How Do I Use SEO for My Business?

Running a small business contains many facets from hiring to inventory to branding. Making sure your business is visible online will make your hard work count.

Not sure where to begin with online marketing? We’ve answered the most common questions about search engine marketing and search engine optimization.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the process of developing and writing your website or web page to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords or phrases. The focus of SEO is to drive organic traffic from search engines to your website whenever people search for topics related to your business.

What Are Some Common SEO Techniques?

Improving your SEO begins with conducting keyword research, on-page optimization (such as optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, and content), link building, and technical optimization (such as improving site speed and mobile responsiveness).

This process should continue regularly to ensure your content is reaching new searchers. Schedule an annual website audit with your marketing team to make sure you’re capitalizing on people searching for your product type.

What is SEM?

Search engine marketing (SEM) encompasses all paid advertising efforts to improve your website's visibility in search engine results pages. When users type certain keywords related to your business in a search, your business appears as a result to that search.

What Are Some Common SEM Techniques?

The SEM technique that works best for you depends on your goals and business objectives.

What funds do you have to spend on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, display advertising, cost-per-impression, search ads, product listing ads, local SEM, and retargeting?

How Does SEO Differ From SEM?

SEO and SEM differ in that SEO is focused on optimizing a website to rank higher in organic search results without an advertising cost, while SEM involves paid advertising to improve your website's visibility in search engine results pages.

Can SEO And SEM Be Used Together?

SEO and SEM can be used together as part of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy to achieve greater visibility and attract more traffic to your website. You can also use them to target the same keywords, which enhances your search engine presence.

How Long Does it Take To See Results From SEO And SEM?

The time it takes to see results can vary depending on a variety of factors, such as the competitiveness of the industry and the specific tactics being used. Generally, SEO results can take several months to a year or more to generate robust results, while SEM results can be seen immediately after launching a paid campaign.

How Much Do SEO And SEM Cost?

The cost of SEO and SEM can vary widely depending on factors such as the project’s scale, industry competition, and the chosen strategies. You can do SEO yourself or hire an agency, with costs ranging from a few hundred dollars per month to several thousand. SEM costs are typically based on a pay-per-click (PPC) model, with costs that vary based on the specific keywords being targeted and the level of competition for those keywords.

What Are The Different Parts Of a Website?

Keywords

Keywords are the words or phrases that people use when searching for information online. In SEO and SEM, keywords are used to improve the ranking of a website or to create relevant ads for a particular audience. They can be used in your content, URL, title tags, meta description, page title, subheadings, and image alt attributes.

Meta Description

A meta description is an HTML tag that provides a summary of your web page’s content. It appears in search engine results pages under the page title and URL and can influence whether someone clicks on the link. They need to be descriptive enough to get the reader’s attention, but not too long, ideally no longer than 160 characters.

Title Tag

A title tag is an HTML tag that provides the title of a web page, which helps search engines determine what your page is about. It appears in search engine results pages as the headline for a listing and is one of the most important factors for SEO. Ideally, if you want your title tag to appear properly in search results, you want it to be 60 characters at most.

How Do I Optimize My Website?

On-page Optimization

On-page optimization refers to the process of optimizing the content and structure of your website to improve its ranking in search engine results pages. This includes using highly relevant, quality content, using keywords in your title tags, meta descriptions, and ensuring your website has a high level of authority, credibility, and trustworthiness.

Off-page Optimization

Off-page optimization is an important part of SEO that involves improving your website's ranking in search engine results pages through external factors such as backlinks from authoritative sites, social media marketing, guest posting, and influencer outreach. The purpose of off-page optimization is to build your authority to drive more traffic to your website, which will improve your search rankings.

Backlinks

Links that appear on other websites and lead back to a page on your website are backlinks (they are also known as inbound links). Backlinks from websites that are viewed as highly credible and trustworthy can help your website rank higher in search results. They play a large role in organic search traffic because they indicate that other websites and therefore other users view your content as valuable.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the text that is visible and clickable in a hyperlink and is often underlined or in a different font color to make it stand out. It is important in SEO, as it can provide context to search engines about the content on a linked page. Best practices for anchor text include using relevant and descriptive words to help with SEO.

Landing Page

A landing page is a standalone web page that is specifically designed to convert visitors into leads or customers. Visitors to your website “land” on the page when they click through from a different digital source, such as an email. The purpose of the landing page is to fulfill a short-term goal for a specific target audience, as opposed to a home page, which just gives the general overview of your business.

Conversion Rate

A conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form. It’s calculated by taking the number of people who take the desired action, dividing that by the overall audience size, and multiplying by 100 to give you a percentage. The higher your conversion rate, the more people are completing your goal.

What is Social Media Advertising?

Social media advertising is a form of digital advertising that targets users on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. It involves creating and displaying ads to users based on their interests, behaviors, demographics, and other factors.

What Are The Benefits of Social Media Advertising?

Social media advertising offers many benefits, including the ability to target specific audiences, increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, obtain insights into your customers, develop loyal fans, drive business partnerships and increase sales. Social media advertising can also be highly cost-effective.

What Are Some Common Types of Social Media Ads?

Some common types of social media ads include static image ads, video ads, stories ads, Messenger ads, carousel ads, sponsored content, and influencer partnerships. The type of ad that works best for you depends heavily on the audience you want to reach and the social media platform they use most. Ideally, you’ll have an idea of what social media platform your target market uses so you can reach them with your social media ads.

How Do Social Media Platforms Target Ads to Specific Audiences?

Social media platforms use a variety of data points to target ads to specific audiences, including user demographics, interests, behaviors, and location. For example, if a user logs recently searched for information related to buying a car, ads for new cars will be shown when that user logs into their social media.

How Much Does Social Media Advertising Cost?

The cost of social media advertising varies depending on several factors, including the platform you’re using, your specific parameters, the ad format, how long you want the ad to run, and the level of competition. Instead of looking at it as a specific dollar figure, it can be helpful to set your social media market budget as a percentage of your overall marketing budget.

How Can I Measure The Success of My Social Media Advertising Campaign?

If you’ve spent money on a social media advertising campaign, you’ll want to use metrics to determine how successful you’ve been. Such metrics include clicks, impressions, engagement, conversions, and return on investment (ROI). Social media platforms often provide analytics tools that can be used to track these metrics so you can review and optimize your campaigns accordingly. Once you have your analytics from the ad, you will want to use a digital marketing tool to build a digital marketing report showcasing the results. This will be helpful in measuring success and trends on an annual basis.

What Are Some Best Practices For Social Media Advertising?

Some best practices for social media advertising include determining your target audience and choosing the right platform to reach that audience, setting appropriate goals, using eye-catching visuals and compelling ad copy, testing various ad formats and messaging, creating highly relevant landing pages to encourage conversions, and continuously monitoring and adjusting campaigns to improve performance.

How Can I Authentically Increase My Followers?

The best way to increase your followers is to post highly relevant, eye-catching content that encourages your followers to engage by commenting on your post, sharing your content, or even visiting your website. As your followers respond to your posts, reply to them. Answer their questions, provide helpful, informative content, and share insights. Review your data to see which posts are most successful so you can continue to post engaging content.