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What Is SEO and Why It Is Important For Your Business
A beginner’s guide to SEO for 2023 businesses. Jargon-free guide to SEO from Mitchell & Stones.
If you’ve started to feel bogged down by the need to be on Tik Tok as well as Instagram and Facebook or find that your marketing activity is consistently hitting roadblocks in the form of buzzwords and jargon you don’t even understand, then you’re not alone.
The modern business world and the ever-growing social sphere has made it nearly impossible to be active on all sites and platforms – despite being told by digital marketing professionals that in order to be successful, you need to be everywhere. Well, here at Mitchell & Stones, we take a slightly different approach.
Not only do we believe that your marketing activity should be channelled into where your audience are rather than everywhere all at once, but we also believe strongly in arming our clients with the basic knowledge required to actually understand what they’re doing.
One key area that most business owners and marketers are familiar with, but that not all understand, is SEO – including exactly what it is, and why it matters so much. And that’s exactly what we’re going to cover in this article.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It refers to a marketing strategy which covers different areas of your digital footprint and connects your brand across different platforms to deliver a cohesive experience for users. Most of all, it lets search engines know what you are selling or offering, who you are, and what value you can offer to users in terms of reputation and knowledge – enabling these search engines to rank your site highly in relation to specific search terms.
There are a couple of different components within your SEO strategy which all play a role in its success. These include your off-page SEO (the backlinks which connect your brand to reputable sources of information and reliable platforms), your social SEO (how well your social profiles support your website and other online touchpoints), and your local SEO (how you combine your online presence with local terminology and user searches).
In short, SEO is the most cost effective and the most efficient way of ensuring that when customers are looking for solutions in your industry or sector, yours is the brand and website that they stumble upon.
So, why does it matter for businesses?
Why does SEO matter?
SEO matters because it is what connects your brand with prospective customers, at the crucial point when what you are offering matches what they are looking for. Using both broad and niche keywords, a good SEO strategy will ensure that when customers are seeking a solution that fits your brand and product or service offering, search engines call upon your website as a good option for that user.
SEO does this by assessing the reliability and authority of your website, as well as its suitability to the user search. Via a combination of broad industry-specific keywords, and more targeted local terms for small and local businesses, the benefit of SEO for businesses is that it increases visibility among potential customers, which subsequently drives website traffic and facilitates effective business growth.
What is the impact of SEO on a business?
We could talk about the benefits of SEO all day long, but what about the impact it has on your business operations and activity?
In order to create a cohesive and sustainable SEO strategy, businesses need to take a step back from their current marketing activity and revert to a clean slate – identifying their target audience and what that audience is most likely to be searching for online. Recognising the way that people search, as well as the terminology they use and the motivation behind their search, will help businesses to create an SEO plan which connects to authentic and genuine customers.
Over time, businesses tend to find that not only does good SEO increase brand awareness and website traffic, but it also improves the user experience with regards to offering a consistent experience across all platforms, and it improves the quality of the content that they share.
How to make SEO work for your business
So, where to start.
Your SEO strategy should start with an understanding of where your target audience spend time online, who they are, and what they tend to search for before arriving on your website. A mix of niche / targeted and more open-ended keywords will ensure that nobody falls through the gaps of your strategy, while consideration of both the wider online community and your specific local audience is key.
Some of the key areas in which to channel your immediate SEO focus include:
- Website copy
- Marketing campaigns and ads
- Social media
- Google My Business listing information
- Articles and online content
- Backlinks which link back to your website
If setting up an SEO strategy for your business is something which feels alien or overwhelming, or you already have an SEO plan but don’t feel like it’s working as well as it should, the Mitchell & Stones team are here to help. With emphasis on great content and copy which attractive, converts, and retain customers, we work with brands across a wide range of industries – finetuning their SEO strategy for efficient and sustainable business growth.
Get in touch with us directly to find out more.
