Things you Might Have Wondered About SEO (but been too scared to ask)

Do you find the world of SEO confusing?

Is the jargon and tactics enough to make your head spin?

I realise that there is a lot of industry terminology that makes perfect sense for us but can be difficult to get your head around when you’re just a business owner trying to make your website better, and for that I apologise.

It’s my mission to make what I do as transparent as possible and so I want to get back down to the real basics of SEO and help you understand what you really need to know.

So, here are 9 things you’ve probably pondered about SEO but been too afraid to ask (maybe).

What does SEO stand for?

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. The act of optimising your website to make it able to meet search engine standards for ranking highly in search results.

Essentially, it’s about ensuring the content and design of your website creates a positive user experience for your target audience so Google knows you provide the information/experience its searchers are looking for.

Who needs SEO?

Any business owner hoping to attract people using Google to search for their product or service.

It really is that simple. If you have a website, then you’re hoping your dream customers will land on it, check out what you do and make the decision to buy. Although you can promote your website through social media, most people don’t start their buying journey there.

Let’s take insomnia as an example. A search for “causes of insomnia” is often the start of the journey where figuring out the “pain point” (their cause) leads to a search for the solution and to a website that sells a product or service that can help, such as a weighted blanket, or counselling.

If you want them to end up on your website, and buy your solution, you need SEO.

Who does SEO?

SEO is about changing your website and the content it holds to make it more appealing to Google (and other search engines) in terms of meeting their standards for search rankings. A number of different professionals might directly or indirectly be involved with making these changes:

SEO consultant (might be called an SEO strategist) will advise you on the changes you need to make to website to rank higher on search engines. They may (I do) implement those changes for you or just create a strategy for yourself or others to use.

Web developer can tweak your website coding/design for better technical performance. Most web developers won’t perform SEO themselves but implement suggestions from an SEO consultant or outsource to a trusted partner.

A copywriter will create the copy for the pages of your website (some may write blog content too, or it may be a content writer that does that). Not every copywriter specialises in SEO and may request a strategy from you/your SEO partner to use for guidance.

A virtual assistant might help you take care of some of the most time-consuming aspects of SEO that don’t require a specialist, such as image optimisation by compressing images and creating simple alt text tags, or uploading blogs regularly to your website.

An SEO agency is usually a team made up of the above professionals who work together to create and implement an SEO strategy.

What do SEO experts do?

Using the information from the audit, an SEO strategy is created to fix problems, correct mistakes and implement improvements. This might be improving site speed, editing existing copy and/or creating new content, on-page optimisation, site structure changes… there are many things that can be done for SEO.

Once a website is “up to standard”, an SEO expert will monitor incoming traffic and make additional tweaks to improve things further, or as Google algorithms change.

How do SEO keywords work?

A keyword is essentially the search term entered into Google to find what you do, such as

• “insomnia”
• “causes of insomnia”
• “weighted blanket for insomnia”

By having relevant search terms in your website copy and content (and other digital marketing materials), you’re improving your chances of being found by your dream clients.

That doesn’t mean putting insomnia a thousand times into your written content will do the trick, that’ll see you penalised for keyword stuffing. Google is cleverer than that and recognises the context of your content, so anything around sleep difficulties and solutions will be used to understand the bigger picture of what you offer.

I prefer to think of keywords as the focus for each page/piece of content. By having one search query in mind as you create/tweak that page/post, you’re ensuring it’s fully optimised and performing better than trying to fit every keyword you think your target audience are using.

To find out more about keywords and how they work, have a read of my blog ‘Why keywords aren’t just for SEO (and how to use them in your other marketing)‘

Why does SEO take time?

Then there’s the time it takes for Google to notice the changes, assess against their algorithms and rank accordingly. Google isn’t constantly scanning your website for changes. Some websites may get looked at once a week, others might be once a month (especially if you don’t update or blog regularly).

Those who work in SEO often talk about the “snowball effect”. Small, simple actions form the snowball that sets it rolling along a bumpy hill. Gradually, it picks up pace and gets bigger and bigger until the big breakthrough changes happen. How long that might take for you will be determined by your business, your website, your competition and the changes you implement.

 Can SEO be free?

One of the biggest concerns about search engine optimisation is the potential cost and I’m often asked if things can be done for free or at a reduced cost.

Yes, SEO can be done for free and you, yourself can do it for no cost.

The potential problem with that is knowing if you’re doing it right. Google changes its algorithms often with several major updates each year. A year old article could now be giving you bad advice.

One of the reasons search engine optimisation can be expensive is that you’re paying for the expertise, skill, but also time it takes to get a website up to speed. Fixing technical issues, getting on-page optimisation right and creating new content can be very time-consuming, and that’s ultimately what you’re paying for, whether it’s by outsourcing to an SEO professional or by taking time out of your schedule to handle things yourself.

Are SEO tools worth it?

In my personal opinion, they can be helpful for adding things into your website and reminding you of what might be missing. Meta tags and image alt text tags are a good example here of what people often forget to include and an SEO plugin can prompt you for. They can also be good for making sure you have a site map in place, for creating redirections and changing the slug (URL) of a post/page to something new.

However, they are limited and unfortunately, the “one size fits all” won’t work for you. That’s because your target audience, your dream clients, are not the same as everyone else’s and might appreciate being talked to like they’re 12, which is why I usually ignore the ease of reading score.

I would never suggest paying for an SEO plugin. There’s really no need, but installing one can be a good idea for those little nudges to remember your SEO as you create new content.

Keyword and audit tools are worth it, but again, there are free versions that can do the basics of what most business owners creating their own copy and content will need. Unless you are doing SEO full time or in a related profession, the expensive SEO tools are a nice to have rather than an ought to have.