I could be sitting here spewing ultimate strategies, plans of attacks, and the secret sauce, but if you don’t know what the hell SEO is…then what are we even doing here?
So, come with me right back to the beginning. Let’s get super clear on what is SEO aka search engine optimisation, and why you should give two figs of a care about it.
When the understanding landed for me I remember thinking, wow I’ve been going about this the wrong way. It was a light bulb moment that literally changed my life and how I do business.
What is a search engine?
There are a lot of technical explanations out there of what SEO is, but what opened the door to this world for me was understanding HOW it could help my business.
We’re going to ignore the ‘optimisation’ part (for now) of SEO and focus on the search engine part. A search engine is a platform like Google aka something that has ‘search’ function. You know where you type in your question or query hit enter and then a list of answers appear? Yup that’s a search engine.
So, say for example you are a hypnotherapist and someone typed in ‘hypnotherapist Wellington’ you would want your business to pop up under that search request right? Exactly!
What is optimisation?
Now you understand what a search engine is i.e. Google; and how it works i.e. provides solutions to your queries; let's focus on the word ‘optimisation’ of SEO.
Optimisation is the part of SEO that small businesses need to care about.
Simply having a website does not mean you will be ‘organically’ found. It means…well…that you have a website (that aimlessly floats in the digital abyss). BUT, if you apply optimisation principles to your website, then there is hope!
As an example, Google has a list of roughly 200 ranking factors that they consider before helping your website be found. This can be backlinks, user experience, speed, quality content, brand perception, keyphrases/keywords etc; all these things if done right can help ‘optimise’ your website to be found organically and by a larger audience.
Do you see why now I harp on about nailing at least the basics of SEO?
How it all works together
Now you have your base understanding of what is SEO, let’s get a little bit more technical.
The purpose of caring about SEO is to get more organic traffic coming to your website and this is done through ranking higher in search results, AND in order to get higher in the rankings you need to apply good SEO practices to your website.
Make sense?
Let me put it this way. If you don’t apply good practices you are less likely to get picked up by Google’s SEO wizards when they are scanning the entire internet’s worth of information to provide you as a winning result. Because you didn’t care to make the effort…and well…neither does Google.
Why is SEO important?
Having a website is a necessary tool when it comes to running a digital business, there are very few instances where some businesses don’t require one, but if you are like me and are mainly online-based, then you MUST have a website. I don’t care what some guru told you. Your website is your home base. It allows you to be in control. Unlike social media accounts where you could be blocked out, hacked, or deleted from existence a website is your little bit of digital security.
AND if you want a tool that keeps on working and working AND working, then your website is that tool, combined with a healthy dose of search engine optimisation. Because it can allow organic traffic to find your zone of genius while you sleep, workout, eat, or better yet on holiday.
Let me finish with a little epiphany I had. I was putting hours into social media posts. Killing myself thinking of something witty to say, creating a click-worthy video, and constantly being on the hamster wheel of content creation. BUT if I practised simple daily SEO principles the content I create here on my website wouldn’t have a 24-hour cycle…it can literally last forever.
Yes, some initial work is required to get this tracking, but just like your social media account everything requires some initial work.
Of course, I’ve created SEO services to help other small businesses out in this area.
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