Why your website needs SEO
SEO is well known for being a vital technique in ranking your website in the search engines. Once your website domain is registered and your website is designed the way you want and up and running then SEO comes into play. You cannot have a website without SEO. SEO is crucial for your website and to help others find your website online. You want your business, your company, your product, your service to be found then focus on the SEO of your website.
What is SEO?
Two of the most important factors with having a website for your small business is being able to utilise it, and that is focusing on SEO and content of your website. They are both connected and when implemented correctly with time and money spent into perfecting these factors, they can drive your website to the top of Google’s search engines very quickly
SEO ensures that people, that is customers or potential clients can find the information they are looking for easily and quickly. A term for this is ‘white hat techniques’, we will go deeper into this later on. We also play with ‘grey hat techniques’ on our clients’ websites. So SEO does not just solely benefit you, the small business owner, but also the people visiting your website and satisfied customers.
Why do you need SEO for your website?
Firstly how will anyone know you or your business unless you have a website. You need to be discovered and the best way possible to do this is to have a website for your small business. So how can your website be found? Well one of the keys ways to be found online is with good SEO content which will help your page to rank within the search engine of Google. Your website needs to be search engine and user friendly so that your clients can found your business.
Search engine optimization is vital for driving traffic to your website. You want to appear as high as possible for the keywords related to your small business in the search engine results for Google, Yahoo and Bing. It is the best way to get results organically, once you’re using the right keywords, creating pages that search engines can read and index, building pages that give your website more visibility, and much more.
Let’s start with the key steps which you can take to achieve effective SEO on your website. For your particular small business you will need to research keywords, input these into your content which should be original and detailed in order to be search engine friendly. Also, the quicker your website and pages load the higher chance of business, thus this is why you need a website for your small business as it increases the chances of customers finding you.
SEO content
Well simply, it is any content that is created having the intention and aim to attract search engine traffic to your website. You are optimizing your content for the search engines and Google in particular. Keyword research, keyword optimization, and content organization are crucial to providing good SEO content for your website. You need to research for the keywords that are specific to your website, then know where to use them and how to use them to increase the power of the content, and ensure your content is sorted in a logical manner, that each page is easy to find.
Types of SEO Content
Let’s take a look at the numerous amounts of implementing SEO Content:
Product pages
This is highly important if you have an e-commerce site. If you have a good product page it can help your SEO content.
Blog posts
This is one of the best ways to create and add SEO content to your website. They are unique to your website and the product or service you are selling or offering. Blog posts receive a lot of engagement and they can attract links. A blog post doesn’t have to be long or difficult, just keep it simple but engaging and interesting for your visitors. You can write about anything that is relevant to your product and service.
Videos
This isn’t the easiest form of SEO Content to have on your website, or the most common either for small businesses in Ireland. However, with regards to competition you have a higher chance of ranking high in the search engine from a keyword used in a video rather than an article on your site.
Slideshows
These are a series of images displayed on your site that are related to your industry. Images and slideshows can be just as important as the text on your site. To SEO the images for the slideshow you give them a title, caption and name the image file. In that way there is less for the search engines to read. This is great for your small business and why you need a website.
How important is SEO content for your website?
- Organic search
- Credibility
- Friendly user experience
- Increase in traffic
- Marketing
Organic search
Now, you may think organic search involves little or no work but that isn’t true. It still requires a lot of work on your end. However, there is no need to carry out anything new, it is just a different way of approaching SEO. Some believe that optimizing content is the most important to catch the spiders crawling through and indexing sites. But others think it is all about how many links you can generate on your site. Well, organic search includes these two, as well as site tagging, which organically puts your site in the search engine rankings.
Simply, if you put some time into designing a website and preparing it for the world to see, you have already achieved a small amount of organic SEO without too much time and effort as it will ranked in some search engine.
Credibility
The better your SEO the better your credibility will become, meaning, visitors look at how professional a website is and how user friendly it is, and this determines your credibility. There are many ways to achieve and increase credibility.
- Make sure to have your business name or company in the URL.
- Have a fine line between information and advertising.
- Navigating throughout the site should be quick.
- Ensure no broken links.
Friendly user experience
You want the focus to be on the content, the structure, and flow and good functionality and nothing else. If you have a successful website and you help visitors or potential customers find what they are looking for then they will come to you for business. You want to highlight your best item or items and this means taking design into account. For just one item choose a simple design, for more than one go for a outlandish design. Having a selection of photos throughout a piece is more visually friendly for a user.
Increase in traffic
Your aim when having a website for your small business is to drive traffic to your site. That is why SEO is crucial for increasing traffic.
Marketing
One of the best marketing tools is using search engines because it helps pull through website visitors. Today website visitors of potential customers reach a website through typing in the URL, the website address, or clicking on a link. However, search engines are very important and valuable to you as a small business owner in Ireland. Search engines are a super way to reach people without any costs.
Google of course being the main search engine provider. As Google looks or searches for your search term it starts by looking for pages that have the same phrase then looks for pages that are spread out throughout the search engine Google. If a potential client or customer has searched for your particular product or service, well then you want each page on your website to contain the title that matches your product or service. Small businesses in Ireland need a website because in this instance they can find you easily and contact you.
E-commerce
If you are selling a product/s then e-commerce can greatly reduce costs compared to having a store. What’s great about it is that the e-commerce store is available 24 hours a day.
One of the top reasons why you need a website for your small business is because almost everyone has a website for their business. It sounds so simple but it’s a fact that anyone who owns a business has a website as well. You may think why follow the crowd? Well, have a look at your competitors and you can be sure they have a website for their business. That’s one reason alone why you need a website for your small business.
Furthermore, you become more familiar with your customers and clients. The contact form on a website is a great way to communicate with them. You will gain their email which you can use at a later date to inform them of any specials or sales related to a product or service. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (the icons will appear on the homepage of your website) are notable ways in which to communicate with those interested in your small business.