Does Search Engine Optimisation Actually Work?

Many times, when someone wants an answer to a question, they simply pull up Google and type it in. The internet has increased the flow of information and allowed us to know things in seconds.

The internet is also ideal for finding products and services. If you live in Corby and need new floor tiles for your bathroom, you may type something like “Corby tile shop” into the search bar.

The top results are the ones that you’re going to click on. If you own a tile shop in Corby, you want your business to be one of the first to pop up on Google and other search engines. This process is called search engine optimisation or SEO.

In this article, we’ll cover what search engine optimisation is, how it works, and some of the benefits of implementing it for your company’s website.

What Is Search Engine Optimisation?

Put simply, search engine optimisation is a digital marketing strategy that aims to improve your company’s website’s position in various search engines like Google. This may seem like a simple task, but there are many contributing factors to appearing on Google’s first page.

Search engines use several different factors to rank search results, and Google is known to use over 200. The SEO process takes these factors into account to improve your business’s ranking.

It’s worth noting that SEO focuses on free and organic search results in various search engines. You can pay to have your company’s website appear at the top of search results, but Google usually notes this. Many people skip right over the paid ad results. The ultimate aim of SEO is to get your website seen by as many people as possible. There are several ways to do that, which we’ll cover in the next section.

How Search Engine Optimisation Works

Search engines are algorithmically programmed search bots. They identify relevant information from all the websites on the internet, gather it up, and sort it. The process of finding relevant websites is known as crawling. When a search engine “crawls,” it uses links on pages to find and re-find various content.

Then, the search bots index the results. Indexing is the process of a search engine storing the content it discovered on the web and spitting it back out in the form of search results.

When crawling, the search bots evaluate the quality of the search results by using the algorithm that they were programmed to use. Search bots take the following factors into account:

• Keywords (Does the content use words and phrases relevant to what internet users actually search for?)
• Length of text (Is the content long enough to be thorough without being unnecessarily verbose?)
• Backlinks (Does the content site reliable sources of information?)
• Site quality (Does the website contain a wealth of valuable pages?)
• Speed (Does the website load quickly)
• Mobile-friendliness (Can the website be easily used on a smartphone browser?)

Search bots can typically only see text, so any images that you have on your website likely won’t contribute to your search ranking one way or another.

Search engines do distinguish between header tags, meta titles, and regular text. Thus, using keywords in headers and meta titles is one way to increase your search engine rankings. If this all seems very complicated, that’s okay! You can hire a digital marketing firm to improve your company website’s search engine rankings.

But, before you do that, you probably want to know some of the benefits of search engine optimisation. We’ll cover those below.

Benefits of Search Engine Optimisation

With everyone and everything being so online these days, it’s imperative that your company has an impactful internet footprint. Search engine optimisation is a terrific way to achieve that. Even so, you may be wondering, what are some of the benefits of search optimisation? We’ll cover some of them in this section.

Reaches More Potential Customers

The great thing about search engine optimisation is that it is targeted toward people who are already interested in your product or service. Someone who’s looking for silicone sealant will likely type that into the search bar. If you’ve invested in search engine optimisation, potential customers are more likely to find your product.

If they’re more likely to find your product, they’re more likely to purchase it. SEO is a new and significant way to digitally market your business.

Cost Effective

When it comes to search engine optimisation, you could pay to have your company’s results always come out on top, but that can get expensive. You could also try to improve your search results on your own for free, but you might not be able to achieve the desired results in a time-efficient manner.

What you can do is hire a digital media company to improve your company’s search results. This is a happy medium between paying outright for search results and trying to optimise them yourself. The return on investment (ROI) is much better if you let someone else handle your organic SEO for you.

Lends Credibility

Part of a search engine’s ranking is based on credibility. If the search engine trusts your site, then it is more likely to rank it higher. It also looks good to potential customers and they may deem your business more trustworthy.

Ranking highly on Google searches is the digital equivalent of having a well-manicured storefront. In this metaphor, the customer interacting with your website is akin to them walking in the door.

Bolsters Content Marketing

There’s a new form of internet marketing that’s risen to prominence in the past few years: content marketing. Content marketing, which can often take the form of topical blog posts, is a great way to incorporate keywords into your company’s website. It can also lend a helping hand to your potential customers.

An example of content marketing could be a blog post titled “Tips for Proper Headlight Maintenance.” This could link to a blog on an auto body shop’s website. A customer may have been searching for ways to maintain their headlights. However, they may now choose to go to the auto body shop that contained the article if they can’t fix the problem themselves.

Keeps Your Business Competitive

If you own a business, you understand how important it is to monitor and outpace the competition. Your company may end up lower in the search rankings than some of your competitors, if this happens then you may lose business to your competitors, and if your company isn’t ranking at all, you could be missing out on potential customers entirely.

However, with the right strategy, your company could be ranked at or near the top of your industry’s relevant search results. This will make your business one of the first that potential customers see upon searching for a product or service.

Can Improve Your Local Footprint

If you own a physical storefront, you’ll want to reach customers in your area so they can purchase your service or walk in and buy your product. Localised search engine results are an excellent way to achieve this. You can achieve better search results by registering a My Business account on Google and by incorporating the name of the city into your keyword profile.

If you’re a wedding planner in Leeds, it makes more sense to use “Leicester wedding planner” as a keyword as opposed to “wedding planner.” Digital marketing companies can help you rank higher with your keywords and help you find localised search terms that work for your company.

Boosts Engagement

The goal of a company website is to make users aware of your service or product. You want them to click on your website and you want them to stay there as long as possible. If they engage with the content, that’s even better. The potential customer may begin to feel a connection to your company’s brand.

This increases the likelihood that they’ll become a future and repeat customer. Having relevant keywords embedded in quality content on your website can do wonders for your company’s engagement.

Can Provide Measurable Results

With many advertising strategies, you won’t know exactly how effective they are or who they brought into the store. One of the nice things about search engine optimisation is that you can see the numbers behind the results you’re getting.

If you would like to know where your website ranks, what kind of traffic it’s getting, and how many customers are making purchases directly from your website, you’ll be able to see that.

Digital media companies can analyse your data and help you emphasise keyword strategies that are working. They can also help you to change course if you’re not seeing the results you would like.

You’ll also be able to see your return on investment at a granular level. When it comes to your business, it’s better to have the most information you can and search engine optimisation provides you with actionable data that you can use.

A Digital Marketing Solution

Search engine optimisation is not only the future of marketing, it’s the present. For all of the reasons listed above and more, your company would greatly benefit from search engine optimisation.

If you want SEO services for your company, contact us at Wots The Big Idea. We’re an international digital marketing company that has worked with companies like Dolce & Gabbana, WD-40, FreshPet, and 3-In-One.