Navigating the business world is not always easy and requires entrepreneurs to get a firm handle on a variety of subjects. One area that this includes is marketing. This is essential because effective marketing attracts customers, builds a positive brand image and helps people understand your organisation’s unique selling points (USPs).

In the modern world, digital marketing has emerged for businesses as a valuable way of connecting with consumers. This is driven by the sheer number of people who use the internet globally to look for specific products or services via online search engines.

SEO is a digital marketing term that you might have heard about before but is one that can be confusing for non-marketers. Due to this, business leaders often turn to digital marketing agencies that specialize in SEO for help, especially when it comes to online reputation management (ORM). Atlas SEO consider this a key metric to target –as a good reputation can make or break a business– and offer proactive solutions that emphasis ethical and moral commitments made by brands. ORM is just one core technique that falls under the umbrella of digital marketing, so getting to know the basics of SEO, is still worthwhile to increase your business knowledge base – but what is there to find out about it?

What is SEO?

To really get a handle on the basics of this digital marketing technique, it’s important to first know what it covers. Standing for search engine optimisation, it refers to the process of optimising your website or blog so that it ranks higher in major search engine results. This is achieved by using various SEO techniques that help your blog or website to be viewed more favourably by major search engines such as Google.

What affects page rankings in SERPs?

Search engine results pages (SERPs for short) are the pages of results people see when they type a query into their search engine. These results are not generated randomly – the search engine actually ranks each website or blog it finds in relation to the search term. Those it ranks best appear highest in the results that are then shown on your screen.

One thing to understand is what exactly affects the way search engines rank sites. By knowing this, businesses can ensure their own site or blog ranks well when people search for them. This can be tricky, as search engines like Google are constantly refining the algorithms that are used in this process.

Common things they tend to look at, though, include relevance of content, site authority, keyword relevance, readability and how useful content is for the search term entered. It is also possible for the design of a website to impact where it might show up in SERPs.

SEO for non-marketers: how does it work?

Inspiration for entrepreneurs can often come in the form of understanding effective marketing concepts such as SEO. Although it is a general term, it’s actually comprised of a variety of individual techniques. Content marketing is one example and involves the creation or sharing of high-quality online content, which can drive further interest in a brand’s services or products.

Link building is another important SEO basic and involves gaining backlinks from high-authority websites that point to your own. This can help your own website be viewed more positively by search engines and gain a higher ranking from them in turn.

Keyword analysis is another basic SEO technique and is one that remains crucial to optimising search engine rankings. It involves placing specific keywords in content that people are more likely to search for, and can therefore help the content be seen as more relevant.

SEO can also cover techniques that optimise website design to improve how high a platform ranks online. This can include writing effective metatags for pages, optimising on-site images and ensuring that site navigation is sensibly laid out.

Why is SEO important for business?

Most organisations now have an online presence and at least a website that they use to connect with consumers. Many will, of course, also have social media accounts, website blogs and more in their digital toolbox. As noted previously, consumers now also tend to head online when hunting for services, looking for new products to buy or tracking down more information on firms.

Most people, though, still only look at the first page of the results that come up after they have entered a term in their search engine. As a result, ranking as high as possible in these results can help businesses engage more consumers, generate more leads, drive more traffic to online platforms and boost sales.

SEO for non-marketing professionals

Although SEO might seem overly complex at first glance for non-marketers, it’s a fairly simple concept to understand in a basic sense. It’s also true to say that search engine optimisation is a deep topic and one that is seen as a real art to master. For this reason, business leaders may still choose to call in digital marketing experts to help them get the most from it.