Business owners and marketers often throw about the term without understanding what it is and its importance. But what are the benefits and is it important to small businesses in Northern Ireland? In this article, we will discuss what it is, who needs it, and how it works.
What does SEO actually mean?
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimisation and although short, it can make a massive difference to online conversion rates and your digital marketing strategy as a whole.
As a generalisation, SEO is the process of tweaking your web design in order to make it appear higher in search engine results. By optimising your content in this way you can increase your business’s visibility online in organic, unpaid search results on Google and other search engines.
How does it work?
As a general overview, search engines “crawl” your website, assess the design and quality of its content to determine what the topic of each page is. They then rank each page in order of relevancy and user-friendliness. This is the order in which pages appear in search results when someone types in what they are looking for.
By improving your website’s SEO, you are working to make it easier for search engines to understand your content and show it to the right people. This means you are more likely to get people who are genuinely interested in your product or service to visit your website and get in touch with you.
An example of this working on a local scale is the work we did for Portadown Tiles & Bathrooms. They rank #1 on Google for “bathroom tiles Portadown” due to the quality of the content on their website, the name of their business, and the user-friendliness of their website.
By identifying the keywords your website should be ranking for, you can change your web design and content to display the correct type of content. This process can be done at the initial launch of your website, but in order to be truly successful, it needs to be a continuous effort.
Google constantly changes the ranking criteria for its search results and if you want to stay on the first page or get there in the first place, you need to invest in a quality SEO strategy. This will involve weekly or monthly changes to your website content and design to ensure it stays in line with the ranking criteria. Complimented by a good social media strategy, you can massively increase the traffic to your website.
What is a SERP ranking?
Now that you know what SEO is and how it works, you might want to know some other relevant terms and what they mean. Another piece of SEO jargon is SERP ranking. The most common question we get asked about SERP ranking is “what is it?”
SERP stands for search engine results page ranking. In layman's terms, your website's SERP ranking is where it ranks on search engine results pages. Improving your SEO has a direct effect on your SERP ranking and the higher your ranking, the more likely you are to be discovered by potential customers online.
In general, most people don’t look page the first page of Google, and a lot don’t even look past the top three results. It is therefore super important to make sure your website has a high SERP ranking to make sure the right people are seeing your products and services.
How can I improve my SEO?
There are a number of factors that contribute to good SEO. Google uses very sophisticated algorithms to determine where your page should rank in its search engine results, however, it is possible to influence your rankings to a reasonable level by doing the following things.
Improve the quality of your content
One of the best ways to improve your ranking is to improve the quality of your content. Attempt to create unique content that is engaging and substantial. Have a look at the content on the top-ranking pages to get an idea of the quality you should aim for.
It is true that in Northern Ireland there may not be a good example for the search term you are looking for, even in Belfast. Why not have a look at what websites based in London are doing and try and make your content as high quality as theirs. This will mean you are much more likely to rank above your local competitors.
Do detailed keyword research
Another extremely important element in SEO improvement is to identify the relevant keywords your website should be ranking for. These often are not the keywords that come to mind immediately or even the ones you think you should be ranking for. You can use tools like Neil Patel's UberSuggest or Google Search Console to identify the terms people are searching for.
You can then create your content or modify your meta tags to reflect these keywords which will improve your ranking pretty quickly.
Ensure your website is mobile friendly
Google recently changed its search ranking algorithms to heavily favour websites that are mobile-friendly. over 50% of all website traffic is now on mobile devices and this figure is ever increasing. It is important that your content is easy to consume on phones.
This doesn’t just mean that your website needs to simply restructure for phones, although this definitely helps. The way people browse websites on mobile devices is entirely different and these differences need to be taken into account.
What negatively affects SEO and SERP ranking?
There are several things that can negatively affect your website’s SEO. If your content is not unique, too short, or isn’t specific this can lead to Google ranking it very poorly. A lot of businesses in Northern Ireland do not realise the importance of SEO and put in very little effort to try to get things done quickly. This is a recipe for failure.
Another common mistake is to cram your content full of keywords. You may think that having keywords splattered throughout your page at every opportunity would help, but Google knows what you are doing and will punish you with a low ranking.
These are just some go the negative factors that may result in a lower ranking. The best way to make sure you follow the best practices or have someone who knows what they are doing handle your SEO for you.
Is SEO important for businesses in Northern Ireland?
Now that you know a bit more about SEO and how it works, you might be thinking how relevant is this to my business? Especially locally.
It doesn’t matter how big, small, local or international your business is, SEO has huge potential to improve sales and website traffic. You might not think it, but there are thousands of people in Northern Ireland looking for what you are selling every day online. If you aren’t ranking for the search terms they are using then you are missing out on that potential sale, even if your website isn't an eCommerce website.
For most customers nowadays, a buyer’s journey starts on a search engine like Google. They search for something they are looking for, see who comes up top, and click the link. If your business shows up first, then providing your web design is good and they enjoy their experience on your website, they might either contact you or purchase something. Think about how valuable to your business being able to convert all of these people is. It can add literally thousands of pounds to your revenue.
It is important to think about the experience people have on your website once they have found it on Google. It is fantastic being top on Google and all of these people finding your page, but if they aren’t enjoying what your website looks like and how it operates then they aren’t going to buy anything from you. The impression you give these customers is the first impression that potential customer has of your business. You need to make sure they are impressed with what they see.
If you need help with your SEO, content creation, or web design, why not send us a message or give us a call. We are happy to give some no-obligation advice and if there is something we can do for you we would be delighted to help.
