A Guide To SEO For Businesses
All digital businesses - whether small startups or large organizations - require proper search engine optimization for growth on the internet.
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All digital businesses - whether small startups or large organizations - require proper search engine optimization for growth on the internet. Over 3.5 billion online searches are made daily on the Google search engine alone. This number of searches keeps growing by 10% every year. Many people utilize search engines while looking for various products, services, or local businesses. It means that any business looking for growth in the digital world needs to work on search engine optimization (SEO) to rank on the first page of SERPs (search engine result pages). This ebook will unfold various SEO strategies for businesses to grow online.
Search engines like Google and Bing enable companies to purchase temporary online visibility through search results. They do so by selling clicks to bidders in competitive auctions that start at $30 or more simply for one click. However, SEO can help businesses drive organic clicks and web traffic at a very low cost for a longer duration. When business owners want to build a strong brand that lasts, the winning strategy for them is to work on improving web traffic via organic search.
But to get organic web traffic, a website's content needs proper optimization to get better visibility in search results. From keyword research, HTML source code, and link building to content writing and digital marketing, everything is part of an SEO strategy. All these need to be high-value in the eyes of the search engines and users.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of optimizing a website as per the guidelines of search engines to get higher web traffic. SEO aims to gain organic traffic from search engines, like Google, and not from sponsored content and paid ads. In simple words, businesses need to make SEO a significant part of their marketing strategy if they want genuine organic traffic on their websites. To excel at SEO, businesses need to follow certain best practices and specific rules while creating content and forming tactics to improve search engine rankings.
Obviously, businesses want their web pages to appear as widely as possible for target keywords or phrases related to your website's traffic goals. Keep in mind that Google ranks web pages, not websites. To put it another way, you must be deliberate about who you direct to your website through Google.
Speaking specifically about associations and nonprofit organizations, they often say they are happy with SEO efforts when their website appears on Google's top result pages. Their website starts appearing on the top pages of a search engine when online users type an acronym or industry-specific keyword to search for a specific company. With branded search, the user's intent is obvious. They want to see a company's specialized material about a certain issue. A company somewhat owns specific branded keywords or phrases.
Instead, businesses need to think beyond a brand while putting themselves in the minds of customers, donors, members, and constituents. The keywords they may be typing on Google are to find your content and get the correct information related to your industry. For instance, online users may search for a company to know how to contribute to a cause associated with a specific business. So, businesses must figure out the right ways to meet their target audience on their journey and offer the right content they are searching for. This is where SEO helps.
If an association doesn't stress over gaining more members via SEO, there is another reason for them to follow SEO. One primary reason is authority. It is a good thing when your website content constantly starts appearing on Google search results when people search for industry-specific information. It does not mean associations have to turn online viewers into website members instantly. But it would undoubtedly give them peace of mind, knowing they are popular in the industry. If anyone wants to join in and become a member of an association, online visibility by accurate SEO efforts can instill trust in online searchers.
Here are the three primary SEO techniques that businesses need to implement to improve their search engine rankings:
On-page SEO involves the search for the right keywords, optimizing page elements (such as alt tags, title tags, and keyword density), and forming high-quality content. It mainly targets search engine crawls to give more attention to a targeted website.
Off-page SEO helps strengthen a website's authority and reputation. Guest blogging on popular websites and getting backlinks from high-authority websites are some examples of off-page SEO. This technique works on the secondary ways to optimize a website for search engines.
Technical SEO is to work on a website's mobile friendliness, load speed, and how easily Google can crawl it. A slow-loading website may rank lower regardless of various other strong SEO strategies. Therefore, working on technical SEO is crucial.
All three components are perfect for making up SEO endeavors. However, the on-page SEO gets the maximum attention due to obvious reasons. But if a website is not ranking high on search engines despite various on-page SEO efforts, the companies need to work on off-page and technical SEO too. After all, it is the combination of three to help your website reach the top of Google result pages.
The term "search engine results page" (or "SERP") refers to the page that Google (or Bing or Yahoo) displays following the submission of a keyword search query. Therefore, if you were to search for "website usability," the SERP would provide a list of websites that the search engine believes you were trying to find.
Here's an example:
SERP page's example for SEO
A typical SERP contains a large number of sections. Although not all of them are depicted in the image above, they consist of the following:
Google Ads: These can be seen at the top and bottom of some SERPs and are designated as paid advertisements by the prefix "Ad" before the listing's URL.
SEO featured snippet
Example of Knowledge Panel SEO
In addition to those above, more parts occasionally appear in SERPs, although these are typically the most frequent. The most important conclusion to draw from this is that the typical organic search results are becoming crowded off the SERP page and may even be viewed as being less helpful than the alternatives mentioned above. Therefore, optimizing for organic search alone is no longer sufficient; you also need to consider including your site in these other frequently highlighted areas.