What is SEO and how does it help a business succeed?

In modern times, it is difficult to find a business that does not need to integrate into the digital world and use the capabilities of the Internet. Manufacturers of various products and services have different needs, but they are united by one fundamental thing – everyone wants to increase their sales and company awareness. It doesn’t matter if you have a restaurant business or own a hardware store, you definitely want to sell more products, and therefore make more profit.

Today, achieving this goal is quite difficult without the use of modern technologies and capabilities. The majority of people find the desired services and products on the Internet, with the help of Google and other search engines. At this time, if the link to your business does not appear on the first page, potential clients will choose competitors and you will also lose income. To be the first choice for customers, it is not enough to have a good service or product. Much more important is your awareness, which you cannot achieve without the Internet.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is used to achieve this goal, which will help your company always be in the first place among users and make it difficult for competitors to compete with you.

Let’s find out what SEO is and how it works.

What is SEO?

Imagine that there is a library that unites all the books in the world. There are several such libraries in the world, although some have more users, some – less. For the success of such libraries, it is important to know exactly what and how is written in every book that has ever been written. How should a library achieve this goal? – To do this, it needs a system that automatically recognizes all the books that are in its database in order to help users find the desired material. This is how search engines work – Google, Bing and others. They are Internet libraries that have information about all the sites on the web. Search engines have a special algorithm that they use to search for the desired results. This is what you should adapt your company’s promotion process to.

Now imagine that you are a writer of detective novels who wants his book to be read by many people interested in detectives. How can you achieve this goal when you have a lot of competitors? – You need to know exactly what words, phrases or content people use to search for a book in the library and what system the library uses to offer users a choice. For example, it is known that lovers of the detective genre most often use the word “murder” when searching for the desired books. Once you know this information, you will no longer call your novel “The Penthouse Mystery” but “Murder in the Penthouse,” which will greatly increase the chances that readers will find your novel.

You may be wondering: But if people search for detective novels with this word, will other writers know about it? — To which I will answer: Of course they will. That is why there are additional components that will give your novel an advantage over those written by other writers. We will talk about this in the next subheading.

Now let’s transfer our discussion to the Internet and business, and everything will become even clearer. Imagine that you own a hardware store that sells smartphones, laptops, headphones, and cameras. There are many such stores in the country, which makes your job even more difficult. In order for users to find you in Google or other search engines, it is necessary that all the names and characteristics of your products (so-called keywords) are integrated with the search engine algorithm. For example, a user may be looking for headphones, but some users are looking for “quality headphones,” and some are looking for “cheap headphones.” Your job is to have each possible search term integrated with the algorithm.

What are search engine algorithms?

This question is very important and requires an accurate answer. In this section, we will try to explain in simple terms how search engines prioritize specific companies or products and leave others at a lower level.

Search engine algorithms pay attention to the following components to find the best results:

• Words;
• Titles;
• Links and related words;
• Reputation;

Let’s explain each component and then everything will become easier to understand.

Words – Search engines, as we have already mentioned, read every site or page on the Internet from beginning to end, therefore they know all the words that are used in it. Therefore, when someone types “cheap headphones” into Google, the search engine will only find pages in which these words are used.

Titles – Any page on the Internet has an “official” title, which search engines pay a lot of attention to. Such titles may not even be visible on the site, because they are integrated into the HTML code. Their “purpose” is to summarize the content that is placed on this page. To put it simply, it is like the title of a book, which combines a written story in a few words.

Links and keywords – In order for the search engine to consider your product or service as a priority, other sites need to recommend you. In this case, links play the role of recommendation. For example, if a media outlet writes an article about you and tells readers that the best hardware store is yours, and adds the name and link to your site to this part, then you will be in the top positions in the search engine. The more sites recommend you, the greater the chance that users will be interested in you. Keywords also work – if different sites write that “this store has the best headphones”, and add the word “headphones” to the link to your site, then the search engine will consider you as a priority.

Reputation –  Search engines attach great importance to the reputation of those sites that use the link to your address. Sites that have a steady stream of users, create a lot of content, have good feedback, and are user-oriented have a much better chance of ranking high in search engines. Your website, where you place your service or product, should also have a reputation. To do this, it needs to be constantly active and updated, have daily users, and create content.

How can we use this information for the success of our business?

After you have made sure that SEO is essential for the success of a modern business, it is time to think about using it. In order to successfully integrate into search engines, you need to have a more in-depth knowledge of this type of optimization. Of course, you can try and deepen your knowledge yourself, but it will be more effective if you hire people who specialize in this area. Having such a staff will greatly help your business succeed, because you will be the first whose product customers will encounter first.

An SEO specialist will study the most frequently used search terms, find relevant partner sites that will help you integrate your address, determine the content, its placement policy and campaign, study the analytics of the results and help you increase sales.

Author: Dimitri Sanaia

The article is taken from: https://www.tbcbusiness.ge/ka/business/ganaTleba/SEO