Why SEO is Essential For the Success of Your Business
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is an essential part of any modern business’s online strategy. SEO refers to the process of improving the visibility and ranking of a website on search engines like Google, which can help bring more traffic to your site and ultimately lead to more customers and sales.
But why is SEO so important? Here are a few reasons:
- SEO helps increase the visibility of your website. When people search for keywords related to your business, having a strong SEO strategy can help your website appear higher on the search engine results page. This can help increase the chances that people will click on your website and visit it, which can ultimately lead to more customers and sales.
- SEO helps improve the user experience of your website. Search engines use algorithms to determine the relevance and quality of a website, and a strong SEO strategy can help improve both of these factors. This can make your website easier to navigate and more user-friendly, which can lead to happier customers and increased engagement.
- SEO can help build trust and credibility. When people see that your website appears at the top of the search engine results page, it can help build trust and credibility in your brand. This can be especially important for small businesses or new companies that are trying to establish themselves in the market.
- SEO can help drive targeted traffic to your website. By optimizing your website for specific keywords, you can help attract people who are specifically interested in the products or services that your business offers. This can help increase the chances that these visitors will convert into customers.
The importance of SEO for a business website cannot be overstated. In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for the success of any business. By optimizing your website for search engines, you can increase its visibility, attract more traffic, and ultimately boost your sales and profits.
To understand why SEO is so important, let’s first take a look at how people use the internet to find information and products. When someone is looking for something, they typically turn to a search engine like Google. The search engine uses algorithms to scour the web for relevant content and presents the user with a list of results, known as the “search engine results page” or SERP.
The higher your website ranks on the SERP, the more likely it is that people will visit your site. This is where SEO comes in. By implementing various optimization techniques, you can improve your website’s ranking on the SERP and increase its visibility.
But why is it important for your website to be visible? For one, the higher your website ranks on the SERP, the more credible and trustworthy it appears to potential customers. When people see your website at the top of the search results, they are more likely to click on it and visit your site. This increased traffic can translate into more sales and revenue for your business.
In addition to increasing your visibility and credibility, SEO can also help to improve the user experience on your website. When you optimize your site for search engines, you are essentially making it easier for people to find the information they are looking for. This can include things like ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly and loading quickly, using clear and concise headings and subheadings, and providing useful and relevant content.
Furthermore, SEO can also help to drive targeted traffic to your website. When you optimize your site for specific keywords, you are more likely to attract visitors who are actively searching for the products or services you offer. This means that the traffic you receive is more likely to convert into sales, rather than just casual visitors who may not be interested in what you have to offer.
Overall, SEO is an essential component of any successful business website. By implementing various optimization techniques, you can improve your website’s visibility, credibility, user experience, and the quality of the traffic it receives. This can ultimately lead to more sales and revenue for your business.
If you are not already implementing SEO on your business website, now is the time to start. You can begin by conducting keyword research to identify the terms and phrases that are most relevant to your business and the products or services you offer. You can then incorporate these keywords into your website’s content, headings, and meta tags to improve its ranking on the SERP.
In conclusion, SEO is an essential part of any modern business’s online strategy. It can help increase the visibility, user experience, trust, and targeted traffic to your website, which can ultimately lead to more customers and sales. So if you’re not already using SEO for your business, it’s time to start!
Never Underestimate The Influence Of Favicons.
Google warned us, yet few paid attention or even knew what they were talking about, what even is a favicon?
Recently, as Google does periodically, they rolled out some changes to the way we search, or at least the way they want us to. As they explained, especially when it comes to mobile search, they want websites to be easily identified and scannable. One way of implementing this was to utilize the ever so common favicon.
So what does that even mean?
For starters, a favicon is a small image icon that represents a website or at least should. Granted there are plenty of websites that are out there that are unidentifiable in this manner and are missing said icon. If you or your web designer failed to add a favicon to your site, perhaps with Google’s prompting now is the time.
