Have you ever wondered: what is SEO and why does it matter for my website? If so, you’re not alone. But ignoring SEO is a marketing mistake you don’t want to make. So, let’s dive in and explore the subject of SEO and find out some of the basics.
How can I use SEO to drive traffic to my website? Why is SEO an integral, ongoing part of a good marketing strategy? At WRL, we have the answers, and we want to help. This blog is designed to give you a baseline understanding of SEO and how it can help you find more potential customers via web search.
What is SEO?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is optimizing your website to be found by search engines. If your site ranks higher, it will be seen by more people – that seems simple enough.
But how do you make it happen? If you want to increase organic search on your website, SEO plays an important role. Here are some basic tips to help you get started with your SEO planning.
Understand What Your Audience is Searching For
Every successful SEO strategy starts with knowing your audience and speaking their language. It’s not just about picking random keywords – it’s about uncovering the topics, questions and phrases your ideal customers are typing into Google every day. When you align your website and content with what people are actually looking for, you have a much better chance of showing up at the right moment and driving meaningful traffic to your site.
Focus on Creating Valuable, Relevant Content
Google loves helpful content that answers users’ questions. This means blogs, guides or videos that address real pain points or topics your audience cares about. Think about your target customer. I’ll bet you can come up with a lot of questions they might have, and all of those questions can be turned into helpful blog posts on your site. You can create videos or other valuable materials that speak directly to your ideal customer, giving them the information they are searching for online.
When writing a blog, aim to cover each topic in its entirety – as if you’re explaining a situation or solution to someone with no prior knowledge. This approach creates a resource with enough substance to appeal to a wide range of individuals.
You can take it a step further by improving the user experience with sub-navigation tools like a table of contents or accordion-style FAQs, making it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for quickly. Not only does this help with rankings, but it positions your brand as a thought leader and keeps people coming back.
Optimize the Technical and On-Page Basics
Even the best content needs solid on-page optimization to perform. This includes those behind-the-scenes SEO tactics such as meta tags, meta descriptions and more. Make sure title tags, meta descriptions, headers and image alt text are dialed in with target keywords. This helps search engines understand your pages and makes them more clickable in search results.
For title tags, you want to include keywords and keep the content under 60 characters. Think about what your audience would want to see in search results. What would make them click on your link?
The same goes for meta descriptions, the difference being you want to keep those between 150- 160 characters. Use your target keyword in the meta description and include a call to action.
Adding headers to your content breaks it up into sections and helps with readability. For your images, make sure they have descriptive file names that include keywords.
Build a Strong Backlink Profile
Backlinks from reputable websites act like “votes of confidence” in the eyes of Google. The more high-quality sites that link back to you, the more authority your site gains. This could come from guest blogs, partnerships or even creating content others naturally want to share and reference.
Need a Marketing Partner for SEO?
To use SEO to your best advantage, you need a marketing partner on your side – one who can guide you to a successful SEO strategy. And SEO is always a work in progress, so there it’s no “one-and-done” with this marketing tactic. A solid SEO strategy is always adding content to your site, reviewing the data and making changes to align with changes in search engine algorithms.
If you want to talk to a marketing agency with SEO experience, contact WRL.