There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what SEO is, how it works, and whether or not it is still relevant. SEO is all about getting your content in front of the right audience at the right time. Search engines are often the first place people go when they need to find a solution to their problem. Here are two stats that prove why SEO is so important.
- SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.
- For Google, a study from Slingshot SEO shows 18% of organic clicks go to the #1 position, 10% of organic clicks go to the #2 position, and 7% of organic clicks go to the #3 position.
In this episode of the SMA Marketing Minute, we discuss What SEO Really is and Why It Still Matters.
Video Transcript:
What’s up, everybody? I’m Ryan Shelley and you’re watching the SMA Marketing Minute. Today I want to talk quickly about SEO, what it is, and why it’s important.
As more users have gone online over the past years, more business owners are starting to kind of get the idea that they need to do more marketing online. One term that starts to float around a lot is SEO. What is that? It’s really Search Engine Optimization.
Now from that name a lot of people think that it’s a manipulation of the search engines to get my rankings higher, so if I rank higher I’ll get more clicks. Ok, yes in theory if you are ranking for high-quality terms, you’re going to get more traffic.
But really we have to think more about our users. Because, just because you’re getting traffic, it doesn’t always mean that it translates into business. You need to understand what your users are looking for. So really SEO is about delivering your site, your content, to the right user, at the right time.
So what we do in that process is understand who are users are and what terms and phrases they are searching for, and the intent behind those terms and phrases and then build a customized strategy to help you target your audience.
The algorithm that Google has to rank a site is extremely complex and we don’t really know every part of that algorithm. But, when Google released their Search Quality Page Guidelines back in November, they did give some hints on something’s that they are looking for to make a page more effective. Now they say that this does not play directly into the ranking, but I would argue that if you have a site, that’s rated as “High Quality,” then Google is going to see it as more favorable to rank in your niche or industry.
Here are the three things they are looking for in websites to make sure that they have really high quality. And that’s expertise, that’s authority of your subject, and that’s trustworthiness.You want to place those three things into your site and then build that into a structured SEO campaign from somebody who knows what they are doing when it comes to building links the right way and creating content the right way. Your business can have a lot of success if you partner with someone who can actually put this all together to get your site in front of the right people.
So I hope you found that helpful, here is a link to the article we did on the Google Search Quality Guidelines. If you have any questions feel free to email us or comment below. Thanks again for watching and happy marketing.
About This Video Series:
The SMA Marketing Minute is for business owners who are looking to improve their reach online, but don’t have a lot of time to research online marketing strategies. Each video will be 1 to 2 minutes long and focus on a specific and actionable element of online marketing that any business owner can do on their own without a lot of time involved.
