What Is SEO and Why Do You Need It?

One of the best things about the internet is that it provides us with access to an incredible amount of data. No matter what you’re interested in, lots of people will already be posting about it online – and this makes it easy to find what we’re looking for. However, things get a bit trickier if we’re the ones trying to make it easy for others to see what we’re posting about because it can get lost in the noise of millions of other websites.

This is where Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes in handy. Don’t worry – it’s not as complicated as you might think. In this post, we’ll look at what SEO is, why you need it, and how you can get started with it.

SEO: The Digital Spotlight Your Website Needs

Being connected to other people is a great thing and is certainly something the internet helps us to do, with over 5 billion of us now using it. However, what this means is that it has become increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd.

Let’s say you own an online clothing shop. Now, imagine how many other similar businesses are competing to be seen by potential customers.

How do you make sure people can find you?

The answer is SEO.

SEO works like a digital spotlight that makes your website stand out to people who would be interested in what you have to offer.

The Importance of SEO

Let’s Talk About Keywords and Phrases

One of the most important aspects of SEO is keywords and phrases. These are the words you type into search engines to find what you’re looking for.

For example, let’s loop back to our online clothing shop. Potential visitors might type the keywords “waterproof coat” into Google when they want to buy – you guessed it – a waterproof coat. By understanding this, you can make sure to add relevant keywords to your content. There’s no point in sending the above individual to a shop that sells leaky coats.

What Are Search Engines Thinking?

What is the purpose of a search engine? It’s simple – to give users the most relevant and useful information possible based on what they searched for.

What do we mean by this? Well, we’re talking about important things to do with any website you might visit, like content relevancy and quality, website speed, mobile-friendliness, security, and so on.

Why You Should Care About SEO

Ultimately, if you want your website to be found by people, you need to care about SEO.

Let’s not forget just how many other similar websites you’re competing with. Just think about it – how many times do you visit page 2 of Google’s search results, for example? Rarely, if ever, is the likeliest answer.

Therefore, to make sure your website is found by the right people, you need to use SEO to help it rank as highly as possible.

Getting Started with SEO

SEO might seem complicated, but there are some easy ways to get started. For example, you should ensure you’re including relevant keywords in your high-quality content, and that your website is both user-friendly and mobile-optimised. Once you’ve done that, you can look at some of the more specialised strategies.

About the author

When not working on SEO, Matt is a keen songwriter and musician who plays guitar, bass, drums and sings… and can even be found on Spotify. He also loves to travel, collect vinyl and watch good quality TV (ala Breaking Bad).