Search engine optimization — also called SEO — is the process of making your business’ online content more visible to search engines like Google and Bing.

If you create content that people are actively searching for and present that content so that the search engines know it’s relevant, your web page or blog will rank higher on search engine results pages. The more prominently a link to your website is displayed on those pages, the more likely it is that a searcher will click on it.

Search engine optimization is not as intimidating as it seems. There are some easy, common sense guidelines, and following them will help any business succeed online. That said, here’s why optimizing for search engines is a good idea.

It Makes You Focus

Optimizing your content for search engines forces you to continually ask the question: “How is this information valuable to my target audience?” In other words, you must consider not only who you’re trying to reach but what type of information is most important to those people.

Just thinking about what people are searching for and how to respond to those searches will give you a better understanding of exactly who your customers are and how you can provide them with the products and services they want.

It Keeps You Relevant

You may have heard the expression “content is king.” While this statement is generally true, there’s so much content out there — and so much more being created every day — that your website or blog runs the risk of being lost in a sea of information.

Relevance is the key to breaking through the clutter and providing value to your target audience. The more relevant your content is to someone who’s searching for it, the more likely it is that the search engines will feature your information more prominently in their search results.

Recently published information on a topic is generally considered by search engines to be the most relevant, and that provides incentive to produce new content. Although you might be very happy with articles and web pages you created last year, information is changing so rapidly that there’s likely something new to say about your products or services.

Your goal is not simply to provide information about your products and services to your target market, it’s to provide that market with the most relevant information. If you can use search-targeted content to demonstrate that your business is up to speed, you can persuade searchers to become customers.

It Establishes You as an Authority

Search engines will start referencing your content, linking to it, and even sharing it on social networks once it’s presented in a way that those engines value. They also look for links and shares by readers and interpret them as evidence that your content is worthy of high rankings.

This creates a snowball effect; The more people share and link to your information, the more you’ll be considered an authority in your field by search engines. Then the more authority you have with search engines, the more people will find you and share you, and so on.

Clearly, search engine optimization can help establish you and your business as an authority in your field, giving you a distinct advantage over your competitors.

It’s Not Just for Experts

You want your website or blog to be useful to your target audience, to be seen by as many people as possible, and to be found when people are searching for it.
Applying good search engine optimization techniques will help you do just that.

Although there is an industry built around SEO experts who claim to know all the latest tips and tricks to get your content “ranked #1 in the search engines,” search engines keep some of the inner workings secret. SEO experts must sometimes make educated guesses to try and manipulate the search engines. That can be valuable, but our point is that this shouldn’t scare you off. There are some things we do know for certain about search engine optimization, and it won’t be difficult for you to cover the basics yourself.

Simply focus on defining your target audience and delivering the most useful and relevant content to them that you can. This is good practice for SEO, and for your business as well!

Has search engine optimization helped your business? Let us know in the comments below.

[Image Credits: Danard Vincente, Paul Tomlin, Sam Howzit,
H Matthew Howarth]