What Is SEO in Marketing?

As a business owner, perhaps you have heard of SEO. You may be wondering, especially if you have never done SEO before: what is SEO? In the field of marketing, there are a variety of online channels that you can take advantage of for maximum impact. From SEO to PPC, from content marketing to social media, the number of channels is endless.

What is SEO? What does it all mean? SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is the practice of using certain techniques to optimize your site so that it places higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages). It is one of the most popular and effective channels in online marketing. In fact, in 2017 Hubspot said that Google is responsible for 94% of total organic traffic. As of January 2020, Google continues to maintain 92.51% of worldwide search engine market share, according to statcounter.com. Those are some powerful statistics. You may still be wondering at this point: what is SEO and how does it impact marketing?

SEO is a technique (composed of many smaller methods) with a goal of getting your site in front of as many potential consumers as possible. The end goal is to achieve an increase in conversions, or actual sales. The smaller techniques include optimization of content, link building, and optimizing the technical aspects of your site (called technical SEO).

Technical SEO is the practice of making sure your site is as crawlable as possible by search engines, eliminating deficiencies in every potential area. In marketing, a solid foundation in all three techniques is necessary to increase your site’s visibility. An aggressive approach serves to help you get better results, all while avoiding any penalties levied by the search engines.

For marketing purposes, you can think of it like this: SEO is the leprechaun with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s what will put food on the table of your employees. It’s what will help get your site in front of a legion of consumers, all ready to purchase your product or services online. By focusing your research on the right keywords, by optimizing your content effectively, and by concentrating on making sure your technical SEO is second to none, you can increase your organic traffic.

That is what SEO is, and that is why SEO is so exciting!

What Goes Into an Effective SEO Strategy?

We can talk all day about content, links, and technical SEO. In reality, developing an effective SEO strategy from scratch can be radically different for every website or for every SERP. No two websites are alike, and it would be a mistake to discuss SEO as if they were. However, we can discuss the pillars of an effective SEO strategy and how it might apply to a website in general.

What, exactly, does a successful SEO strategy consist of? First, you need to find the right keywords. Without giving away our trade secrets, we want to stress that without the right keyword targeting, your SEO efforts are going nowhere.

Next, you need content. However, it’s not enough to create substandard content and expect it to gain rankings overnight. Properly optimized, well-written content geared toward your ideal consumer persona is what you will need. Our team is more than qualified to write this kind of content for you.

Next comes backlinks. Backlinks are still one of the most important SEO ranking factors, according to SEMRush’s Ranking Factors Study from 2019. While other attributes have overtaken the top spots, they are considered behavioral factors related to the behavior of users who visit the site rather than SEO factors.

You also need good technical SEO. If you have everything going right with keywords, content, and backlinks, that alone is only half the battle. A crawlable site with an easy-to-understand architecture, properly-optimized copy, and high-quality links is the entire package. That’s what you should be looking for from an SEO agency.