In the early days of online business, the movie quote, “If you build it, they will come” was passed around as some idiom that represented the ability to make a website and get traffic almost automatically. Why? Way back then in the dial-up days, there weren’t that many websites to compete with.
Now, there are over 1.8 billion websites representing every single possible industry, company type, organization, person, and idea on Earth. If you stick to that old Hollywood adage, you will probably never attract even one person to your website.
What are your options to get website traffic?
You can build a website and pay for an awful lot of advertising and get traffic to your site for a while. However, when the ads become inactive, so will your pages.
The real solution to any type of online presence that actually gets the attention now and for the long-term is simple: SEO.
What is search engine optimisation (SEO) good for?
Although SEO is simple as a concept, it can be quite complex in practice. SEO is a combination of techniques that work together to make Google and the other big search engines list your website near the top of the results pages.
With nearly 50% of all searchers clicking on the first three results that show up when they search, it makes sense to covet those spots. If your website shows up on page two, three, or 100, it is often completely ignored. Why would a person choose the 15th result when the first one or two provide such excellent information?
Search engine optimization is how you get those top spots. Even with all the expensive marketing in the world, if it is not aligned to common SEO practices, you will not achieve your goals.
The two types of SEO: on-site and off-site
Although the steps you take to do on-site and off-site optimisation are different, their goals are essentially the same.
- Make your website attractive to search engine bots
- Introduce more people to your website or brand
- Convince people that you are the authority on your topic or niche
- Build brand recognition and a positive online reputation
- Enjoy long-term benefits with a low investment
Why is on-site SEO important?
Most of the optimisation techniques used on your web pages themselves have to do with appropriate keyword choice and usage and content creation and sharing. If you want to sell dog toys, for example, you need to find competitive keywords that have to do with dog toys, and then you need to write quality content about them and how they can benefit people’s pets. This logical practice is necessary to give people who are searching for dog toys exactly the information they want. If you do not do that, your website is useless.
Giving site visitors valuable and helpful information is an essential part of SEO and brand building. The other side focuses on the technical things that make your website exceptionally user-friendly and convince people to return frequently and share the link with their friends, family, and social media followers.
On-site SEO gets a boost from:
- Keywords in headings, meta-tags, and image alt text
- Clean, correct, and current development code
- Fast load times due to content structuring, graphic optimization, and quality hosting
- And an internal linking strategy that helps people navigate between important bits of information throughout your pages and blog.
Why is off-site SEO important?
If you only focus on keyword research, content creation, and internal link structures, the search engines will find and rank your site. However, you may not get the results you are looking for unless you also practice quality off-site SEO techniques. These focus on getting the highest quality back links, growing your brand platform and reputation, and also building a community that is willing and eager to talk about, recommend, and link to your site pages.
People may show up at your website after a simple search for a keyword, but the chance they will engage more deeply with you, hire you for a service, or buy your products the first time is relatively small. The power of external optimisation is the power of word-of-mouth advertising. When a friend or family member recommends a new company, you are much more likely to trust them and give that company a chance.
Off-site SEO best practices include:
- Expanding your platform to include social media and other popular pages
- Placing high-quality backlinks on other trusted sites
- Claiming your spot in popular business directories
- Interacting with both existing and potential customers and clients in order to improve the chance that they will recommend your brand to others
SEO combines all important practices and goals
Over the years, search engine optimisation methods have changed so much. What worked five or even one year ago may not work now or in the future. Keeping up with the latest best practices in SEO is as important as implementing it on all correctly on your web pages. It may seem very complex and overwhelming since there are so many associated and intermingled actions and reasons that go into ranking high in the search engines.
Keep it simple. When you ask why is SEO so important, you begin to understand that every facet of the optimisation process has one main goal. You want people to find your website, come to your website, and return again and again.
All of the tips and tricks talked about for both on-page and off-page SEO work together in order to achieve these goals. You choose the keyword because that is what people search for when they want information, a solution to a problem, or a product. You write content with high-value because that is what people need to get their answers. You create a fast-loading, attractive, and easy to navigate site because no one will spend the time and energy to wait for yours to load or try to figure it out when there are so many other websites available to them. You share your link where potential customers and clients hang out online because you want them to find it, click it, and get to know what you have to offer.
The importance of SEO is huge
Why is SEO important? Because it represents all of the actions and habits that makes sense. Also, because proper search engine optimisation is the number one way to get ongoing organic traffic to your website. It is the best way to find success now and years from now online.
