No matter the size of your business, search engine optimization, or SEO, is critical for getting the most out of your online content. But what is SEO, and why does it matter? Whether you run a blog on your website or not, doing your best to implement SEO strategies and techniques to ensure you get the most attention on your website as you possibly can.

What is SEO?

SEO enables your website to rank higher on search engine results pages. By following the “rules” to SEO, you can boost your website’s visibility, making it more likely that people will stumble upon it, increasing organic traffic, exposure, and conversions over time. SEO can help you reach your business goals, whether they involve selling more, increasing newsletter and email marketing subscribers, boosting page views for content on your site, or something else.

3 factors that make up an effective overall SEO strategy

1. On-Page SEO: On-page SEO requires you to optimize everything within your website, from content to meta tags, linking, and URLs. This is where you’ll focus on certain keywords (to help you rank for those searches). Your goal with on-page SEO is to make it as easy as possible for search engines to break down, scan, and index your content.
2. Off-Page SEO: You might not think that off-page SEO would matter all that much for your website’s success, after all, what matters most is what’s on your site, not off it, right? But off-page SEO helps boost your website’s credibility and authority. You want to be linked to from other reputable websites, which will help search engines understand that you are also a credible source. That, in turn, can help you rank higher in search results.
3. Technical SEO: This kind of SEO is a bit different than the others. It’s all about the technical aspects of your website. How does your website load content? Is it mobile friendly? Is it secure? These kinds of factors make it easier for a search engine to index your website, allowing for a better overall experience.

Why does SEO matter?

Now that you better understand what SEO is, you likely already understand why it’s important, but let’s break down the various benefits of a successful SEO strategy:

1. Increased organic traffic: When you implement an SEO strategy, the main benefit is to help boost your website’s visibility on search engines. Naturally, if you pull this off successfully, it should lead to more organic, inbound traffic. This kind of traffic can help you better serve motivated customers—after all, they came to you based on something they were searching for. Ideally, organic traffic will lead to conversions.
2. Affordable marketing: Because SEO can help you drive organic traffic to your website, a successful SEO strategy can help you cut some of your paid advertising budget. You’ll be able to continue to rely on your SEO strategy to lead to solid organic traffic, which means you won’t have to spend as much on paid ads to get people to come visit your site.
3. Improved user experience: Because of technical and on-page SEO, a solid and well-rounded SEO strategy will naturally lead to a better user experience while on your site. Your website will be quicker to load, include thoughtful and informative content, and more, all of which can help streamline the experience for your users.
4. Boosted credibility and a strong reputation: In addition to acquiring more organic traffic, highly-ranking websites can seem to be more credible or authoritative by those searching. Establishing a strong reputation is so important for businesses big and small and a successful SEO strategy can help you further solidify it.
5. Competitive advantage: Naturally, as you rank higher than your competitors on search engine results pages, it makes sense that you’d gain more attention and traffic than those who haven’t worked on SEO. 

While you may not have understood SEO before, hopefully you now see that a solid SEO strategy can be transformative, and is a critical part of your overall marketing and content strategy. From boosting organic traffic to solidifying your reputation and establishing yourselves as industry leaders, SEO strategies can be a total game changer.

Curious about how Press Hook can help transform your media relations like SEO can transform your digital marketing strategies? Book a callwith our team today to learn more.