SEO affects every website online, and if you own an online business, you need SEO for your website.

SEO is short for “search engine optimization.” The SEO of a website helps determine how well it will rank in Google and other search engines. In a nutshell, how high up on the results page the link to your website will be displayed for a specific search term.

Does SEO really matter for your website?

The reason why SEO is important for your website is that good SEO leads to more traffic, which can turn into more sales, more email list subscribers, more ads clicked, etc.

SEO is more important for smaller websites as they probably don’t have as much of a budget to pay for advertising. Search engine traffic is completely free.

Two types of SEO

There are two main subdivisions or areas of SEO. These are On Page SEO and Off Page SEO. Both help you rank better in search engines. But other than that, they are quite different. You will need a combination of on-page and off-page SEO for your website to rank well.

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO relates to the steps you take on your website to optimize it for SEO. This includes:

• Delighted: All the content material you post on your website that includes the keywords that people will use to search for that content will strengthen your on-page SEO. Keywords tell search engines what your content is about, which will then boost your rankings.
• URL: When you include a keyword in your URL, you optimize the on-page SEO of your website.
• Photos: The images on your website have things called alt text, which is not visible to your website visitors. You can include keywords in the alt text that will be picked up by search engines.
• Website optimization: Your website hosting and design make a difference to your SEO. Make sure your website is mobile friendly and has a fast loading speed.

SEO off page

This involves a series of steps that can improve your website’s ranking without changing anything on the site itself. It is often called link building and is a method of creating links from other websites to your website.

Backlinks are a sign of the value of your website content. The key aspect is to retrieve quantity website links. Also, sharing links to your website from social media will increase your site’s ranking in search engines because search engines see social media links as backlinks.