What is Search Engine Optimization and How Does it Work?

So you have a small business, which is something to be incredibly proud of in today’s economy. Hopefully, you’ve set up a website with information about your unique product or service – but what’s next? Optimizing your website so new potential customers can find you, of course!

Making sure your website is easily searchable is essential in today’s heavily saturated online economy. About fifty percent of internet traffic originates from “organic searches,” or people just typing something into their search bar. Google dominates this group of people, with about seventy percent of organic searches happening on Google.com. Optimizing your website so Google.com, or any search engine, can find your content can improve your website’s overall success and discoverability. It’s true you can pay for ads, but you can also take advantage of the organic half of internet traffic and implement Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO. 

So how does it work? Search engine algorithms rank your content using many different factors (Google uses over 200 factors). Many are outside your control, like domain age. If you just started your business, your website is bound to be new, so focus on factors you can control such as website usability, page speed, publishing frequency, grammar, and spelling errors. Beyond that, the important factor “relevancy” can be influenced with the right “keywords” and “domain authority” can be established through “backlinks.” Both will help your searchability. 

What is “relevancy” in this context? Relevancy is how words on your website align with phrases people search. These phrases are called “organic keywords.” One example would be: how to cook eggs… If you titled your blog article, “How to Cook Eggs,” your webpage should come up in this search… but it may be on the tenth page of results, which no one ever scrolls to. That’s why digging a little deeper helps find the right words, which are not necessarily the first that come to mind. What if “how to scramble eggs” was searched one thousand times more in volume? You may not have predicted that. To more impactfully improve rankings, it’s best to target keywords with a reasonable volume for which you rank 1-21 for search results, or as close to that as possible. Ranking 1-21 puts you on the first two pages of search results. (It’s estimated that only about 25% of searchers even scroll past one page of results.) When targeting 1-21, you can try and improve with more specific keywords and maybe get on page one. If you can land on the first page of search results for a keyword with significant volume, your web page traffic will most definitely increase. 

Where do you find these rankings? Search Engine Optimization tools. If you have the budget, SEO experts can help find the most effective keywords to use in titles, subtitles, and H1 copy as well as website analytics; however, if you can’t afford to pay for SEO, you can still make some tweaks. Start by finding some keywords. Check your own website’s analytics (see list of free tools below). If you’re selling “organic soy candles,” enter that phrase into a keyword tool and you’ll find “organic candles, organic soy wax, organic candle wax, organic scented candles, organic wax melts, and organic coconut wax” are all related keywords with significant volume that, when incorporated into your titles, subtitles, and H1 copy, can help customers find your product. With a few tweaks and attention, you can see more traffic on your site in no time.

Check out these tools to find keywords, website analytics, and competitor information. Many of them are free, or have free trial periods you can take advantage of to do some initial research. 

www.spyfu.com – competitor’s keyword / SEO info.

Keywords Everywhere (Google Extension) – No monthly subscriptions. Pay as you go.

SEMrush.com – Do SEO, content marketing, competitor research, PPC and social media marketing from just one platform.

Majestic – Find out who links to your website.

SimilarWeb Chrome Extension – Free version available. Explore a limited version of Similarweb Research Intelligence to develop your digital strategy.

Clever Ads Keyword Planner (Chrome extension) – Generate and choose the perfect Google Keywords for your Google Ads campaigns with Clever Ads Google Keyword Tool Extension

Word Stream – free keyword tool – Discover and export new keywords and performance data to help you succeed in Google Ads and Bing Ads

Google Ads Keyword Planner – Only pay for results, like clicks to your website or calls to your business.

Moz.com – Try the best free SEO tools for link building and analysis, keyword research, webpage performance, local listing audits, and more!

https://neontools.io/ – Essential tools for your online business in one place. For free, including: Micro landing pages, trackable short links, hashtag analysis, etc. 

https://phantombuster.com/ – Chain actions and data extraction on the web to generate business leads, marketing audiences and overall growth. Phantombuster gives you the tools and know-how to grow your business faster. Free trial available.

Keywords can also be used in social media. Have you ever noticed Alt Tag in the lower right-hand corner of your IG draft image? If not, you’ve been missing out on adding keywords, known here as tags! Algorithms can’t see your picture, so the Alt Tags allow the algorithm to “see” the picture through your description. This is especially important since Instagram now recommends no more than 5 hashtags. Alt Tags give you a chance to be found with highly searched phrases.

Keywords can also be used in Local SEO. Often, search engines present “local results” on the right-hand side of the screen. These results are separated and filtered for the searcher’s location. Google Local Listings and other business listings such as Yellowpages.com can increase your ranking. To take advantage of this, search your business. Claim your local listings. Update the address, hours, and other information. Add photos with searchable, SEO-optimized titles like soycandlewax.pdf (rather than image43.pdf). You can “geotag” your photos, so Google can understand the location associated with the picture. If you have more than one location, you can use the Google Business Profile Help Page to make sure everything is accurate. If you’re wondering what geo-tagging even is, there is a free site you can use to add location coordinates to your image.  

GeoImgr is a simple web tool for geotagging photos and has a free option available.

Once you get the hang of keywords, inserting them in product descriptions will become natural. In general, some key places to use keywords are: 

• URL
• Title, Subheadings, and H1 tags in website copy as well as the first sentence, or at least the first paragraph, of any article or blog
• Image file names (ex: quinceñeradress.jpg, homemadetamales.jpg)
• Meta descriptions (the short 160 character text that appears below the page title and URL in the search results)
• Alt Tags
• Titles for links from your page to related content.

Now, after working on your keyword relevancy, you’ll want to see if you can boost your “domain authority.” This is another factor the algorithm looks at to understand if your site is trustworthy. This is done through “backlinks,” or other websites linking back to your site. If your product is reviewed, make sure the reviewer links directly to your website in their post. Have your friends pin your site on Pinterest. If there are articles promoting your brand, make sure they link directly to your site. This will help you show up higher in searches. 

The takeaway: you can make small tweaks to improve website traffic. To increase searchability, use keywords, backlinks, properly-labeled images, and up-to-date location information. Help customers find what they are looking for: You!