SEO Basics to Benefit Your Business Online and Achieve Sales 101

Search engine optimisation is, in itself, a complex phrase. But, believe it or not, an SEO content strategy can be stripped back – and we’re here to show you SEO basics to implement in your business. 

There’s no denying that SEO is a hot topic. In the online marketing world, most of the brands you search for wouldn’t be so accessible without it. By implementing a basic SEO content strategy into your marketing, you will create a wider audience for your product or service.

We know it’s important and useful – but what actually is it? We’ve broken down the basics so you can feel confident carrying out SEO for your business. 

What Is SEO?

Ultimately, SEO is responsible for giving people what they want. If a person Googles: ‘best hairdresser near me’, then Google will continuously reevaluate its result pages to ensure they are providing the searcher with exactly what they’re looking for.

This, therefore, benefits everyone – Google for fulfilling their role as a reliable source, the customer for having their query answered, and the business for gaining recognition and traction.

The more valuable your website and its content are, the higher you will rank on the search engine results page (SERP).

This is why it’s important to put time and effort into refining your SEO content strategy and optimising your website’s content. So that a search engine likes to show it as a top result for searches when users type in a certain phrase or keyword.

It’s not just five-star reviews and popularity contests as you may have thought. SEO follows a specific, technical algorithm. Luckily for you – we’ve got the cheat sheet you need to crack the code and perfect your SEO content strategy. 

What Are The Main Benefits of SEO Basics?

Learning good SEO practices will bring you many benefits. From enhancing your online positioning to encouraging repeat customers. SEO basics include: 

Creates a Better User Experience

Good SEO leads to good user experiences. This can be achieved in a number of ways, such as providing your audience with useful, insightful information, high-quality imagery and videos, easy-to-navigate web pages and seamless mobile-friendly website configuration. 

This may seem like a long checklist for your SEO content strategy, but once you refine each of these components, your website will see a return on investment. These appeal to website visitors in a variety of ways. For example, the sleeker your website, the more people will trust you as a source of information, products and/or services. This is more likely to encourage lead generation and repeat customers.

Builds Brand Credibility

If Google has ranked you on the first result page, it is like the ultimate seal of approval.

Usually, searchers will believe and trust Google’s recommendations. A massive 75% of searchers never click past the first page of results, as Google works hard to ensure they are answering questions as quickly and accurately as possible to surpass other competitive search engines.

Therefore, the harder you work to achieve that first page Google status – visitors will instantly think highly of not just your website, but also your business. In turn, this brings a multitude of benefits, such as higher click-through rates and more tangible sales.

Enhances Your Presence Online

The better your SEO content strategy, the better your chances are of being seen. 

Boosting your online presence means searchers will become more familiar with your brand name. This leads to heightened brand awareness and therefore, higher levels of trust. The more you are searched for, clicked on, shared or recommended – this puts you in a much stronger position online compared to your competitors.

SEO is what helps people dominate and succeed. However, this is not an overnight fix – you need to make sure you are making yourself as searchable as possible. This involves using basic SEO techniques, which we will delve into further in this blog. In addition to its benefits for individual marketers, SEO is also crucial for SaaS companies looking to increase their online visibility and attract more potential customers. To achieve the best possible results, SaaS companies should consider partnering with the best SEO agency for SaaS to ensure their website is fully optimized and ranking high on search engine results pages.

Increases Profitability

A good SEO content strategy leads to improved visibility and accessibility, which are key to making a profit. When you think about the most lucrative phone brands, you instantly think of the company names, like Apple or Samsung. Not only has their definitive technology got them there, but also their brand awareness through strategic marketing and a clever SEO content strategy. One effective strategy to boost profitability in the digital landscape is through the implementation of programmatic SEO.

Dedication to even the most basic SEO heightens your chances of being seen, recognised and therefore trusted. The more people see your business’s name, the more familiar they become with you. Combine this with Google’s stamp of approval with a high ranking, you will undoubtedly boost your profitability with SEO.

How Do I Make My SEO Content Strategy Better?

SEO is complex to understand, yet the tactics are simple to incorporate into your strategy.

There are a few tips and tricks to help you improve your SEO, starting with the words you use and giving you a guide to SEO basics. 

Keywords

Keywords are at the core of SEO. They are specific words and phrases that people type into search engines to find what they’re looking for.

Using the correct keywords in your website content, whether this is informational pages or blogs, will help make you more relevant and appear to be answering multiple queries associated with your business. This makes you more valuable, which will help you rank higher.

Normally, people focus on primary and secondary keywords. Primary keywords are the main word people search for. For example, a primary keyword would be ‘clock’. Secondary keywords add more detail and provide a better insight into a searcher’s intentions, which helps refine results. For example, the secondary keyword to ‘clock’ might be ‘alarm’, ‘digital’ or ‘wall’.

There are also other variations of keywords that you can include. These are semantic and longtail keywords.

Semantics relates to the meaning behind language and logic. Semantic keywords, therefore, try to determine what users mean when they type a certain word or short phrase into a search engine. For example: if you were to type in ‘burger’, Google would try to work out the intent behind your search. It would likely give you options for burger recipes, a local burger restaurant, or options for takeaway or delivery.

