SEO 101: What You Need to Know

Marketing is a broad category, with multiple areas falling under its banner. Specifically, that means the various marketing strategies you can implement for your business. One of the more notable of these is search engine optimization (SEO).

This is one of the more common, and referenced, marketing strategies to invest in. But, it’s also one of the more complicated, as there’s quite a bit involved in it.

That’s why so many entrepreneurs can be confused by it. Many of them aren’t even sure where to start with it. Then there’s trying to get it right. This takes more time and effort than many people realize. By knowing as much as possible, though, you make it easier.

In this guide to SEO, you’ll find everything you need to get started with your search engine optimization campaign. It’s worth going through some of the more important elements.

What is SEO?

It’s first worth going through what SEO actually is. The term is thrown around a lot, but it often sounds a little vague. A lot of this is because there’s quite a bit involved in it, ranging from on-page and off-page SEO to technical SEO.

It refers to the process of optimizing your website to rank as well as possible on search engines. This helps increase your brand visibility long-term.

The process has been around for decades at this point, but it’s only gotten more and more prominence in the last decade or so. This has been because of Google’s dominance in online traffic, as well as a few other factors.

Why is it Important?

With that out of the way, it’s worth looking at why SEO is important. It’s one of the main strategies that many marketing professionals point to as being worth the investment. There are more than a few reasons for this.

Perhaps the most notable of this is because most organic traffic comes from search engines. According to reports, at least 53% of all organic traffic comes from them.

This drastically outshines the likes of social media marketing and similar strategies. Ignoring SEO means your website isn’t going to see nearly as many online visitors as it could. Without it, you mightn’t see as much success as you’d want.

This begs the question of what you can do to see this success. More than a few SEO tips can help you with this going forward. Five of them stand out.

Using SEO for Success: 5 Tips to Use

1. Focus on Search Intent

Keywords are a large part of SEO, and you’ll need to make sure you have them included in your website. This doesn’t mean keyword stuffing, though. Instead, it means taking a smart approach to picking your keywords and developing content around them. It can be tricky.

One of the best ways to do this is to focus on search intent. What do people actually want when they’re using these keywords? By addressing their search intent, you give yourself a much higher chance of ranking well. Make this your priority going forward to see results.

2. Rely on Expertise

SEO is a complicated and time-consuming process. It can be difficult to get right when you’re not sure of what you’re doing. It’ll even take years to master, especially considering everything that falls under the SEO banner. That’s why it’s worth working with experts.

Those like EWR SEO can be worth outsourcing to so your SEO efforts see the best results possible. This can even be more affordable than hiring an in-house SEO professional. Once you’re working with experts, you should see better results with your SEO.

3. Build Topical Authority

One major area you’ll have to focus on for SEO is getting backlinks. It helps build trust, refer traffic to your website, and should improve your rankings. But, that’s only when you build the right backlinks. You shouldn’t just focus on quality with this. Quality backlinks matter more.

The trick to this is building topical authority so industry publications and experts link back to you. It’ll improve your SEO efforts more and more as time goes on. While this means putting more work into it, it’ll pay off more for your SEO efforts in the long-term.

4. Don’t Overlook User Experience

Search engines use countless factors when they’re crawling and ranking websites for various search terms. Many of these will be relatively obvious, but others mightn’t. Bounce rates and similar options can be some of the more overlooked. Pay attention to these.

By focusing on the user experience, you can improve your bounce rates and similar metrics. This then signals to search engines that users actually like your website, making it more likely you’ll rank higher and higher. You’ve no reason not to invest in this going forward.

5. Leverage SEO Tools

SEO tools have gotten more and more popular in recent years. A lot of this is driven by the fact that they’ve gotten more effective at helping with results. It’s always worth investing in these from the start. Many of them have free versions to help you get started.

It’s just a matter of using the right ones for your needs. AI-powered SEO tools have become increasingly more popular. Not only do they cut down on the amount of time and effort needed, but they can be much more effective than you could’ve thought.

Summing it Up

There are plenty of marketing strategies your business can invest in going forward. Some of these can be more important than others, as they’ll be integral to your success. One of the more notable of these is SEO. It can be a vital strategy to implement.

But, it’s also one of the more complicated strategies to implement. There’s a lot involved in the process, after all. But, it doesn’t need to be impossible.

By knowing what’s actually involved in SEO and what you should do to get started, you put yourself in a better position going forward. More than a few SEO tips can help with this from the start. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t see success.