What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization, often referred to by its acronym SEO, is the improvement of a web page or a website visibility in a search engine’s unpaid, organic, or natural search results. In essence, it increases the chances for a website to appear frequently in higher ranking upon any search engine search results list. This translates to a significant number of visitors coming to the website more often!

SEO is an unpaid strategy while SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is a paid strategy. The main goal, however, for both digital marketing tactics is to get traffic, visibility, and conversion.

SEO techniques have three categories: On Page SEO, Off Page SEO, and Technical SEO. On page SEO focuses on what your site/page is about. Off page SEO focuses on how popular your site/page can be. Technical SEO focuses on non-content elements of a site.

On page optimization refers to actions that are within your control i.e. textual and visual content, user-friendliness of site, technical setup, among others. Off page optimization refers to actions that will boost domain authority e.g. content creation, high-quality back links from other websites, recommendations from directory profiles and local listings, and such. Technical SEO ensures that search engines can discover, crawl, and index each page.

Why SEO Matters: The Stats

1. More than 5.5 billion users ask questions on Google daily.
2. The top 3 organic search results on Google get 75% of total clicks.
3. More than 92% of online user experiences start with a search engine query.
4. The Highest ranked sites on Google have at least 31% of average click-through rate.
5. More than 50% of website traffic comes from organic search.
6. More than 80% of users perform some type of online search before going through the buying process.
7. In terms of driving website traffic, search beats social media by over 300%.
8. More than 60% of digital marketing professionals make SEO strategy their top priority.
9. Google considers high-quality content and link building among the most important metrics for website ranking.
10. Almost 85% of businesses outsource their search campaign to SEO specialists.

What goes into SEO?

SEO aims to increase quality and quantity of website traffic through organic search engine results. Breaking down each part will provide a better grasp of what it is and what it can do:

1. Quantity of traffic: getting users to visit the site, not the competitor’s, after clicking through from search engine results pages (SERPs); the more popular the site, the better.
2. Quality of traffic: getting your target audience to view your page, read your offer, and convert prospects into paying customers; turning ‘window shoppers’ to sure buyers.
3. Organic result: the most important type of traffic, one that is unpaid, and composed of targeted web visitors that are most likely to convert.

First, Test Web Performance In Search Engines

• It goes without saying that your goal is to get your website to the top of this list. Determine current page ranking based on keyword research.
• Optimize various SEO aspects such as local search, content seen by search engines, site visitors, and such.
• Review parts of the website that are invisible to the public and prevent pages, folders, and images from being visible in search engine results.
• Check for duplicate title elements, multiple versions of the same page or content, keyword cannibalization, and even elements of bad title structure.
• Verify local listing on Google and other search engines. If you rely on customers from a particular location, you’ll want to make sure those customers can easily find you.
• Analyze internal linkage deficiencies throughout the website. Links must redirect all searches and clicks back to your landing pages.

Ways to Improve Website SEO

1. Improve user experience across your entire site. Websites that are professional-looking and fast to load are likely to attract first-time visitors and turn them into potential paying customers.
2. Publish relevant content. Web content that is high quality, relevant, and trustworthy is the number one driver of your search engine rankings.
3. Use Google Analytics. This tool will help to understand your website strengths and weaknesses, your target audience’ behavior and needs, and the kind of content that will convert.
4. Design for mobile first. Majority of searches take place on mobile. A mobile-friendly website can boost search engine ranking.
5. Get more authoritative back links. Focus on building back links that exponentially increases ranking for specific search queries.

We’re Here to Help

Does your website need optimizing up for search engines? Need help to fine-tune your SEO strategies? Do you need continuing education on the importance of website optimization? Get in touch with the Microsoft Gold Partner ClinkIT Solutions team today!

About ClinkIT Solutions

Clink IT Solutions, world-class software services company and Gold Microsoft Partner, provides top-of-the-line IT solutions including Power Platform and .NET services delivered flawlessly and on time for B2Cs and B2Bs in their respective industries around the globe.