You’ve heard the phrase “build it and they will come,” right? Well, it’s true! If you build something great, people will find it. And that’s true for all businesses—big or small.
But when it comes to the online sphere, this is only true if you use SEO.
So, you might be wondering: Is SEO worth it for my business? The short answer is yes. But before we get into that, let’s talk about what SEO is first.
What is SEO?
(SEO) is the process of optimizing your website to increase its ranking on the Google search engines. A lot of people think SEO is a one-time thing that only takes a few weeks or months, but it’s actually an ongoing process. You can’t just do some SEO and expect to rank well forever—you need to keep making sure your website stays up-to-date with best practices so it continues to perform well over time.
That said, SEO isn’t a magic bullet: if you don’t have good content on your site, no amount of keywords will make that content useful for anyone else who comes across it. Content is king!
Where do you start?
The first step in your SEO journey is to determine who your target audience is. Ask yourself: Who are my customers? What do I want them to know about me and my business?
Once you’ve identified the kinds of people who would be interested in what you have to offer, it’s time for keyword research. Keyword research involves creating a list of keywords and phrases that relate to your business (i.e., “pizza,” “cheap pizza,” “best pizza”). This will help you understand what people are searching for online when they come across various searches on search engines like Google or Bing.
Create a list of keywords and phrases that relate to your business.
Keyword research is an important part of SEO. You might think that using the right keyword would be enough, but it’s not as simple as that.
- Create a list of keywords and phrases that relate to your business. This can help you find new topics to write about and ways to optimize those topics on your website.
- Use keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner, Moz Open Site Explorer, or SEMrush to determine what keywords are associated with your business or industry. Look for related terms people are searching for on search engines such as Google and Bing, then check if those words are also relevant for your business by searching them in the search engine itself (e.g., type “coffee shop” into Google).
- Create unique content based around these keywords—not just one article per keyword though! Try combining multiple words into longer phrases like “Coffee Shop FAQs.” If you’re unsure whether this will work well then test out each keyword phrase by putting it into different articles and seeing how much traffic each generates before deciding which ones should stay on the page permanently versus being moved over into a separate page altogether where they can get more attention from visitors who specifically want information related only
Why should you care about getting found on Google?
You should care about getting found on Google because people are searching for your business online.
Google is the world’s largest search engine, and it has over 2 billion searches every day—which means that lots of people are looking for information about businesses like yours. You want to be found when people search for your business or the things related to it (like a product or service), as well as when they search for your competitors’ names.
The act of optimizing a web page, site or entire network for search engines is called SEO, which stands for search engine optimization.
SEO is a tactic of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s unpaid results—sometimes referred to as “natural,” “organic,” or “earned” results.
This includes posting content that Search Engines like Google finds valuable. In other words, if you want people to find your site when they search for specific keywords and phrases, then you need to optimize it for search engines.
SEO is also an important part of online marketing because most people who land on your website will do so as a result of an organic search — meaning they typed your business name directly into their browser’s address bar. This means that when someone searches for something related to your industry or service area (for example: “emergency dentist near me”) and sees one result from among thousands (or millions), it’s likely yours!
Google and other search engines try to find the most relevant and useful results for any given search, and if your website isn’t designed to be indexed properly by those services, it may miss the opportunity to show up in search results when people look up something related to your business.
When searching for something on Google, you’ll notice that the results are ordered by the “relevancy” of each result to your search query.
In other words, Google and other search engines try to find the most relevant and useful results for any given search, and if your website isn’t designed to be indexed properly by those services, it may miss the opportunity to show up in search results when people look up something related to your business.
Keywords
Work these keywords into the content of your webpage and posts on social media. Be careful not to get too spammy with them—and create content that relates directly to each keyword—or else you could get permanently banned from Google’s index and other search engines could flag your site as spam.
Another way to work keywords into your content is by adding them to the title of the webpage, including them within the first 100 words or so, and then repeating them throughout the rest of your content. Don’t go overboard with this technique, though: if a search engine thinks you are trying too hard to rank for a keyword and using it in every single post on your site, they might think you’re spamming their index and alert Google’s web spam team. If that happens, they could permanently blacklist your site from being listed in search engines.
In addition to including those keywords naturally throughout each post (and not stuffing), make sure that each page has its own unique title tag (the text that appears as “title” near any link). This is what search engines use when calculating which pages should show up in which searches—so be sure that each page contains its own unique title tag (and don’t use keywords here either).
If your website isn’t being found on major search engines, there’s a chance big swaths of your customer base aren’t being exposed to what you have to offer.
If your website isn’t being found on major search engines, there’s a chance big swaths of your customer base aren’t being exposed to what you have to offer. If that is the case, then it’s likely you are missing out on potential customers and revenue.
Google alone has over three billion searches per day—and that doesn’t even include Bing and other major search engines. If people can’t find your business online, they won’t be able to contact you or buy from you. What’s worse is that these missed opportunities may result in money lost down the line as well!
For example: Let’s say someone Googles “online marketing consultancy” for their small business and comes across your website (after which they call). Then let’s say two weeks later they decide they want some help with their social media strategy too—but because they didn’t call earlier because Google didn’t rank them high enough on its SERPs (search engine results pages), it was too late by then because another company took their business instead!
If you want more people to find you online, then it is worth it
If you’re in business and you want to grow your customer base, it’s important that people find you online. People who are looking for what you sell will find you more easily than those who aren’t. The more customers and money you have, the better your business can become—and the more good work you can do in the world.
So if getting more customers is something that matters to your business, then SEO is worth it!
Conclusion
If you want more people to find you online, then it is worth it. If you’re looking for long-term results, then SEO can be a great way to build your brand and boost sales over time.
Check out our Dublin SEO blog.