyers conduct up to 12 searches, on average, before engaging with a brand. What’s more, they prefer going through the majority of the buying process on their own.
In total, SEO is the foundation of a holistic marketing ecosystem. When you understand what your website users want, you can then implement that knowledge across your campaigns (paid and organic), across your website, across your social media properties, and more.
