As a modern small business owner, you may find yourself wondering “What is SEO?” After all, SEO is an incredibly common term in the world of digital marketing, but many business owners know only the basics of this optimization strategy. If you want to learn more about SEO and how it is beneficial for your business, continue reading below. For new businesses that need to build a website, as well as established businesses that want to have their website redesigned, terms like SEO can be confusing. The good news is that a reliable digital marketing company, such as GSM Marketing Agency, can provide you with the tools and guidance you need to understand and utilize SEO.

So, what is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of optimizing a website to increase the quantity and quality of web traffic it receives from search engine results pages. It is a digital marketing strategy which works by optimizing your website content in order to improve the website’s ranking in the search results on different search engine platforms, such as Google.

What are the two types of SEO?

You can use different SEO tactics to increase your website’s visibility in relevant search engine results. The two main types of SEO strategies are:
  • On-page SEO: On-page SEO involves optimizing the individual web pages of the website in order to earn more traffic and rank higher in search engine results. On-page SEO refers to optimizing elements like the page content and HTML source code. As the owner of the website, you have the ability to add high-quality content and resolve technical issues on your pages.
  • Off-page SEO: Off-page SEO has to be carried out off your website. It refers to activities which aim to improve inbound traffic, which in turn improves your website’s ranking on search engines.
Both on-page SEO and off-page SEO work towards making the website more user-friendly and trustworthy, for both individual users and search engines. When search engines send crawlers to your website, they can determine the quality of the website, its level of security, and its user-friendliness. These factors help determine how well your website ranks in different search results.

What is an example of SEO?

Here is a brief example to better answer the question “what is SEO?” Imagine that there are two websites: Website 1 and Website 2. Website 1 is not responsive, making it difficult for users to access and navigate through it using tablets or smartphones. Website 2 is a responsive website, which offers a good user experience whether accessed by desktop or mobile users. Search engines can easily determine that Website 2 is more user-friendly, hence it will rank it higher as compared to Website 1. However, determining a website’s ranking is not quite so simple. Today, there are more than 200 different factors which need to be considered by search engines to determine the ranking of a website. The bottom line is that many elements, both on your site and off, will influence the ranking of your website. This is where on-page SEO and off-page SEO help in optimizing your website.

What are the essentials of website optimization to improve my SEO in 2020?

There are a few essential steps for website optimization which can help improve your site’s search engine rankings and increase traffic to the website. Try implementing these key strategies to improve your website’s SEO in 2020.
  1. Mobile Responsiveness
Undoubtedly, today is the world of mobile. Almost every internet user has a mobile phone. In fact, 40% of online business is carried out through smartphones or tablets. Search engines like Google and Bing have made a note of this and now prioritize mobile optimization. Due to the prevalence of mobile browsing, Google introduced the mobile-first index. With this index, if a website has both a mobile and a desktop version, then Google will rank the mobile version for the search engine results. As a result, you need to ensure that your website design is responsive and accessible on all platforms.
  1. Loading Speed
A recent survey by Google showed that 53% of the visitors left a page if it took more than 3 seconds to load. This means that your page loading speed is very important for optimizing your website. You will need to work on the website to ensure it has a fast loading speed. Good loading speeds lead to lower bounce rates, longer session times, and improved user experience. Because of this, Google and other search engines use loading speed as a search ranking factor. Therefore, if you improve the loading speed of your site, you will be able to see an increase in your search engine ranking and your inbound traffic.
  1. Useful, Meaningful Content
To rank well on Google search results pages, a web page needs to have more than 300 words of content. Google is not in favor of pages or websites that have thin content which offers no value to users. However, having even longer content tends to be better for search rankings. Research shows that the average word count for the first page of a website is 1,890. Most popular and highly ranked pages have good quality content ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 words. These pages provide very good information and real value to readers, and hence they are ranked high in search results. If you want to improve your ranking in search results, you need to ensure that the content on your business’ website is long-form, informative, and interesting with relevant keywords included. Above all, your content should be original and not plagiarized.
  1. User Intent
Search engines no longer display results just to match the typed keywords. Today, search engines are technologically advanced; they take into account factors like the past search history of the user, user demographics, and user location (which is important for local SEO), and then display intuitive results for their search query. With this in mind, it is important to have a deep understanding of your customer base so that you are able to optimize your website for user intent. Once you have in-depth knowledge about your users, you can create a website which appeals to them and also understands their needs.
  1. User Experience
User experience is the most important factor for optimizing a website. If the users are unhappy with the quality of your website or are not satisfied with its navigation, they will not bother to explore further. They will leave the website without learning more about your products or services. Therefore, it is important that you optimize your website to ensure a wonderful user experience for your visitors. Work on the loading speed, keep the navigation simple, keep the web design clean, avoid clutter on the pages, and use interesting, informative content. Providing a good user experience will help improve your search engine rankings as well as your conversion rate.
  1. Link Building
Link building is one of the chief factors for SEO. There are three types of links which can help SEO:
  • Inbound links: Inbound links help to determine how relevant and informative your content is. If a reliable website includes a link to your website in its content, this will boost your site’s authority, and thus your search engine ranking. Try to get as many inbound links from highly reliable sites as possible.
  • Outbound links: Adding links to relevant, trustworthy sites in your industry can help to highlight the quality of the content on your website or page. This is another important factor for your SEO.
  • Internal links: Finally, try linking your own website pages by using internal links. This helps to tie your pages together and to make each one more valuable to users.
Try implementing the above-mentioned strategies in 2020  to optimize your website and improve your search engine rankings.

How can you make SEO work for you?

Optimizing your website is not an impossible task. However, if you are not technically inclined and do not have the knowledge or experience to do the job right, then you may find it difficult to successfully optimize your website. A qualified and experienced SEO agency can help optimize your website. GSM Marketing Agency is an SEO agency in Tucson with many years of experience optimizing websites for our clients. Get in touch with GSM Marketing Agency at (520) 462-4259 to learn more.