What is SEO and Why Does it Matter?

You know that your search engine results matter to the large search engines, and therefore to your company. It’s critical to be able to have clients and potential customers find your business quickly and easily. But this isn’t as easy as adding three or four A’s to the front of the business name, of course. What is SEO and why does it matter to your business?

Why It Matters

Search engines use data from individual websites to calculate which ones are the most popular, which are most used, and which ones are repeatedly being viewed, and then display the websites accordingly. Data analytics make it possible for them to have created algorithms using hundreds of factors. Search engines need this info in order to make sure their algorithms are accurate and helpful, helping their own users to find what they want faster and easier than on a competitor’s search engine. This changes your world because you want to be that “popular” site, one of the top options for a potential customer to choose from.

Onsite SEO

Content management, keywords, meta tags, and other tasks are a huge part of your onsite SEO. The search engines are looking for sites which have the specific keywords that are being searched. They also want to see that your site is frequently updated. This means that, in order to excel above other websites, you need to not only keep your blog running steadily but also make sure that your site design is updated on a consistent basis. It can also include rebranding and all other things which drive eyes to your website.

Mobile SEO

Like with onsite SEO, mobile SEO is similar, but is tracked differently. Onsite SEO tends to be accessed from home or office on a main computer. In contrast, mobile SEO is accessed from a smartphone, and generally is done outside of a home, often while actively looking for your business or something similar. For instance, if you are a restaurant or boutique, you want potential customers who think, “There’s this place near here I’ve been meaning to try,” to find you easily! Factors taken into account for mobile SEO include having images which load quickly on mobile, designing your website to be mobile-friendly, screen size, and operating system. 

Make sure your website is active and modern, and that both mobile and onsite pages are easy to load and view. Learning about how to make yourself more easily found and, when found, to give the customer everything they’re looking for is what you do as a business owner! This is merely the online variation of that goal.

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