What should a favicon be exactly you ask. Well generally speaking it should be something that is a representation of either your logo or theme. This enables users to quickly recognize your site over others when either searching or in their bookmarks.
How do I best resize my logo to make a favicon?
Depending on your web application or theme, it may suggest a specific size recommendation to upload. Usually, a minimum would be 16×16 pixels to 48×48. It can also be a good practice to use various sizes so that they format and scale appropriately on different devices. That being said, best practice is to not necessarily use a 16×16 size as Google will rescale it to that size anyway.
What kind of file should the favicon be?
You can use a JPG, GIF, or PNG for most browsers without any issue. However, best practices would be to use the ICO file format to ensure all browser compatibility.
What is an ICO?
An ICO is an image file that is formatted specifically for computer icons in Microsoft Windows. ICO files can contain one or more images of different sizes, depths, and colors for appropriate scaling on various browsers and device sizes.
How can I create an ICO?
There are numerous ICO converters online that can create ICO favicon files for you for free. Many of these converters require you to set the parameters of the file sizes that you want, otherwise, they default to 256 pixels which is the maximum size. It is best practice as mentioned previously to incorporate a few variations of image sizes in the favicon file for your website.
Next steps for SEO with Favicons
According to Google the favicons and the homepage in which they reside must be crawlable. Favicons should be a representation of your brand and easily identifiable. Also, make sure that the icon is not offensive in any way or Google will set it back to a default image icon. Google has already begun penalizing sites without appropriate favicons that go against their guidelines.
If you do not currently have a favicon on your site, we might suggest that you either create one yourself, contact your designer, or of course we are happy to help as well. Google is constantly making changes to the SEO algorithms, especially when it comes to mobile searches. The next step beyond mobile search will be voice search, which we will address in an upcoming post.
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Building Traffic Patterns for Your Small Business
Business owners spend a great deal of time and money trying to “gain traction” or get “traffic” to their websites only to see little results.
Generally the reason is simple … and so can the solution be as well.
There are a few things either you or your web designer can do that can help get you noticed.
- When did you update your website last? A stagnant unchanging site will not bring in visitors. Change some images, add some content, re-purpose old content, make things fresh and relevant.
- Outdated or expired sales or specials. Once the sale is over take it off your site. Having a special that expired weeks ago will frustrate anyone that may visit. Use plugins that automatically remove popups or messages that are expired.
- Market your local community. Everyone has heard of SEO by now yet few get specific for their local market. Use keywords that set you apart from the competition not just in your niche but also in your neighborhood.
- Spend a little to get a lot. Google can be your best friend, but like any friend you have to spend time with them. Stroke her ego, spend a little in Google Adwords, she will return the favor with online admiration.
- Mobile matters to you and your customers. If your site is not mobile friendly you are losing. Everyone uses their phones first when searching, make sure when they find you they have a great user experience or they will never come back.
- Back-link love with permission. Linking to other websites may seem a bit counter-intuitive but Google and your clients will love you for it. Be sure if you do that the links make sense and bring value to your clients. Depending on the content you might want to ask the owner first, many times they will reciprocate the link love.
- Get social with a purpose. Social media changes all the time, even the best social media marketers have to stay on their toes to keep up with the best practices. It is not enough to just create great shareable content, but they must be active on the applicable social media channels to get their message out to the world.
- Use internal links on your own content. Whenever you create new content look for ways to link to other content that you have already created to link to within your own website. Users of Yoast SEO have the advantage of the Yoast Internal Link tool that assists them in finding content to link to as they create.
- Make sure your site has speed. Slow websites cause high bounce rates. Optimize your images, check your site structure, use hosting that is worth its weight. All of these contribute to the speed of the web page load which in turn either keeps or loses visitors.
Keep in mind these are simple steps that either you or your web designer can do to start building traffic patterns for your small business.
We could keep going but you would likely get overwhelmed and want to stop reading. If you would like to learn more on how you can generate traffic to your business or even better yet have us help you accomplish your goals contact us and schedule your discovery session today.