Why is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Important?
While running paid search campaigns is a profitable lead generation tactic, it’s healthy to have a good balance of paid versus organic results. Why? Roughly 50% of users performing a Google search won’t click on an ad.
This means that in order to catch those people who are searching for your product or service but don’t trust ads enough to click on them, you need to be showing up on that first page of search results. If you’re not optimizing your site to get there, you’re going to miss out on all that potential business.
If you’re not getting that business, odds are good that your competitors will.
of Google searches are unique
Okay, so what is SEO?
Google’s purpose is to ensure that the results they serve to their users are the most relevant answers to their queries — in other words, Google is actively trying to serve up only those search results that deserve to be there.
Search engine optimization, then, is the practice of proving to Google that your site is the most relevant, authoritative, accurate source of information to answer a user’s search query. It means taking into account that Google’s algorithm has over 200 ranking factors and optimizing your website to be the best match for those factors that it can possibly be.
Furthermore, since Google is notoriously mum on the subject of which of those ranking factors are the most important and what the best ways to optimize are, SEO involves a lot of educated guesswork and experimentation (read: trial and error) to get it right.
As if that weren’t fun enough, Google is constantly updating their algorithm. That means that you can have great rankings today, and tomorrow Google can roll out an update that will tank those rankings (or vice versa!).
The bottom line here is this: if you want to be competitive online, you must do SEO. You must do it consistently, constantly, effectively, and expertly. It takes a ton of work, and it takes time to get results.
Having the services of an experienced, reputable agency are invaluable. If you’re running a business, the odds are good that you have neither the time nor the knowledge to do this work. More importantly, an agency has the benefit of being able to focus on emerging best practices as well as comparing the effects of updates across multiple sites. Finally, an agency is likely to be able to tweak your site in reaction to updates faster than you can.
Fortunately, while Google is by far the foremost leader of search engine technology, what works for Google also tends to work for Yahoo, Bing, and others. Therefore, we focus our efforts on Google, and the rest tend to fall into place.
SEO Services From Waypost
We began seeing results within 6 months, and we're on track to double the amount of potential clients from web sources compared with the year prior to working with Waypost.
Doug and his team at Waypost are extremely professional and thorough in both the development and implementation of their recommended plans. Selecting Waypost as our marketing partner has been one of the best business decisions we've made!
—Allison Sullivan, Bluestein Attorneys
How Does Inbound Marketing Fit Into SEO?
As mentioned, Google has notoriously stayed silent on the subject of which algorithm factors are most important and what activities companies can perform in order to gain keyword rankings. However, the one thing they have said is that content is (still) king.
Content or Inbound Marketing took the world by storm several years ago, and once everyone started doing it, the efficacy of the activities decreased. The internet became flooded with content, and it grew harder and harder to stand apart.
Google, however, is standing by this practice. The way to prove to them that your site is the most relevant, authoritative, and trustworthy source of information for their users is to consistently produce fresh, original content.
Bottom line: Inbound Marketing is still a vital part of search engine optimization.
Partner With Waypost.
When you partner with Waypost, you get an agency who is committed to treating your business like it’s our own. We work in 90-day sprints to achieve measurable objectives that we’ve discussed with you ahead of time — so we know that our objectives align with yours. Monthly reporting and review meetings mean equal transparency, so you always understand what we’re doing and how we’re performing.
Click here to learn more about how we work, or give us a call at (864) 288-6162 to talk about your current digital challenges.