What is SEO and How It Can Help Your Business?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of improving your website’s visibility on search engines like Google. When potential customers search for services or products that you offer, SEO helps your website appear higher in the search results. This is important because the higher your site ranks, the more likely people are to visit it.

So how do they work? Well these search engines use algorithms to crawl and index the vast amount of content available on the internet. They evaluate various factors such as keywords, relevance, and website quality to determine how pages are ranked in search results. When someone types a query, the search engine scans its index to find the most relevant and high-quality results to display. This process happens in milliseconds and aims to provide users with the best possible answers to their questions. They’re pretty powerful and intelligent to say the least. O and there’s over 8 billion search queries per day just on Google.

Why SEO is Crucial for Your Business

So, why is SEO so important for your business? In simple terms, effective SEO delivers measurable results, making your website more visible, attracting more visitors, and ultimately boosting your customer base and brand reputation.

Improving your SEO is a process that involves several key areas:

• Creating valuable content with relevant keywords that helps search engines understand your site and match it with user searches.
• Improving your technical SEO by optimising your site’s structure, speed, and mobile-friendliness ensures search engines can easily crawl and index your pages.
• Prioritising User Experience Design. A user-friendly website keeps visitors engaged, encouraging them to stay longer and improving your rankings.
• Getting backlinks from reputable websites signals to search engines that your site is trustworthy and authoritative.

Understanding Keywords and Intent

So, where do you begin with SEO? Simple answer is research. Understanding the right keywords and the intent behind them is crucial. Keywords are the key ideas that describe what your content is all about and are ultimately the phrases used in Google to find a business like yours.

For example, if someone searches “web design in Cheltenham,” they’re likely looking to hire a web designer (and they’ll find Squee right at the top!).

To find these valuable keywords, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz. These tools help you discover search volumes (how often terms are searched), the difficulty of ranking for those terms, and the competitiveness of the keywords. By analysing this data, you can create content that not only matches what people are searching for but also helps you stand out in search results.

Technical SEO and User Experience

Now that we’ve discussed keywords, let’s move on to laying the foundations with technical SEO and user experience. This is where choosing the right web design agency, like Squee, can be hugely beneficial. Many people without technical experience using DIY website builders often miss crucial factors that impact SEO and usability.

Here are some things a professional web agency will consider that might be overlooked:

• Ensuring the proper semantic markup of a web page, this includes the proper use of heading tags and meta descriptions helps search engines (and screen readers) understand your content.
• Using descriptive alt text for images makes your site accessible to everyone, including those with visual impairments. Testing colour contrast to ensure WCAG 2.1 compliance is also essential, as Google factors in website accessibility into their rankings.
• Creating an intuitive, user-friendly design that keeps visitors engaged and reducing bounce rates.
• Optimising load times to improve user experience and search rankings.

The Importance of Backlinks

In simple terms, link building is the process of getting other websites to link back to yours. These links, known as backlinks or inbound links, are crucial for your SEO performance. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the better your chances of ranking higher in search results.

Backlinks from reputable websites act as trust signals for search engines. When a credible site links to yours, it tells search engines that your content is valuable and relevant. This not only helps improve your search rankings but also increases your domain authority. Plus, the extra referral traffic from these links is a bonus, further boosting your SEO efforts.

Building a strong backlink profile takes time and strategy. It’s about earning links from high-authority domains within relevant industries. By focusing on quality over quantity, you can create a robust SEO strategy that drives long-term success.

Conclusion on SEO

To sum it up, SEO is essential for boosting your website’s visibility and driving more traffic to your business. Starting with thorough keyword research and understanding user intent sets a solid foundation. Technical SEO and user experience ensure your site is easy to navigate and meets search engine criteria. Building a strong backlink profile enhances your site’s authority and trustworthiness.

Working with a good web design business, like Squee, really does lay the foundation for online success. If you’re ready to improve your website’s SEO and drive more traffic, get in touch with us today!