Therefore, to rank more highly, you should include semantic phrases of a particular keyword, to match as many intentions as possible.

Longtail keywords are keyword combinations that are longer than two words. These usually link to and support the main keyword but in different variations. This means that they meet the needs of multiple searches, depending on word selection. For example, longtail keywords could be: ‘listen to music online’, ‘free online music’ or ‘free music playlist’.

Although they each have lower search volumes, this makes them easier to rank for, meaning you are more likely to rank for a specific query.

Readability

Content that is easy to read is essential for better SEO results. Search engines will privilege pieces of content where users spend longer on the page, as it indicates to their crawlers that the article has provided value to the searcher. If your content flows well and is digestible for the reader, then they will likely spend more time reading the full page. 

Good readability can be achieved in a number of ways. Short sentences, words with shorter syllables and simple language all help in making a web page or a blog more SEO friendly. This way, you can attract readers of all ages – helping you to expand your customer base.

Formatting

This might sound basic and like a no-brainer, but formatting plays a huge factor in SEO.

Ever been on a website where the content is lengthy, filled with clunky paragraphs, non-cohesive heading styles and irrelevant imagery? These all contribute to high bounce rates, which means people will take one look at a page, see its fault and close the site.

Formatting goes alongside readability. The top tips to remember are to keep paragraphs short (usually three sentences), keep your website style uniform (use the same font throughout your site) and include high-quality images, graphics or videos to break up the text.

Understanding On-Page SEO

When perfecting your SEO content strategy, it’s important to optimise your on-page SEO. On-page SEO refers to the process of optimising individual web pages to rank highly on Google and attract the correct traffic to your website. Not only does it refer to the content on your web pages, but also the HTML source code of the page that can be optimised. 

This is also where keywords are very significant as this gives search engines such as Google and Bing an indication of what each web page offers and then aims to recommend the most relevant search results for the user. 

Including plenty of relevant keywords will ensure that your content is optimised for search engines and gives the correct signals regarding what your content is about.

Perfecting Your On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is critical to directing a large volume of traffic to your website. Here are some useful tips to ensure that your SEO content strategy and on-page SEO secures your website with the most traffic possible:

Meta Tags

Meta tags are HTML tags that provide additional information about a webpage to search engines and online users. The most important ones to improve your SEO content strategy are your title tags and meta descriptions. 

When improving your on-page SEO, ensure to include primary keywords in your title tags and a short summary of each webpage in your meta description. This will ensure that your SEO content strategy aligns with the keywords that your target audience is currently using and therefore direct the most relevant traffic to your website.

HTML Tags

These tags include all of your headings within your website content, including H1, H2, H3, H4, etc. Search engines utilise the information in each of your headings to communicate what you are offering for online users. 

For example, your H1 heading should always include your focus keyword and summarise the main topic of your webpage or blog article. Subheadings are also a great way to clearly communicate all of your subtopics through H2, H3, and H4 headings while maintaining a clear structure with your content.

Optimised URLs For SEO Basics

A well-structured URL is important not only for SEO basics but also for users when searching for URL links and reviewing the most relevant website links for them. When improving your SEO basics, ensure that your URL links are clear and include primary keywords to rank highly on Google.

Using Keywords

Keywords are not only important in terms of the quality of keywords but also the quantity relating to how many times you utilise keywords. When writing content, ensure that you are using your primary keywords and secondary keywords throughout the content. The more words that you write, the more times you should be including your target keywords. However, it’s important to be mindful of not overloading your content with keywords, so ensure that your keyword density is between 1-1.5%.

Including Optimised Images 

It is clear that text and keywords play a significant role in on-page SEO and SEO basics. However, optimised images also affect the ranking of webpages and your SEO performance. When uploading images to your web pages, ensure that they are in the correct file format and compressed to ensure that the image does not negatively affect the loading time of your web pages. 

To optimise images even further, ensure to include captions as well as alt text to describe the images to search engines, therefore improving your SEO basics and ranking in search engines.

By carrying out these on-page SEO actions, you can ensure that you perfect the main SEO basics and direct your target audience to the correct web pages by including keywords and optimising content.

Mobile-Friendly Site

It’s important to note that when you are optimising SEO basics, ensure that your web pages are mobile-friendly. This includes checking that the structure of your content is suitable for mobile devices, webpages have a quick loading speed, and images are compressed appropriately.

Think about how often you may use search engines to browse websites using a mobile device. In the past few years, mobile devices have become so much more to consumers than simply a device to make telephone calls and send text messages. Mobile devices have become a smaller version of computers, so it’s important to consider how often consumers utilise mobile devices to browse websites.

Therefore, if your website isn’t optimised effectively for SEO basics, you run the risk of not only affecting your ranking on search engines but also the engagement rate on your website. By following these SEO basics and SEO strategies, you can ensure that your website is optimised effectively for the user experience and when ranking highly on search engines.

We hope by providing you with these SEO basics, tips and tricks, that you will start to see more success for your business online!

Want to know more about SEO basics and how to improve your SEO content strategy? If you want further advice or assistance with your SEO practice, simply contact us here at ProfileTree and we’ll highlight the best SEO opportunities for you to skyrocket your business online!