You’ve probably heard hundreds of times that search engine optimization (SEO) is a vital digital marketing tool. But do you really know how SEO works? Even if you have a basic understanding of what it entails, you still may not have a solid grasp of this complex and multifaceted process.
Spanish SEO is made up of multiple elements, and knowing what they are and how they work is key to understanding why SEO is so important. In short, SEO is crucial because it makes your website more visible and that means more traffic and more opportunities to convert prospects into customers. Check out the SEO tools you can use to get optimal rankings .
It’s also a valuable tool for brand awareness, building relationships with prospects and positioning yourself as an authoritative and trusted expert in your field. So, here’s everything you need to know about SEO and why it’s vital to succeed in today’s digital world.
The crucial elements of SEO marketing
Keywords
Gone are the days when keywords were the only SEO technique that mattered, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still crucial. The difference is that today, keywords must be well researched, carefully chosen and judiciously used in your content to be effective.
But what are keywords, exactly? Keywords are words and phrases that prospects use to find content online and that brands can use to connect with prospects searching for their products and services.
When undertaking the key steps of keyword research, it’s important to look for keywords that have high search rates and low competition and choose short-tail keywords (such as dog ), long-tail keywords (such as terrier puppies for sale ) and local keywords (such as puppies for sale in Madrid ) to work into your content. Along with a primary or initial keyword, you should also have secondary and tertiary keywords, as they will still offer value to your business. Finally, use keywords to optimize all your titles, URLs and other on-page SEO elements (more on that later…).
Content
Content is a vital part of SEO because it is the vehicle you use to reach and attract audiences. Knowing your angle and creating content that fits is essential.
For example, if you owned a nursery and wanted to increase your visibility, you could publish a series of blogs about gardening, choosing the right species of plants, growing tips and more. When a person who wanted to know about gardening would search for that information, your blog would appear and you could establish a relationship with that prospect by providing valuable information. The idea is that when it comes time for that prospect to buy a plant, for example, you will be the first nursery that comes to mind.
Today’s content should be educational, but also interesting, relevant and shareable. Content comes in a variety of forms, including:
- website content
- Videos
- Blogs (it’s easy to start your own blog for practice!)
- infographics
- podcasts
- lists
- How-to guides
- White papers and e-books
- Social media posts
- Local listings
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO involves off-page optimization practices that occur outside of your site rather than on it.
The primary technique used for off-page SEO is backlink building, as quality backlinks to your site from external sites tell search engines that your site is valuable and high quality, which helps build authority.
There are many tactics for backlink building, and some of the current best practices include guest blogging, creating lots of infographics that will get shared a lot, and using influencer marketing in your content.
PS You can read a complete guide to on-page and off-page SEO to make sure you know the difference and make the most of both. Also, some experts are starting to refer to off-page SEO as » reputation building «.
Local SEO
Local SEO is becoming increasingly important as more and more people use mobile devices to search. Currently, 60% of all searches are conducted on a mobile device and almost half of those searches have a local intent.
So, let’s say you own a restaurant, then local SEO would ensure that when people in your area search for the best restaurants in town, they will come across your site.
In addition to using local keywords, other local SEO best practices include claiming directory listings, creating location-specific pages for your site, and creating pages for your business (also called doorway pages) in Google My Business and Google Maps local directories.
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to paid marketing efforts and includes things like native ads, Google AdWords, social media ads, pay-per-click (PPC), Google Shopping Ads, display ads and more.
While SEM is not always a major component of a comprehensive Spanish SEO strategy, it has its place, as it can help you reach new and highly targeted audiences. You can also make your SEO and SEM work together.
Examples of SEM advertising activities include:
- Paid and targeted campaigns.
- Keyword-based copy that relates specifically to your business or product
- Performance indicators such as click-through rates (CTR) and cost-per-click (CPC)
- Understanding the importance of SEO for modern businesses
Visibility and rankings
One of the most important functions of SEO is to increase visibility, which means making it easier for prospects to find you when they search for something you have to offer. Visibility is directly related to your rankings.
The higher you rank on a search engine results page (SERP), the more likely prospects are to see you and click through to your site, so it’s key to increase your organic page rank . The more effective your SEO efforts are, the higher your ranking will be and the better your visibility will be, which is especially important when you consider that a quarter of web users never click beyond the first SERP.
Web traffic
Increasing web traffic is one of the main goals of SEO, and you increase traffic when you increase visibility and rankings. Consider this for a moment: ranking #1 in a Google search gets almost 32% of clicks, and moving up just one spot in the search results can increase CTR by a staggering 30.8%.
The golden grail for many marketers is the ‘Featured Snippet’, which is often referred to as position #0, as it appears above the first ranked URL. This is usually content that is taken from a landing page on a blog that answers a question that people are searching for and can give a big boost to your organic clicks.
Therefore, if you want more people to find your website through a search engine, you should use SEO practices that will help you rank in the top five positions, and ideally at number one.
Authority
Page Authority (PA) is becoming increasingly important to search engines as it becomes more important to web users. Essentially, authority means that your website is trustworthy, high quality, relevant and has something to offer.
Ratings range from 1 to 100 and the higher your number, the more authority your site has. You can find your PA score using tools like Moz and, although it’s difficult to influence it, many SEO experts believe it has to do with link profile: getting external links from trusted and well-visited sources.
Creating a better visitor experience
Another reason SEO is critical is because all the time you spend generating great content and on-page SEO optimization improves the usability of your site. This creates a seamless and positive customer experience.
For example, when you take steps to make your site responsive, you will make it usable for all of your mobile visitors, as well as people visiting from a laptop or desktop computer. Similarly, by increasing your page load speed, you will reduce your bounce rate and encourage visitors to spend more time on your site – consumers expect a page to load as fast as possible with a load time limit of no more than three seconds! The longer the load time, the higher the bounce rate and the lower the conversions.
Remember, search engines are fallible
SEO is important because search engines are not perfect. If you don’t take steps to counteract their flaws, then your website will pay the price.
For example, if a site does not have a proper link structure, search engines may not crawl and index the site correctly, which can lower rankings. Coding errors can block search engines altogether, making it impossible for your site to rank, no matter how much time you spend on other SEO efforts. Other common areas where search engines may have problems include:
- Duplicate pages
- Forms
- Images, flash, audio files, video and other non-textual content
- Language and Semantics