Have you ever heard someone mention you need SEO? What exactly are they talking about? We’ll guide you through some basics of what SEO is, how it helps your website rank and how it adds value to help your small business make money.

What is SEO & why do I need it for my business?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is a term used in the digital marketing space to improve the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or specific webpage from search engines, such as Google or Bing. It refers to your website’s organic traffic without direct traffic (someone searching your brand or business name directly) or paid traffic (from Google Ads or social media ads). 

Now, some of you might know about it vaguely, and you might feel a little lost when it comes to the details of it. However, we want to ensure you that it’s not magic. It doesn’t require any secrets to be applied, gurus you need to pay thousands or high priests praying to the Google gods. On the contrary, it’s more straightforward, but not easy…

Every business needs SEO, whether you’re a start-up, small or medium business, or an enterprise. You could manage and maintain it yourself, or leave it to the website developer because you don’t want to know its technical aspects. Either way is fine, but at some point, you might get lost in the jargon or when foozling in the tech details. 

First things first: What do I want from SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION?

So, you’re at the point where you want to apply SEO. Why? Because you want your business to rank #1 on the first page of Google? This isn’t new; everyone often jumps to the rankings side, searching for quick tips and tricks…

Unfortunately, you first need to understand SEO. We refer to it as SEU (Search Engine Understanding). You should start by understanding your users, the search results you want to play a part in, what Google thinks is relevant and how to hit those searches related to your market. This gives you grounding before jumping into ‘quick wins’. 

What does Google expect from a search query? Google uses several factors to determine which search queries are relevant, but they are ever-changing – thousands of changes yearly. So no one has the secret to SEO. 

Don’t worry; there’s hope! When going onto Google and searching for a search term similar to what you want your business to rank for, there’ll be a couple of search results in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). These results are grouped together by intent (according to the users’ intention – are they doing research, looking for information, or buying, which refers to a commercial intent?) There are several different ways this is done. For example, when your business is all about house painting, results are grouped into specific paints, paints in a regional area, paints to use in sunny areas, etc. Google tries to satisfy multiple intents on one page by grouping them together. 

You need to determine where you want to fit into this ecosystem of search results. 

How do I optimise my website to improve my ranking?

Think about your business’ whole process. Every page on your website should reflect that. Your home page might have general content with general keywords. Still, customers might search for specific stuff due to their buyer’s journey. There’s nothing wrong with broader keywords when you start, but you have to adapt your content to include specific terms later to accommodate your customers’ buyer journey. It’ll help your users achieve what they want, and Google loves to see this too.

Look into more helpful content. For example, still with the house painter business mentioned above, think about content that speaks to how to remove paint, how to shop for the right paint, or clever techniques when painting a house. Start digging down to what your users are looking for. If you’re a dentist, people would want to know what type of dentist you are, your trading hours and contact details, not the whole history of dentistry, with lots of keywords that aren’t necessarily helpful.

Your content should be of quality because people are hungry for info. Yes, it’s common for businesses to think, we don’t want to sell our secrets, because then people can just do whatever it is we’re doing, themselves. But telling people what is involved and what to look out for when painting homes helps them understand the whole process. They’d rather hire you than do it themselves.

Providing how-to guides is not counter-intuitive – you’re providing your expertise! There’s a lot you can teach your users and educate your audience. Quality content isn’t a secret entity. Google even does the same with guidelines on what to do with your website. Google’s staff (the humans) check the relevance of search results too, using Google Search Quality Guidelines for SEO, and you can do it too. 

Build your business EAT

If you think about food now, it’s not quite what we intended. EAT stands for Expertise, Authority & Trust. We’ve touched on Expertise in the previous section. Authority and Trust are about using your website content to show your authority and build trust around it.

It’s about drilling down to what you’re doing, how you can help your users, and getting away from being Marketing Mark. For example, if people are searching for a surgeon, they want to know you are the best, and they can trust you, and you’re not just saying what every other surgeon does.

Your content should have depth and comprehensiveness, which will also help you rank better. Reviews will also assist you with building your EAT – people searching for feedback, especially where other users are happy with you and your products or services. You can also build trust and visibility within your local community by sponsoring an event or team. 

Another important aspect is keeping your social media pages, such as your Facebook page, up to date, as some people find these platforms more trustworthy than a website, because they’re not sure when last your website has been updated. 

What kind of SEO do I need?

The stage of your business will determine which type of SEO you need. Meaning the scale and resources you have will determine the reach you want. Look, everyone needs good SEO. There are no hard and fast rules. It’s about making big, strategic changes to get the traffic growth over months, years, etc. 

Local SEO

Local SEO is available through Google Business Listing if you have a small-scale business. The same rules apply with Google Business Listing as with a website, Know who your users are, the steps they take, what they search for, etc. – covering the base. 

Technical SEO

This type of SEO focuses on the website itself – how it’s crawled, the code, site migrations, and internationalisation (language preference sites), which is more a concern for enterprises. We suggest not being too worried about it. 

On-site SEO

Ribbit Marketing includes this type of SEO within its website development process. Implementing appropriate meta titles and meta-data on each webpage. This improves your website’s CTR (click-through rate) from a Google search depending on the keywords ranking for. 

A/B Testing SEO

This is about making tech changes to your site, and it’s fascinating! It’s about making informed decisions on what to change. If you really need 1000 organic visitors daily, then it’s worth checking out Dominic Woodman Slide Deck. We must say, this is not for the thin wallet – you need both the resources and people to perform A/B testing for SEO. However, a 10% boost in search traffic means a 10% boost to the business’s bottom line…

SEO myths

• One trick or the secret to ranking fast: There’s no such thing. It’s like saying you only have to eat this one thing, and you’ll lose 10 kilograms in a week…
  
• Install the right tool & you’re #1 on Google: Everyone wants the tool to solve the problem. Tools are appealing, but a focused approach is necessary to move the needle. No tool will bless you with traffic. Yes, some tools, such as Yoast SEO for WordPress, are powerful, but it needs monthly grease to really see results. It requires sleeves rolled up and research and writing that will help search engines, intent, and users. It’s definitely a good way to start, but a bad place to stop…
  
• External links will boost SEO: Often referred to as the content marketing approach, this was a simple way to start with 20 years ago. It’s a bit more complex these days, as external links to your website should be relevant.

How do I choose an SEO person/agency?

Every Tom, Dick and Harry is an SEO expert these days. Chances are that if you don’t understand SEO, you will give it to someone, your website does good, hitting small sugar on traffic, but then Google starts questioning the approaches used. 

Make it a priority to understand SEO yourself and what kind of work you expect from it. Learn the classic side or an introduction to SEO. You may use Moz. The funny thing is that most agencies use Moz’s report too and charge you for it. Do some homework yourself before talking to an agency and asking them about the techniques they use and don’t use.

Be aware of agencies using Black Hat SEO or Private Blogging Networks (PBN). They stuff a page full of links, stupid stuff really, like pharmaceutical links… It might work now, but it will affect your business brand in the future, and you’ll end up on page 47 of Google.

If you don’t have budget now, familiarise yourself with what Google wants using Google Search Console, which offers bare basics such as keywords, rankings, top visited pages, etc. Dig around for data and insights about your business. Or use Google SEO 101 Guidelines when starting your website, planning your keywords, and ranking.

There is a lot of content out there, but we suggest focusing on your business through the tools above. Get the basics right, deliver value, and your customers will be happier, and you’ll make more money. Or get in touch with us to you assist you with your SEO.

Have integrity with a long-term interest in your business.
Regards, Ribbit.