What does every business have in common related to in and around the internet?
Well, Every other business is now creating its online presence on the internet. Businesses all over the world are getting engaged over social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. just to boost their sales and awareness in any form possible. Also, one thing which they follow when it comes to creating a good internet presence is Search Engine Optimization (also known as SEO in short).
I have been learning and working on SEO as a freelancer for over 2 years now. let me ask you a question here, what do you think businesses need in order to earn their bread and butter every day?
Money?, Hard Work?, Faith in GOD?
oh well, if your answer to the above questions are, yes, yes, and oh my god, YES? you might be wrong at this point…
To really answer the question…
Obviously, The Answer is…
Customers….or even say, Clients!
Now how can SEO help in getting customers or clients? Is it even possible for local businesses? The answer is yes, but before answering “Why?” to this question let me first write about defining the concept if SEO.
Defining SEO or SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Wikipedia defines SEO as “ The process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine’s unpaid results — often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results”.
Meaning — A web page with optimized content will be shown on the top of the search engine result when a user will search for a specifically related query.
for e.g, When a user searches for “buy shoes online”(90% of the time on google search), he gets all the results based on the search he did.
The image above states that the websites Myntra.com and Amazon.in are the top 2 websites having the solution to the user’s query as “buy shoes online”.
So how does this work and Why should you do it?
Now Imagine, how would you want any product or service for something like “house painter” or “buy a Rolex watch”?
- Of course, you would search it online instead of getting to the local store or office to find your relevant questions answered.
- you then would click on the first listing presented to you by the search engine and would explore the given page and find your answer. Pretty Simple Right?
Often Businesses rely on networking and traditional marketing methods to grow their business locally. This method is proven to be much of a help in terms of local business marketing in a specific area of business. However, what other options do they have when they want to serve or provide extensively other than where the business is located?
Here comes the concept of SEO and advertising to help.
Why the need for an online presence via SEO.
Did you know, 75% of potential customers are looking for their solution by searching online? means — instead of relying on their friends or contacts, they search online first.
So why would anyone not target those and still depend on localized contacts? My guess is that they are not aware of this fact yet! Pretty Convincing Right?
Trust is an utmost priority when it comes to working with any business, be it B2B or B2C. What if you neglect your business’s online presence and try to search for your solution offline. what would be the best-case scenario, or even, what would be the worst case? how many calls would you make? traveling needed to meet the business personnel? money spent just to make sure that the other business is legit? I’m sure it’s not worth it!
So what search engines do is make the task simpler. By just managing (indexing) and ranking a great website and great content to its users who are looking for answers, it just provides a great trust and reliability to users asking for a solution.
There is a simple rule to not obliviate these factors for any business to gain customers and popularity fast, that is, SEO helps customers find the business and also vice versa!
Common factors or techniques to speak of are the rules and resources which are needed in order to create or maintain a healthy online presence for your business. So now you know how simple it works, what are the rules and factors and how should do you do it?
The Rules And Factors for SEO.
hold on to a thought that you ever wanted to visit a nearby hospital or clinic to treat your skin infection which you have since 2 weeks, and now you have to go to the location of the clinic or hospital for your treatment expecting that the days of resisting the burns and pain would finally get over, or start to. And in an instance, you find that the location you have visited was never there or never existed at all? seems pretty scary or hurtful right? moreover, I would feel angry and sue the doctors! (if I ever find them).
Now to the similar case above, imagine the same when you search for the same solutions online, and you get irrelevant results or no relevant results at all? seems quite a likable situation for me too. Or what if the search engines just list all trash content of a webpage to the top! That’s so illegally hurtful.
To retaliate this scenario, every search engine tries its best to counter trash content in order to unlist or push down the rankings to show quality content on their SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). This, in fact, generates relevant content and solutions for the people searching for it.
The process for a business to rank on search engines is quite ruled in and they need to follow certain authenticated steps to start their process.
The Process Of SEO
So if you are a local business or any kind of… the first thing you need for this process is to have a website. And not only a website, but a content-optimized website. Meaning, to rank for your most searched keyword for your business, you need a web page having optimized content for it to really rank to the top.
The following aspects are needed in order to determine what is ranked and how it is ranked on search engines.
1. On-Page Optimization:
Just like the hospital or clinic scenario you just read above, do not be a victim of this technique where you have a website, but do not possess a great amount of content or are ignoring the fact that it is necessary.
Certain Terminologies regarding on-page optimizations are:
- Content Optimization
- Keyword Optimization
- Meta Tags along with page title and description optimization
- Use of SEO friendly URLs
- Use of Heading Tags H1-H6 tags
- alt attributing your images
- Using mobile responsive designs and boosting site speed
- Media Optimization
Backlinko defines these terms as crucially beneficial for your websites to earn a good amount of traffic online and build your brand reputation.
2. Off-Page Optimization:
Putting this concept in simple words, imagine your business trying to earn a reputation in the early 1900s where there were no search engines to redefine the website rankings and no internet to bring in users from it. the only thing necessary would be to talk to people or engage them through rallies, hand-painted banners to advertise via papers and stuff like that! pretty hectic and tedious tasks I must say.
Taking over this act by our beloved search engines, every business even small scaled can now rank itself on to the top of the search engines by competing with others through off-page techniques. Guess what’s the only thing needed for this to work?
It is Voting a.k.a Backlinking or link building.
So if you have a website, then in order to rank it highly on the SERPs, someone or in this case, some other Domain, needs to vote you by mentioning your website’s link in their content. Seems Simple yet, But there’s a lot to do!
Certain Techniques or places where this could be done are:
- Social bookmarking websites
- Directory Submissions.
- Classified submissions.
- Creating Guest Blogs.
- Article Submission.
- Press Release Submission.
- Info-graphic Submissions.
- Forum Submissions.
- Local Business Listings.
- Web 2.0 Profile Creations.
- Question and Answer Submission.
- Video Submissions.
Such Factors create buzz among communities as well as create votes for your websites in order for search engines to rank your website on top.
Conclusion
So as to summarize so much information, and with so much to get started with, it’s time you create some spectacular web-based content in order for your business to get those clients/customers you need whenever you wish. And if you need any help with this, do put in your comments & doubts and queries for this blog.