What are SEO and its Importance for Companies – 93 % of online experiences start through a search engine, and 4 out of 5 consumers begin with Google. Users browse for an answer to their needs, whether finding a nearby workshop or buying some shoes for an upcoming event.
If a business does not appear among the first search engine results when the user carries out this type of search, it remains invisible to potential customers. How is it possible to be visible in search engines like Google? SEO is an essential Digital Marketing strategy and technique for any company that operates in the online field.
Do you want to know what SEO is and how it works? We detail it in depth in this article.
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Pardon is SEO, and why is it Essential for a Business with an Online Presence?
Search engine optimization or SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a website optimization technique that aims to attract traffic naturally from a search engine such as Google. In other words, SEO makes a website appear in the top organic positions of a search engine results ranking.
When we use the term “organic”, we refer to those results that are not paid, that is, advertising on Google (Google Ads), a technique known as SEM, has not been used to appear in the search engine.
Therefore, any business that has started its digital transformation and wants to have visibility on the Internet must be present in Google, the engine that accounts for more than 96% of searches in Spain. Having a presence implies appearing (at least) on the first page of results. Let’s not forget that 75% of users never go past the first page of Google results, also called SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
Among the main benefits of working on SEO for a company, we highlight the following:
Increased Web Traffic
: If a link to a website appears in the top positions of the search engine results page, the user is likelier to end up clicking on it. Therefore, SEO provides traffic (visits) to a website. If the search engine positioning strategy is worked correctly, that traffic will be qualified. That is, they target business customers who are currently searching for the product or service we sell. Therefore, if the organic positioning of the website is among the first results, it will increase the number of potential business clients that visit the website and improve the conversion rates.
Build Brand Awareness
When a business optimizes its website for search engines and appears on the first page of Google, it gains recognition and credibility. Then, your potential customers are more likely to trust you than other companies that do not have a strong presence in the search engine.
Outperforms the Competition:
Suppose a company actively works on its SEO positioning strategy and performs better than its competition. In that case, it will be in a position to improve its organic position within search engines and, therefore, gain ground against its competitors.
How Does a Search Engine Work?
Search engines like Google are information retrieval systems based on mathematical algorithms that process, filter and order information according to different criteria. As Google has expressed on multiple occasions, its purpose is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
In short, Google acts as a librarian, organizing information and presenting it to users. To do this, the search engine performs three essential tasks:
Tracking:
To incorporate them into its database, Google must find out what pages are within a website. To do this, it sends its spiders ( bots ) to crawl pages continuously. About of them are previously in your record, and you revisit them for updates, and others you discover for the first time through links on familiar pages that lead to them. A business can also “submit” a web page to Google through the sitemap.
Indexing :
The search engine recognizes what is on each web page. It tries to understand and interpret the information, be it texts, videos, images or other content, and subsequently stores it in its index.
Positioning:
When users perform a search, they do so by formulating words or phrases known as keywords or keywords. The Google engine then tries to find the answer that best matches the user’s search in its index. It considers aspects such as language, location or device (tablet, smartphone, PC…), among others. To choose the best answer, Google uses its algorithm that determines which result is more relevant.
The Google system takes into account more than 200 positioning factors, which are the ones that SEO professionals try to discern to optimize them on company websites to improve their visibility in the search engine
SEO On Page Positioning Factors
SEO On Page refers to those factors that can be optimized within the website to help Google understand what is on it. The leading SEO On Page factors are:
The website was accessible from any device and secure (including an SSL certificate).
Optimum page speed to favour the user experience.
Authority and age of the domain.
Quality content, updated and relevant, responds to the user’s search intention. In addition, this content must be optimized so the search engine can easily understand and rank it.
Technical SEO through the optimization of meta tags and images, internal link layout, Schema markup or correct URL syntax, among other actions.
User experience: Google considers the click rate, the bounce rate or the time a person spends on a page to assess the user experience. If a user spends time on a website, it implies that it is relevant to him. Therefore, Google will give it more importance on its results page.
Off Page SEO positioning factors
Off Page relevance factors refer to the actions that can be carried out outside the website and affect the portal’s credibility and authority. In other words, they try to signal to the search engine which websites are more important and therefore deserve to rank ahead of others. Among the most prominent Off Page factors are:
Linkbuilding
The more links a website receives from outside, the more authority it has with Google. Let’s think that these links are translated as votes of confidence from other external sites, so the more positive votes, the more merit a company’s website accumulates to appear among the search engine’s first results.
Although there are different techniques to generate external links to a website (not all of them approved by Google), the smartest thing for companies is to bet on an optimal Content Marketing strategy capable of satisfying the needs of their audience and attracting links naturally.
social cues
Mentions of a brand on social networks are an important signal for Google. The comments, the “likes” or the “shares”, among other actions that can be carried out on Social Media channels or sales activities on Social Networks, make the search engine understand that if a large percentage of people talk about that company, is because it is of interest and relevant. Therefore, it gives you a higher score in your results ranking. Influencer Marketing is one of the techniques that help reinforce the social signals of a company on Google and, therefore, boost SEO or ff page.
In conclusion, we can confirm that SEO is a Search Engine Marketing strategy and one of the critical Digital Marketing trends for companies that intend to use the Internet as an active marketing channel for their products and services. Not in vain, more than 60% of companies around the world are dedicating efforts to search engine optimization, according to the study carried out by Hubspot.
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