What is SEO?
In this article I’m going to attempt to explain just what SEO is, and why your website should employ it. We’ll look at keywords, titles, and snippets.
If you have a small business and are looking to get a website going, or maybe you used one of those free, or (seemingly) cheap build-your-own website companies, you’ve probably heard of SEO. But what is it?
SEO basics
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, its configuring your website to attempt to get the best results from search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) This includes making sure the words that your potential customers would be searching for are included in your page. These are called “keywords”. After all, the people you want coming to your site are the ones that are searching for your products. If you’re a plumber, you wouldn’t include “Landscaping” as one of your keywords.
More SEO
Another part of SEO is your Search Title. Take a look at ours (above). Notice that it all fits on the line. If we tried to write too much, it would come out like (see below) “We Explain What SEO Is And Why You Need To Include It In…”.
Doesn’t look too good does it? When a customer searches for something, they want what they are searching for. If they don’t see it in a result, they move on to the next one. And notice the first part of the title isn’t the name of our company. That’s not what people are looking for, they are searching for “Web design company”, or something akin to that.
Other Parts Of SEO: Snippets, Photos, etc.
Then there’s the “snippet”. That is the blurb you see after the title (see above screenshot), You can put as many as 160 characters in there, but only 150 or so show up in search results. Like the title, choose these words wisely, make sure you convey the message you intend to. And all the message you want to convey, not just part of it. If you have an offer or discount, this would be a good place to include that. Give people a reason to click on that result.
Photos
Ever notice when you search for something on Google you sometimes get “Image results for (search)? That’s because that search term is included in the photo. Doing this might not always get the people who are searching for you, but it can help get hits to your website which can improve your Google rankings, which is just what you’re after.
Don’t Forget The Other Pages
Chances are you have a website with more than one page. SEO applies to all of your pages. Notice on the screenshot above that there is also a result for our “web design” page. This in essence gives me two results for one search. If you’re that plumber we talked about earlier, you might want your home page show up in a search for “plumber”, but if you have SEO enabled on your services page, it might show up in a search for “faucet repair”, or “toilet replacement”. Get it?, that title and snippet on your main page is only so many characters long, but if you have a four-page website, you can have four different titles and snippets.
Your website isn’t worth anything unless people can find it. We at South Metro Web Designs can assist you with SEO. As a matter of fact, basic SEO (Keywords, title, and snippet) are included in our web design packages.
In a future post I’ll go over Google Business Profile, Google Search Console and Maps.
Until then, check us out at southmetroweb.com,
If you have any questions regarding SEO, email me at larry@southmetroweb.com, or call me at 770-692-0075
Larry
