Out of the top ten most visited websites in Australia, search engines like Google.com.au, Google.com, and Yahoo.com respectively hold the first, third, and tenth position in the list. When analysing traffic sources for the top finance and banking websites in Australia, search engines and referral sites drive more visitors than social media, email, and display advertising combined. This makes search engine optimisation (SEO) the most valuable part of any business's online marketing strategy. In this post, we're going to give you a brief introduction to SEO and why it is important for your business.
What is SEO
SEO is the process by which websites gain visibility in search engines. Any SEO campaign aims to help a website rank well in search engine results for the keywords that their target audience searches for to find them.
For example, a banking website will want to rank as high as possible on the first page of search engine results for keywords such as online banking, personal loans, bank accounts, and related phrases. To do this, they must utilise tactics that will optimise their website for these keywords. Most SEO tactics boil down to making sure each page of your website focuses on specific keywords and that other websites link to yours as a trusted source.
How SEO Has Changed
SEO tactics have been utilised by marketers, webmasters, and business owners since the late 1990s. Over the years, search engines have amended the guidelines and rules everyone must follow to optimise a website for search properly.
When considering tactics for SEO, it's important to note that search engines strive to provide the best possible results for their users. Hence, search engines are constantly improving their algorithms to weed out websites that do not provide the best information or experience for searchers.
Why is SEO Important for Your Business
SEO can help your business's inbound marketing strategy in a number of ways. For starters, 94% of people in Australia use the internet, 55% of which research their purchases of products and services online before making online and offline purchases. As mentioned in the introduction, three out of the top ten most visited websites in Australia are search engines.
Attract More Customers Through Inbound Marketing
Hence, it's safe to assume that search engines are a vital player in the first stage of a customer's inbound marketing journey - the attraction stage. This is the stage at which customers first become aware of a business's product or service. The more keywords your website ranks for in search, and the higher your website ranks in search engines results for those keywords; the more likely potential customers will discover your business when researching the types of products or services your business has to offer.
Get to Know Your Customers
Various SEO tactics can help improve your overall marketing strategy. Keyword research, the process by which you discover the top keywords searched for by your ideal customers, will help you get to know the terms your customers use to find your website, products, and services.
These terms should be incorporated into your website, social media profiles, business directory listings, emails, and any other online presence for your business to ensure that your ideal customers can find your business anywhere on the web. Reinforcing the same terms throughout your entire online marketing will also build your customer's confidence as they proceed through the inbound marketing journey.
Increase Search Engine and Referral Traffic
Another key SEO tactic used to help increase your website's visibility in search is link building, the process by which your website acquires links from other websites. When link building, you create links from external websites to yours (such as adding a link to your website to your Facebook Page) or request that website owners and content authors link to a specific page on your website when mentioning your business, products, and services on a web page or in a blog post.
Link building simultaneously helps you increase your rankings in search engine results as well as increase the amount of referral traffic you receive directly from the visitors of websites from which you have acquired links. This is crucial as you will need immediate sources of traffic for your website while you are building your organic (unpaid) traffic from search engines.
Conclusion
SEO should be one of the main focuses in any business's digital marketing to increase organic traffic to your website. If you're ready to optimise your website for search, attract more qualified visitors, and grow your customers, get a free SEO audit by our experienced search engine marketing specialists today!