SEO 101

What is SEO?

SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of traffic to your website from search engines, such as Google and Bing.

Search engines each have their own bots, called "spiders," which "crawl" around the web and index all the web pages they find. All of this indexed information is then put through an algorithm for the search engine to compare and contrast similar websites and determine their search engine ranking.

Because so many people use search engines to find businesses and products, SEO is important for small businesses to implement. While it can sound techy and intimidating, SEO is a low-cost method for marketing your business online. By utilizing SEO correctly, you can make sure you pop up in potential customers' web searches. For example, if you run a local bakery, you'll want to be one of the top listings on Google when someone searches "bakery near me."

What Makes a Website Rank Higher?

While there are different SEO strategies you can implement to help your website rank higher in searches, there are a few key basics you can focus on. It's important to remember that the goal of search engines is to provide users with quality content that is relevant to what the user is searching for.

Creating regular high-quality content
Matching common search keywords
Having a user-friendly site that is easy to read and navigate

SEO Strategies

There are on-page and off-page SEO strategies. On-page SEO refers to edits that you can make to your website to help enhance its visibility. On-page SEO can include fixing broken links on your website and adding search keywords into your website copy. Keywords are common phrases, questions or words used to search for your type of business. Off-page SEO refers to SEO tactics that happen off your website. Examples of off-page SEO include backlinks, which is when another website links back to your website, like if you wrote a guest post on someone else's blog that included a link to your website. Creating social media pages that post regularly and include your URL are also important off-page SEO tactics.