SEO 101: What is It and How to Do It

Digital marketing can be daunting, and sometimes, intimidating. But at the heart of every successful online strategy lies a fundamental concept: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This blog details SEO, explaining its mechanics, significance, and implementation tactics so you're left with actionable strategies to leverage SEO for your business's digital dominance.

What is SEO, and What Does SEO Do?

SEO is a crucial component of online digital marketing. It involves optimizing a website to improve its ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), thereby increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to the site. SEO strategies encompass various practices, from technical website enhancements to content optimization through keywords and link building. 

The ultimate goal is to align your website's offerings through your keywords and key phrases with the algorithms of search engines like Google or Bing, making your site more attractive and accessible to both the search engine and its users. By effectively implementing SEO, businesses can boost organic traffic, enhance user engagement, and increase credibility in their respective industries.

Why is SEO Important?

In today's digital-first world, an SEO strategy is not just beneficial. It's essential. SEO is the driving force behind organic visibility for companies of all sizes in all verticals. In fact, one study shows that 68% of all online experiences begin with a search engine, which makes SEO one of the most critical things you can do to reach potential new customers where they are most active: the internet. 

A robust SEO strategy can help. It brings people from Google and Bing to your website, builds brand awareness, improves website usability, answers your users' most pressing questions, and establishes your business as an authority in your industry. By optimizing your site for search engines, you're also optimizing it for anyone who visits it by creating a user-friendly experience. That translates to better engagement, higher conversion rates, and increased business growth. 

Simply put, SEO means massive page views and more customers. 

How to Improve Your Company's SEO

To elevate your company's SEO, a multifaceted approach is required. Before diving into specifics, it's crucial to understand that SEO is an ongoing process that demands continuous effort and adaptation to the evolving digital landscape, so it's vital to always have it on the top of your company's mind.

Here are key strategies to get started:

1. Comprehensive Keyword Research and Strategy: Delve into what your target audience is searching for, whether it is a single word or a complete sentence, and tailor your content accordingly.
2. Optimized Website Architecture: Ensure your site is structured in a way that search engines can easily understand.
3. Quality Content Creation: Focus on creating valuable and relevant content that resonates with your audience.
4. Effective Link Building: Establish a network of quality backlinks to enhance your site's authority.
5. Mobile Optimization: Ensure your site is fully responsive on various mobile devices.
6. Regular Content Updates: Keep your website content fresh and up-to-date.
7. Local SEO Optimization: From plastic surgeons to hospitals to restaurants and everything in between — if you have a local business, optimize your site for local searches to attract nearby customers.
8. Exploring Paid Options: Knowing when to use a paid ad or similar media to promote a campaign versus creating SEO content is crucial to improving your company's chances of being found.
9. Monitor Your Progress: Use an analytics platform to monitor your SEO performance so you can regularly make improvements. Never set it and forget it!

Because SEO directly impacts your bottom line, let's dive into a few of these sections further with practical tips. 

How to Master Writing for SEO

Writing effectively for SEO is about balancing creating engaging content (whether a blog or a module on your website) for humans and optimizing for search engines. At its core, SEO writing is about addressing the needs and questions of your audience in a way that is accessible and easy to understand. Here's how you can do that: 

1. Audience Analysis: Thoroughly understand your target audience and their search behaviors.
2. Strategic Keyword Use: Incorporate relevant keywords naturally into your content.
3. Content Structuring: Organize content with clear headings, subheadings, and concise paragraphs.
4. Engaging Titles and Meta Descriptions: Craft compelling titles and descriptions that prompt clicks.
5. Consistency and Quality: Regularly produce high-quality content that addresses user needs.
6. Diverse TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU Content: Be sure to have content that aligns with every stage of your buyer journey, and incorporate different varieties like blogs, eBooks, infographics, website copy, social media posts, whitepapers, and more.
7. Use of Multimedia: Enhance your content with relevant images, videos, and infographics.
8. Internal Linking: Link to other relevant content within your website to keep users engaged.

Read More - 11 SEO Tactics to Optimize eBooks, Infographics and White Papers

Create an SEO Marketing Strategy

Crafting an SEO marketing strategy involves comprehensively understanding your business goals, target audience, and the competitive landscape. This strategy should be a living document, evolving as your business and the digital environment change. Key components include:

1. Goal Setting: Clearly define what you aim to achieve with your SEO efforts.
2. Target Audience Identification: Document your audience through buyer personas and ideal client profiles and understand their online behaviors.
3. Competitive Benchmarking: Analyze your competition to identify opportunities for differentiation.
4. Keyword Strategy Development: Build a list of targeted keywords based on thorough research.
5. Content Calendar Creation: Plan and schedule content that aligns with your SEO goals.
6. On-Page and Off-Page Optimization: Implement techniques on your website and externally to improve SEO. On-page refers to the content elements of SEO, like keywords, content, title tags, and more. Off-page can include anything from reviews, Yelp, social media, and content marketing. 
7. Continuous Performance Monitoring: Regularly track your SEO performance and adjust your strategy.
8. Integration with Other Marketing Efforts: Ensure your SEO strategy complements your overall marketing plan.

