SEO work is crucial for your marketing plan. With it, you can better understand and reach your target audience.
What is the importance of SEO in shaping an effective marketing strategy? SEO boosts your content, driving traffic, attracting quality leads to your site and boosting brand awareness.
To secure the top spot in Google searches, you need to prioritise SEO in your business strategy. Want to know more? Then, read on for the complete guide to SEO.
What is SEO in Digital Marketing?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, can form the backbone of a successful digital marketing strategy. It’s about fine-tuning your online content to catch the eye of search engines like Google and Bing. This ensures your brand is visible when potential customers search for relevant info or products online.
Search engines use aspects of your website to determine your ranking. These are divided into technical SEO and on-page SEO. Technical SEO focuses on your website’s performance. It examines if your site is secure, mobile-friendly, and has fast-loading pages. On-page SEO focuses on how you present content – through keywords, images, and readability.
When researching SEO, you’ll often come across SERPs – Search Engine Results Pages. These are the numbered pages you’re presented with after Googling a phrase. The search engine responds to a search query and shows organic (unpaid) results, paid ads, videos, and more.
Using SEO to Gain a Competitive Edge
Competition for your customer’s eyes and attention online has never been fiercer. SEO empowers your brand by ensuring it stands out from the crowd, hopefully securing first-page results.
The majority of online users click the top results after a search query. In fact, the first organic result gets 10x more clicks than those in the 10th spot, with an average click-through rate of over 27%!
Don’t worry if you haven’t begun working on your SEO or if your company isn’t established in your industry. SEO is a fantastic tool for competing with more prominent, successful brands within your industry. Whilst well-known brands may already have high rankings, effective SEO strategies can help you climb the search engine ladder.
By utilising keywords relevant to your brand, creating worthwhile content, and improving the user experience of your site, you can gain a competitive edge and increase your market share.
Making Sense of the Metrics
When it comes to digital marketing, data is king. SEO is about more than visibility. When used well, it provides measurable results, analytics, and ROI benefits.
To analyse SEO and improve SERP ranking, use tools like Google Analytics, which tracks traffic sources and customer activity on your site.
Monitoring this data and adapting your approach can help ensure your site has good SEO ranking. It will also let you know which elements of your strategy are working well.
Working SEO into Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Making SEO part of your marketing mix doesn’t need to be overwhelming. It’s about shaping your content creation, social media efforts and paid advertising with solid SEO principles.
The goal of Google and other search engines’ algorithms is to prioritise high-quality web pages. They list them at the top of organic search results so that users find pages relevant to what they were searching for. Having useful, well-thought-out content as part of your marketing strategy positively affects your SEO.
Here are some considerations for your marketing strategy and how you can combine them with your SEO efforts:
- Content Marketing – Written articles and think-pieces are great for engagement. Use your SEO keyword research to decide which topics to write about. Then Google will recognise your site as a useful resource.
- Social Media Marketing – Your SEO strategy will provide high quality content that can be used for informative posts in your social media platforms.
- UX – Optimise your user experience (UX) by ensuring good usability – i.e. create a site that is easy to browse on a mobile or desktop, and loads quickly. This allows a user to find what they are looking for quickly. Usability is rewarded highly by search engines. Simply put, good user experience leads to good SEO results.
- Email marketing – you’ve worked hard creating great, optimised content and publishing it on your site. Why not share it by email as well!
The Important Link Between Your Marketing Strategy and SEO
There is no point in offering a fantastic product or service if no one knows about it. Your marketing strategy is there to ensure people know about you. SEO is all about putting your brand in front of the right people.
So you see, SEO isn’t separate from your other efforts; it’s an amplifier for your marketing strategy. Your marketing efforts will be boosted by aligning keywords, content, and user experience with best SEO practices.
Here’s how SEO can help your business:
Boosts Online Visibility and Rankings
As we’ve touched on, SEO is your ladder to climb the search engine rankings. Higher rankings mean increased visibility, putting your brand in front of more potential customers. It’s a strategic move that pays off in the crowded online marketplace.
By optimising relevant keywords and search terms on your website, you can ensure that your pages appear prominently to potential customers when they search for related products or services. Increased visibility means more organic traffic, which translates into higher chances of generating sales.
Increases Authority
Implementing a solid SEO strategy requires that your site provides useful content and helpful information. This will lead to being placed further up the search engine result pages. And it will help you to be recognised as a credible source and build trust with your target audience.
Backlinks are another factor in determining SEO ranking that might help to suggest authority. A backlink is a link from another website to your site. Google assumes that a website with high quality backlinks is more trustworthy and relevant. It acts as a seal of approval for your content – like a word-of-mouth recommendation, but between websites. So, it is good practice to include link-building practices in your SEO strategy.
SEO ranks you according to metrics that suggest authority. A higher ranking suggests brand authority. It can only be a good thing to be seen as an authority in your field.
Attracts High-Quality and Targeted Traffic
SEO isn’t just about attracting visitors; it’s about attracting the right visitors. By optimising with your website with relevant keywords, SEO attracts visitors who are genuinely interested in your products or services and who are searching for them. These visitors are more likely to convert into paying customers, resulting in a higher ROI for your business.
Improves User Engagement
In the digital world, ensuring a top-notch user experience is key. Google and other search engines will improve your ranking if your site is clearly laid out and easy to navigate. Many of the metrics search engines use to indicate the quality of your website closely align with those related to UX and UI (User Interface) design.
It’s not just about having quality content that users engage in. It’s also about making sure it’s clearly signposted so that visitors can easily find what they are looking for.
By following UX principles to improve your rankings, you’ll naturally improve your site’s user engagement.
Reduces Marketing Costs
Contrary to some other marketing methods, SEO is a comparatively cost-effective strategy. Generating organic traffic minimises the need for extensive paid advertising, ensuring that your marketing budget goes further.
Unlike paid advertising, the benefits of SEO can be long-lasting. Once your website ranks higher in search results, it will continue to generate traffic and visibility without necessitating ongoing advertising expenses. With consistent effort and optimisation, your site can enjoy sustainable growth over time.
Unlike costly PPC (Pay-per-Click) campaigns, where the advertiser pays a fee each time one of their ads is clicked, your SEO work requires no extra spending to continue to be effective. Searchers will be directed toward your site so long as their search intent matches up with your content.
Helps with local searches
For businesses catering to local markets, SEO is key to connecting with nearby customers. Local SEO tactics ensure your business appears in local search results – the type of search relevant to a specific location i.e. ‘bakeries near me’.
Search engines prioritise proximity to stores and/or companies when displaying SERPs to users. Ensuring you have the correct business address across the web will help Google to promote you for local searches. Providing up-to-date information on your Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) can boost your visibility on map results.
A recent study found that the majority of website traffic is local and organic. That’s why SEO experts like Margaux Marshall advise on just how important it is:
‘Doing local SEO for your business is the same as having a shop front on a high street where only people who are interested in your product go. Google promotes businesses depending on the location of the users. Therefore by being very clear about where your business is and operates, this will help Google push it in front of potential customers.’ – Margaux Marshall, SEO Specialist at MGX Digital
SEO as the cornerstone of digital marketing
So there it is, a guide to all things SEO. Just make sure to utilise SEO as an integral part of your marketing strategy, then watch your online presence flourish!
Need some help to focus and define your marketing plan? Book a free consultation session with Phil now.
