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The Benefits Of business SEO - the basics (Ish)
So here’s the didleo, SEO stands for search engine optimisation (which is why it is called SEO!).
It is a set of actionable guidelines that when done right, primarily makes your business content marketing stuff stand a chance of being found by someone searching on Google. Not guaranteed, mind you, but you stand a decent chance of appearing in the search results.
Google SEO guidelines - Benefits of Business SEO
The SEO guidelines go like this,
Any word that you write that goes online, so things like your website, your social media, your video content, blog posts, case studies, articles etc. are read by Google, mostly by bots but also by humans called Google raters, which is around about 18K as of today.
Google matches the content you write to what a person is searching for. The words that are used to search for things are called keywords and so these keywords must be included in your content.
Keywords are described as short form and long tail. Short is one or two words and long tail is full sentences. Your keywords should consist of not just what you think would be an exact match to what’s being searched but you should also sprinkle synonyms around the content you write and other possible associated keywords.
Here’s why “proper” Business SEO is such a tough nut to crack
Google measures and rates your content based on certain search and content guidelines and the less your content lives up to these, the worse it will perform in search results.
- The number of words – it prefers content above 1000 words (currently)
- Penalises keyword stuffing – so “we sell the best luxury dog collars” x 20
- Google checks what’s written is easy to understand relative to the subject matter
- Google checks if your title matches what’s being searched for.
- Google checks for false or dangerous information that could do harm (the raters).
- Google checks that the images you use are named the same as the search request.
- Google checks that the content is structured logically, so is easy to follow.
- Google checks if the content is optimised for mobile and that it looks as it should.
- Google checks to see how fast your content will load for the user.
- Google checks if your content has links to other 3rd party authoritative web pages.
- Google checks to see if your content links to other associated content on your website.
- Google checks to see how popular and relevant your website is – Domain Authority.
- Google checks to see if other authoritative digital content is linking to you.
There is more stuff but that’s the core of what Google looks at.
Jesus, that's Google SEO Guideline list is a nightmare 🙁
Yes, it reads like a nightmare and to be honest, it is.
But, when you consider that Google’s #1 priority is to match what’s being searched for with the most accurate, relevant and useful information it can find.
If it didn’t achieve this, the world would quite literally be in chaos, such is our dependence on the answers Google’s search results give us. (SERPs-Search Engine Results Page)
ok, if you still have the will to live, lets crack on.
Here's how business SEO Happens In the Real World.
Ok, so if you can muster the willpower to read on, I’ll tell you how all this happens so at least you know the facts in case you ever go looking for “An SEO Expert” – which to be honest you should as SEO is becoming increasingly important and is very much on the rise as a key business sales acquisition tool.
NB (1) – If you outsource your SEO strategy, which you should, be careful who you get to do it for you. For every “SEO Specialist” there are another 100 “SEO Specialists” Proper seo isn’t cheap at the start as thier is usually quite a bit of work to get done.
SEO Strategy, SEO Business objectives, Fixing what’s already there, timeline (should be a minimum of 3 months but realistically, ongoing), budget.
NB (2) – The owner and or senior management need to be 100% committed to the SEO Strategy. they need to know the why, when, the what for and understand what outcomes they expect and how these outcomes will be measured.
They need to wrap KPIs around the objectives and results and apply forecasting ROI logic so there are no commercial surprises or misunderstandings about the perceived benefits.
Basically, get all your ducks in a row.
How To Produce Effective SEO Content Marketing
Obvs, the words you write form sentences and the sentences form your content, like say a blog post about luxury dog collars which would have a few paragraphs waffling on about the various benefits of these lux dog collars.
So you’ve written this blog post about these dog collars, so what?
Well, this is where keywords come into play.
What you call your blog post, what words you use, and what you name your images must be aligned with what a searcher would enter into Google.
Basically, you have to match as many of the above Google guidelines to your content which is obviously a ball ache.
Google User search Terms - Search Intent
Possible search terms being used to find these dog collars could be:
“Best luxury dog collars”
“Real leather luxury dog collars”
“Luxury padded large dog collars”
Writing your dog collar blog post would go something like this:
(dark red = SEO keyword match)
Title: Learn The Benefits and Importance of Why Your Dog Needs to Wear A Luxury Leather Dog Collar
Opening paragraph:
Luxury leather dog collars are not only long-lasting, secure, tough and good-looking. No, the #1 benefit of your dog wearing a luxury, padded leather dog collar is that it improves your dog’s posture and protects your dog from potential neck and upper spinal problems, blah, blah, blah…
The next 2/3/4/ paragraphs would go into much more detail and should contain a variety of associated keywords, synonyms and search phrases.
There's something else - H1s & alt Tags
Your images of the lux dog collars should be named with your keywords so Google can see that you have included images for a user to see which is a good thing being that the brain processes an image 60K faster than words…
Your content needs to be well structured and this is done using something called H1>H6 Tags -Your title would be a H1, your sub-tile would be maybe 2 or 3 H2 tags and you may have the need to use a couple of H3 tags.
These SEO H tags are what Google uses to check that the content you have written is logically structured and flows well when being written. It is called content hierarchy
H1 – Learn The Benefits and Importance of Why Your Dog Needs To wear A Luxury Leather Dog Collar
H2 – The #1 benefit of luxury leather dog collars
H2 – The medical benefits of your dog wearing a leather Collar
H3 – What sizes should a leather luxury dog collar be for my dog
Wrapping things up for now...Benefits of Business SEO
Ok, I think that’s enough about SEO for now as I’m tired and I’m sure your head’s wrecked.
Here’s a summary of what I think are the key takeaways.
- SEO is very important – don’t ignore it.
- SEO needs to be done properly or you shouldn’t bother
- SEO is a slow burner but should 100% be part of your marketing strategy
- SEO “Gurus” are ten a penny -Be careful, they’ll promise the moon and bleed money
- Speak to someone that knows what the hell they’re talking about.
- Don’t do it yourself – As an owner, you have other priorities so outsource it.
- now go and do something way more interesting with your time 🙂