If you own a business, you have probably heard of the term “search engine optimization” or its acronym “SEO.” Maybe you don’t know much about search engine marketing (also known as digital marketing), but you probably know it’s important for businesses to succeed today. As a beginner, you may feel overwhelmed because there’s so much to learn. Don’t panic. Understanding SEO may be easier than you think. To make it simpler, the team at HiRise Digital has created this helpful guide to introduce the most important elements of digital marketing. And when you need a marketing company to help improve your efforts, contact our team for search engine marketing in Delray Beach.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is SEO?

SEO, also you may already know, stands for search engine optimization. These are digital marketing practices that can help your website rank higher on search engine ranking pages, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. organically. Or, in other words, without spending a cent. Without a strong SEO marketing strategy, it will be difficult (if not impossible) for your business to succeed online.

How do Search Engines Work?

Search engines are a key player in your digital marketing efforts. They essentially evaluate the authority, credibility, reliability, and relatability of your website to determine where to rank your website on its pages. It performs three key functions to achieve this:

  • Crawl the internet for content and look at the code of each page they find.
  • Index, which also means storing content that was found after they crawled the internet. Once your page is indexed, it has the potential to be displayed when a user types in a relatable search query.
  • Rank the content that provides the best answer to the user’s search query. In other words, if your content isn’t relevant or is less relevant than other sites, your site will not get ranked as well.

What are Keywords and Why are They Important?

When you type a query into a search engine, those words are keywords. It tells the search engine what you are looking for. Likewise, when someone searches for a vegan brownie and you are a café that sells vegan baked goods (brownies included), it would benefit you to use “began brownie” as a keyword. Keywords can be short, such as “government programs” or they can be longer phrases, such as “government programs for the unemployed.” The latter is also known as “long-term keywords” and they are more lucrative to use, especially if you are an SEO beginner. They are less competitive, and they tend to have higher conversion rates.

So, why are they important? You may have already guessed the answer: keywords can help your website appear on search engines after someone has typed in a relatable query. As a result, keyword research should be an important part of your marketing strategy.

On-Site Optimization

There are many ways to optimize to produce high website traffic and conversions. One such method is on-site optimization. This is when individuals optimize their websites. Off-site SEO is when you optimize and post links on other sites, which point to your website. Some examples of on-site SEO include the creation of:

  • Meta descriptions
  • Title Tags
  • Keywords
  • Meta tags
  • Website structure
  • Interlinking
  • Blogging

Link Building

Most companies that perform SEO place part of their efforts into link building. So, what is it? Essentially, link building is when a business owner reaches out to an authoritative website (preferably within the same field) to add a link on their site to the business owner’s website. This is how companies acquire backlinks that point to their site. In addition to this, it creates brand awareness, as more individuals are now aware of your website/business. As a result, this tactic can create conversions and should not be neglected in your digital marketing strategies.

Contact HiRise Digital

These are just a few marketing strategies beginners can implement, but we consider them to be a few of the most important. We would recommend all business owners who have a website perform SEO in the beginning and get an understanding of its strategies. However, after that, we recommend contacting a professional third-party company to implement the more difficult/technical aspects of SEO. If you are performing search engine marketing in Delray Beach, look no further than HiRise Digital. With years of experience and a passionate team, we can help your website rank at the top of the most popular search engines. Contact us or call (561) 346-9781 to get started.