After the pandemic many businesses had to pivot their focus to online business, but even before that we saw many businesses making the leap to go online. You may be one of those businesses who had to quickly build a website and get online, or, perhaps you’ve decided to update your existing website. The question remains, then what?
One of the ways to get (and keep) people on your website is with SEO. You’ve probably heard the term SEO before, but what does it actually entail? In this blog, we’ll explain what SEO is and how you can get started!
What Does SEO Mean?
SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’. It’s the practice of optimizing your web pages to make them reach a high position in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page), with the intent to drive more traffic to your website.
SEO focuses on improving rankings in the organic (non-paid) search results. If you have a website, and are looking to drive more traffic, there’s no doubt that you should get started on an SEO campaign.
Understanding the Google Algorithm
Where you rank in the SERP is determined by Google’s algorithm, although the key to the algorithm remains secret. However, with years of experience in SEO under our belt and a team of experts we’ve broken it down to the two most important ranking factors. These ranking factors can be divided into two categories:
On-Page SEO Factors
Your page ranking is partially determined by various on-page factors, these are all the pieces of your website that you have influence over. These factors include technical-aspects such as the quality of your code, and site speed as well as content-related aspects, like the structure of your website or the quality of the copy on your website. These are all crucial on-page SEO factors that you can work on.
Off-Page SEO Factors
After optimizing your on-page SEO factors, it’s time to look at the off-page factors such as links from other websites, social media attention, and other marketing activities that happen off of your own website. It’s not impossible, but these off-page SEO factors can be harder to have influence over. The most important of these off-page factors is the number and quality of links pointing towards your site. The more quality, relevant sites that link to your website, the higher your position in Google will be.
Another off-page factor that plays a role in SEO is your competition. This is hard to influence organically as it really depends on the niche you’re in. In some niches, it is much harder to rank than in others. The competitiveness of your market therefore also has a major influence on your chances of ranking.
Let Good Commerce Help
Now that you know all about the basics of SEO, you can see its importance when it comes to your online business. Ready to improve your website SEO? Let the experts at Good Commerce tailor an SEO strategy that provides long term organic growth for your business. Contact us today to book a Brand Discovery session and let’s start achieving your business goals together.