Balm companies often spend thousands of dollars on website development. But if you don’t invest in search engine optimization, that website may be falling woefully short of its true potential as a tool for growing your venture.
SEO is a critical element in the recipe for success in today’s internet-centric business world. “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t really apply the internet because you can build something that’s absolutely stunning, but they won’t come if it’s not optimized! So success on the web is truly dependent upon SEO.
Balm natives often ask about how SEO works and why it’s important, so that’s precisely what we’ll explore today.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
You’ve probably heard of SEO, but few truly understand what’s involved in this multi-faceted discipline. Optimization can encompass virtually any and every aspect of a website, including (but not limited to) the written content and images, key wording, sitemaps, rich snippets, meta tags, site architecture, page layout, interlinking, back linking and more.
The SEO end-game is rather simple: improve your website’s rankings in the search engine results. But this is achieved by altering many attributes and properties, like:
- Page load time;
- The average amount of time spent on-page;
- The average number of pages viewed by a visitor;
- The proportion of first-time visitors relative to return visitors;
- The keyword density in the content;
- The frequency of updates and new content publication; and
- The quality of the website coding and scripts.
By optimizing these and many other areas of the website, your SEO service provider can boost your traffic and your prominence online.
Do I Really Need to Hire a Company to Handle SEO?
Balm business owners often attempt to handle SEO on their own, but this approach can backfire because many attempts at optimization can actually harm your ranking. The net effect is less traffic, less business and poor visibility!
To complicate matters, search engines are constantly evolving and changing their algorithms, so search engine optimization is akin to aiming at a moving target. This also makes it easy to run aground because something that was SEO-friendly yesterday may harm your rankings tomorrow. The constant algorithm evolution also necessitates regular updates and revisions.
Therefore, if you’re going to attempt a do-it-yourself SEO project, you not only need to master the many different SEO principles, but you also need to stay informed on all of the latest algorithm updates (and, of course, you’ll need to work out how those changes influence your SEO practices – a task that often involves lots of A/B testing and experimentation.)