What is SEO – A Comprehensive Guide

Welcome back to Marketing on Monday, another insight about essential marketing strategies to help your business. This week, I’m explaining SEO, a complex topic that’s easy to implement when you know what you’re doing and apply resources (specifically time) to it.

An Introduction to SEO

Search Engine Optimisation, commonly referred to as SEO, is the practice of enhancing a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). This involves optimising various aspects of your website to ensure search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo, rank your site higher when users search for relevant terms.

SEO is crucial because a higher ranking typically leads to more traffic. In fact, over 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results. Thus, appearing in those top results is key for driving organic traffic, increasing brand visibility, and ultimately growing your business.

How to Improve Your SEO

Improving your SEO takes time, strategy, and constant updating. Here are some foundational steps to enhance your website’s performance and visibility:

1. Keyword Research: Identify the search terms (keywords) your target audience is using. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to find high-volume, low-competition keywords to target on your website.

2. Optimised Content: Create valuable, relevant content that addresses the needs and questions of your audience. Make sure to include keywords naturally, without overstuffing (a previous technique), and aim to solve specific problems for your readers with mini Q&As.

3. On-Page SEO: This involves optimising meta titles, meta descriptions, headers, and image alt texts with relevant keywords. Structuring your content for clarity and searchability also helps.

4. Backlinks: High-quality backlinks from trusted sites are a strong signal to search engines that your website is authoritative. Focus on creating valuable content that others want to link to, or consider outreach efforts to get backlinks from reputable sources.

5. Technical SEO: Ensure your site loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, and uses secure protocols like HTTPS. Clean code (something for your web developer), a logical URL structure, and optimised images all contribute to your website’s SEO health.

6. User Experience (UX): Google’s algorithms favour websites that provide a positive user experience. Ensure easy navigation, quick loading times, and intuitive design to keep users engaged.

Using AI in SEO

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionising how SEO is approached, particularly with the development of tools that assist in keyword research, content optimisation, and data analysis.

AI-Powered Content Creation

AI tools, such as Jasper, Chat GPT and Copy.ai, can assist in generating SEO-friendly content. These tools analyse data to predict which keywords, phrases, and topics are likely to rank well in search engines. While human oversight is still essential to maintain quality and ensure relevance, AI can significantly reduce the time spent on content creation. From my experience, you’ll still want to proof and tailor your content after AI support.

AI and Technical SEO

AI tools like Screaming Frog and SEMrush’s site audit feature can identify technical SEO issues in real-time, allowing businesses to fix problems like broken links, slow load times, or poor mobile responsiveness quickly. By using AI to automate routine checks, marketers can focus on improving their strategy rather than simply maintaining it.

What is Generative Search?

Generative search is a growing trend in search engines, where search queries return generated content rather than just a list of websites. Powered by AI, generative search provides users with direct answers to their questions by pulling data from multiple sources and synthesising it into an informative result.

For example, if a user asks, “How do I improve my SEO?”, a generative search engine would produce a summarised answer, potentially reducing the need to visit multiple websites. This impacts SEO because businesses must now ensure their content is structured in a way that AI can easily extract and present it.

Understanding User-Specific Intent

One of the keys to successful SEO is understanding the intent behind user searches. This refers to the reason someone performs a search query. There are generally four types of search intent:

1. Informational Intent: The user is looking for information (e.g., “What is SEO?”).

2. Navigational Intent: The user wants to go to a specific website (e.g., “Facebook login”).

3. Transactional Intent: The user is looking to make a purchase (e.g., “Buy iPhone 16”).

4. Commercial Investigation: The user is comparing products or services (e.g., “Best SEO tools 2024”).

By aligning your content with the user’s intent, you can provide the most relevant answers and improve your chances of ranking higher in SERPs. Creating content that meets these intents is crucial for converting organic traffic into customers.

SEO Statistics and Insights

To highlight the importance of SEO for businesses, here are a few key statistics:

- 53% of all trackable website traffic comes from organic search. This means that search engines are the largest source of web traffic, outperforming social media and paid ads.

- 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.

- Websites on the first page of Google capture at least 71% of search traffic clicks.

- The average click-through rate (CTR) for the first result on Google is 27.6%, while the second and third results fall significantly to 15.8% and 11.0% respectively.

This demonstrates the importance of effective SEO strategies. By improving your website’s ranking, you dramatically increase the likelihood of gaining traffic, leads, and conversions.

Tom Stansfield - Our Marketing: Onboarding New SEO Clients

Within our group, we’ve recently onboarded three new SEO clients in the past week. These businesses, spanning various industries, came to us looking to improve their domain authority and overall SEO scores. We’re working with them to create tailored strategies that increase their organic reach, drive web traffic, and elevate their brand’s online presence.

If you’re looking to enhance your website’s SEO, our team can help you identify the right opportunities and implement data-driven strategies that deliver measurable results.

Until the next Marketing on Monday insight, happy optimising!