What is SEO and Why Does it Matter?

The battle for companies to appear high in Google rankings is a hard fought one, but the strange part is nobody (probably not even Google) knows which elements truly make up the algorithm which dictates which sites rank where for keywords. Even worse, Google is constantly updating this algorithm, marketers fear nothing more than the latest Google 'Panda' update or 'Penguin' tweak (true story, Google usually names algorithm updates after animals).

However, there are some known fundamental parts of your site that you must do right in order to start to have a hope of a decent rank for your chosen keywords.  

‍

What Impacts SEO Rankings?

Some of these aspects include:

• Good quality onsite content
• Clean site code
• Indexing with Google
• Accurate, relevant meta data
• A techinically sound site, including good page speed, class structure and correct use of heading
• Offsite indicators including backlinks and a Google My Business Profile
• Domain age

This list is not exhaustive, there are litterally thousands of 'ranking signals' Google uses to determine who appears where in the Google Search Rankings.

‍

On-Page and Off-Page SEO

SEO efforts can broadly be determined by on-site work and off-site work.

On-site work includes how techinically sound your website is and how you target certain keywords. Meta Data refers to the page title and page description on every page. These are very important as it's one of the key ways Google identifies what a page is all about, so taking time to carefully write these in a Google and user friendly manner is crucial. The new Google Web Core Vitals update will mean that a well functioning, well-built website will be even more crucial than ever before. You can find out more about improving on-site SEO in this Paddle blog about the subject.

The good news is every site hand-crafted by Paddle will be complete the basic fundamental elements of Google requirements giving you a good start.

The bottom line is although these basics will allow you to appear on Google and give you a good foundation, if you want to take SEO further and gain traction so you appear on the first page of Google or top 3 (which is where you want to be) then there is much more to it.  There are an array of off-site tactics you need to employ that will help you gain more traction. These include:

• A Google My Business profile. Paddle Creative can help you set this up
• Social profiles with good interaction rates
• Backlinks - that is links pointing to your website and is a crucial element

‍

Why Are Backlinks So Important?

Back in the early days of Search Engines, you would see sites 'keyword stuffing', that is they would have their keywords dotted all over their website in a spammy manner. Google succeeded where other search engines failed in that it recognised a way to identify these spammy sites and introduced a new, crucial ranking signal to their alglorithym - backlinks. A backlink is a link from another website to your website. This could be another blog on an external website with a link to your website, a social media post with a link to your site or links from business directories. It is not a simple case of the more links you have to your site, the better. There is such a thing as 'quality' of link, with Google giving every website a domain rating. So if you get a link off a new, small scale website that helps; if you get a link from the BBC, then that would be massive and treated with much more importance by Google. Google sees where the link is from and says, well that site over there is giving a vote of confidence to your site. The bigger the site giving you the link, the more impatus Google gives that link.

‍

Not All Links are Equal

Not all links are treated the same by Google. The main catergorisation is 'do follow' and 'no follow'. No follow links are those that the referring website is saying, look, we are linking to this site over here but don't follow the link, Google. Links from places like social media are 'no follow', meaning that they won't have too much impact on rankings, although Google recently indicated no-follow links do now have more impact than previously. However, the bread and butter of links is 'do follow', which is why it is important to get good quality, do-follow links wherever possible.

‍

SEO is a War of Attrition

There is no quick fix to SEO success. It takes time, effort and often money to rank for competitive keywords. Remember you are competing with billions of other websites and so you need to work hard to be number one for a particular search. You need to work like a horse to have any hope, and it takes time.  But you don’t need to ‘work like a horse’…let Paddle remove the horse from the equation, take on the SEO challenge for you and help you gain traction.

‍

Interested in Paddle SEO?

Get in touch and find out more.Another option which will allow you jump the queue is Google Adwords Pay-Per-Click marketing.  Discover more about how you can harness the power of PPC here