As a business owner with a website, you have likely heard about SEO. But what exactly is SEO, and how do you apply it to your business? When it comes to websites and web marketing, one of the biggest questions business owners likely have is how does SEO work? For companies that are just starting to build their website or considering going through a redesign, search engine optimization (or SEO) can feel like an intimidating but necessary element for their online business. But it doesn’t have to be. The website design professionals at Bianca Frank Design in Anchorage, AK can help you as a business owner understand search engine optimization, what it can do for you, and how it can make your website the most effective, so it shows up at the top of search engines more often.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. The businesses with the best search engine rankings typically understand the importance of SEO optimization from top to bottom, but they didn’t always. In many cases, they turned to web marketing professionals like Bianca Frank Design to assist in the creation of more optimized websites. Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website to get organic or unpaid traffic from a search engine results page.

These organic results are those results that come from somebody entering search terms into a search field and finding your website as a result of their search. They do not come from paid or sponsored advertisements on a search engine page. To improve your optimization, it often requires making specific changes to your website design and content to make your site more attractive to a search engine. These changes are made in hopes that when someone enters a search for say, “pink pleated curtains” in a search field, your website will be displayed as a top result, thus driving more traffic to your company web page.

How Search Engines Use SEO

It might seem confusing how a website can use consumer search terms and filter through the millions of websites on the web to return adequate or correct search results. Search engines want to provide the best and most effective services for their users. Part of this means delivering results on search pages that are not only relevant to what the searcher is looking for but of high quality as well. To accomplish this end, search engines will scan different websites to understand the information on the site better.

This helps them deliver more relevant results when someone searches for something specific. Similarly, search engines will also scan sites to determine how user friendly they are in terms of navigation and readability. The more user-friendly the site is, the higher the rankings will appear on search engine result pages.

Benefits of SEO for Your Business

There are many different benefits of implementing search engine optimization for your business and your business website. By improving your SEO, you can begin to strengthen and expand your availability on various search engines consumers use to shop for products. This can help you reach and engage more potential customers. By increasing your SEO content, you will increase your chances of catching your target audience’s eye and increase your organic traffic to your website.

All of these terms and technology may sound confusing. However, improving your SEO standings is essential to getting your business recognized in your niche market on the web. Perhaps there are twenty-seven different sandwich shops in your local area. You want to make sure that your website is the first one they find when they go looking for sandwich shops. This all happens through the magic of SEO.

Factors that Impact SEO

A few different factors, both on your web page and off your web page, affect your SEO optimization rankings.

1. Content marketing

Content is necessary for both attracting search engines and helping your business make connections with potential customers. The more quality, relevant content you have on your site, the more likely search engines will be to rank your pages higher on search result pages. Also, the more engaging and compelling your content is, the more likely your visitors (and potential customers) will remain on your site and view your content.

There are several different types of content that you can focus on to help improve your site and, in turn, improve your search engine rankings. These include:

  • Blog posts and articles
  • Relevant and current social media content
  • Videos and audio recordings

Another important consideration When designing content for your website is keywords and phrases. Keywords and phrases are those that a potential website visitor may enter into a search engine when looking for answers to their questions or shopping for products and services. When you ensure your content is designed around these keywords and phrases, you improve your chances at higher SEO rankings.

2. On-Page SEO Optimization

On-page SEO elements are those things that happen on your website. These are the elements that you have complete control over, meaning that if these factors are lacking, you could improve them. A few on-page SEO factors that you can focus on to refine your search ranking include title tags, meta descriptions, subheadings, internal links, and image name or ALT tags. Interestingly, when placing your SEO keywords and phrases on your page, it is vital to avoid attempts at over-optimization.

Search engines such as Google and others will penalize your page if it attempts to use keywords too often throughout the content. Also, you want to make sure that each page only focuses on a couple of keywords. This helps ensure your content remains specific and relevant while not negatively impacting your search engine optimization.

3. Off-Page SEO Optimization

In addition to the work you can do on your page, there are also things you can do off-page to impact your ranking. Unfortunately, these are things that you do not have direct control over, but there are still ways you can improve the possibility of these factors benefiting your page. Some of these factors include social signals (such as likes and shares), links, and trust rankings. Again, these factors will not provide instant SEO ranking improvement; however, they will impact your site standings in time.

SEO and how it works to benefit your website, and your business can seem really confusing. Your search engine optimization effectiveness will be impacted by many factors, some of which you can control, some of which you can’t. It is essential to ensure your content is valuable and relevant to your intended audience. It is also necessary to remember That higher SEO rankings will not happen overnight. It may take several weeks or even several months to see the benefits of your website changes.

If your business is in the process of updating its website or creating a new website, reach out to the best web designer in Anchorage for assistance with your SEO needs. At Bianca Frank Design in Anchorage AK, our team of experts understands website marketing, and how essential Alaska SEO rankings are to secure new customers for your business. Let us work with you to ensure your website content meets your business’s needs and helps bring new and organic visitors to your website for years to come.