Find the Balance Between SEO and Paid Media

Utilizing SEO alongside paid media creates a synergistic relationship where each complements the other. While SEO offers long-term organic growth, paid media can provide immediate visibility and targeted reach. Here's how to effectively integrate both:

1. Define Objectives for Each Channel: Understand the unique goals for SEO and paid media.
2. Harmonize SEO and Paid Campaigns: Ensure both channels support and reinforce each other.
3. Leverage Data Insights: Use data from both SEO and paid media to refine your strategies.
4. Budget Optimization: Allocate your resources to maximize ROI from both channels.
5. Message Consistency: Maintain a consistent brand message across organic and paid channels.
6. Cross-Channel Analysis: Regularly review performance across channels to identify synergies and opportunities for improvement.

Optimize Your Site 

Optimizing your website for SEO is crucial in ensuring your online presence is visible and effective in attracting and engaging people using search engines. This process involves a series of strategic adjustments and enhancements to various elements of your website. Here's a breakdown of critical areas to focus on:

1. Website Speed and Performance: A fast-loading website provides a better user experience and is favored by search engines like Google. Optimize your site's speed by compressing images, leveraging browser caching, and minimizing heavy scripts.
2. User-Friendly Navigation: A well-structured website with straightforward navigation helps users and search engines find information quickly and easily. Organize your site's layout logically and use descriptive menus and links.
3. Quality Content: Regularly publish high-quality, relevant, and informative content (with on-page elements baked in) to engage your audience and establish your site as an authority — something search engines reward with higher rankings!
4. Image Optimization: Ensure all images on your site are optimized for SEO, including using descriptive file names and alt tags and ensuring images are not too big.
5. Internal Linking: Implement a strategy for internal linking to connect your content and provide value to your users, which helps with site navigation and distributes page authority across your website. Be sure to link using keyword phrases, too, and not things like "read more" or "click here!" 
6. SSL Certification: Secure your website with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certification to protect your site's data and positively impact your SEO, as search engines prefer secure websites.
7. Technical SEO: Regularly conduct technical SEO audits to identify and fix issues like broken links, crawl errors, and duplicate content. Use tools like Google Search Console to monitor your site's health.
8. Schema Markup: Implement schema markup to help search engines understand your site's content and context to improve your site's appearance in SERPs with rich snippets.

Key Aspects of SEO

As noted throughout, SEO encompasses various elements, each crucial to your website's visibility and user experience. Two of the most important aspects worth going into more detail about are backlinks and keywords. 

Backlinks

These are links from other websites to your site. They signal to search engines that your content is valuable and credible. Building a strong backlink profile involves creating shareable content, engaging in guest blogging, and establishing partnerships with authoritative websites in your industry.

SEO Keywords

Keywords are the terms and phrases that users enter into search engines. Effective use of SEO keywords involves thorough research, understanding user intent, and strategically incorporating them into your website's content, titles, headers, and meta descriptions — and NOT placing them everywhere to boost SEO (a practice known as keyword stuffing). 

How Long Does SEO Take to Work?

The timeline for SEO results varies widely and is influenced by several factors, including the competitiveness of your industry, the quality of your content, compounding traffic to your site, updates from Google and Bing's algorithms, and the strength of your overall SEO strategy. 

Typically, seeing substantial results from your SEO efforts can take anywhere from six months to a year, so patience and persistence are key in this long-term investment.

How to Choose an SEO Company

When selecting an SEO company, consider factors like expertise, experience, approach to SEO, and their ability to offer personalized solutions. Lynton stands out with its tailored strategies, deep understanding of various industries, and commitment to aligning SEO practices with your business objectives. Our experienced team of strategists, web designers, implementers, and writers ensures a collaborative and results-driven approach to SEO.

Wrapping Up on SEO 

SEO is a dynamic and complex field that demands a strategic approach tailored to your business's unique needs. Understanding and implementing the various aspects of SEO can significantly enhance your online presence, help you engage more effectively with your audience, and achieve sustainable business growth. 

With a partner like Lynton, who can help you create content that provides value with relevant words your audience is looking for on a fast-loading website that's easy to navigate, your SEO will skyrocket in no time. Reach out today to get started on anything you've seen written in our guide!