In this age of information overload and fragmented attention span, a large part of your website traffic depends on where you rank in the search results. The top 10 have the maximum chance of having increased traffic and people clicking on your site. Since visibility decides clicks and clicks decide business, many sites these days have started paying for their ads to be listed on the first page. However, this is not a very sustainable model for traffic generation because it requires you to regularly push money into your marketing budget. A better and more sustainable way to get unpaid traffic to your website is through Search Engine Optimization of your website.
WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION?
In simple terms, SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is a process that improves the visibility of your website and drives more traffic to your website by helping your content rank higher on search engines like Google. There are two ways of optimizing your site for search engines: On-Page SEO and off-page SEO.
ON-PAGE SEO
On-page SEO involves content creation that is useful to the consumer/searcher so that Google ranks you higher in the search results. You have to include trending keywords in your content, post quality content regularly, and ensure your metatags and titles are well-written with the trending keywords incorporated in them.
OFF-PAGE SEO
Off-page SEO involves the optimization of your website by earning backlinks. For this, you have to create high-quality useful content people would want to share on their page or website. It involves a lot of hard work and time.
HOW DOES SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION HELP BUSINESSES?
Online businesses or those that rely on their website to gain customers depend heavily on visibility to drive traffic to their websites because it is this traffic that later converts into consumers.
- SEO helps by increasing organic/unpaid traffic to your website which increases your chances of converting them into consumers.
- When you rank higher than other businesses, you get a chance to attract customers from their sites to yours.
- Off-page SEO will help you generate backlinks for your site which will increase both visibility and credibility as more people share your content.
- SEO helps to market your content to your target audience which can lead to increased profits.
Thus, we see SEO being indispensable in this digital era as it increases traffic, visibility, consumers, and consequently profits. Online businesses and websites can no longer get away with just a good layout and UX, they have to optimize their sites for search engines to show it in the top searches. This article has helped you understand SEO and its need, now you have to invest in good SEO practices to help you rank higher in searches.
