[bctt tweet=”Without SEO, your business is basically invisible. You need to be visible!” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”]
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of refining your website using both on and off-page optimization techniques so that it will be indexed and ranked by search engines, naturally.
If you have had a hard time understanding SEO (Search Engine Optimization), let’s start with a visual exercise. Picture this -you have a wonderful store with all the best offerings, only…your store is invisible. Not just that; millions of your potential consumers pass by daily looking for just what you offer. Crazy right? Yes, that’s exactly what your business is without SEO. You need to be visible!
Take results from a Wild Fusion Digital Center 2016 channel effectiveness study, for instance; 63% of Nigerian consumers use search engines to research and buy products. This puts Search right at the center of the purchase funnel.
You need to ensure your business shows up when people search for the services you offer.
How SEO Works
Ever wondered how search results show up? Let’s talk spiders!
Google has an inventory or index where it stores keywords and information regarding the websites they originate from. This index is populated by search engine spiders who crawl the web. When they get to your site, they populate the index with keywords from your site. As people search online they are actually querying the index.
What Google then does is to present the most relevant results of the search from its inventory. So basically, if Google doesn’t have you in their index, there’s no way you are showing up in the search results. This is why you need to optimize your website for search engines.
Ranking on the search engine … Page 1, Page 2..Page 10
Ranking is website positioning in SERP (Search Engine Results Pages). Your ultimate goal would be to rank on page 1 and even better, be the first result. Like the saying goes ‘the best place to hide a dead body is on page 2 of Google search engine’. As crazy as that sounds, the reality is that search engine visibility is a clear indicator of good marketing, it also lends credibility to your brand.
[bctt tweet=”Search engine visibility is a clear indicator of good marketing & lends credibility to your brand” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”]
SEO is a continuous effort. Every day, businesses similar to yours are competing for the same keywords, trying to convince Google that they are more relevant. Google considers a number of factors when ranking websites, but today we will highlight two.
Content Relevance
You want to ensure that your content is relevant. Start your content strategy with keyword research. This helps you figure out real questions and ideas that matter to your consumers. The Google Keyword Planner will come in handy here.
Also, your content should be readable, you should avoid duplicating content at any cost.
Mobile Responsiveness 
Nothing is more frustrating than getting to a site via your mobile phone and finding it’s so difficult to navigate. Think user experience when designing your site!
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This article was written by Uche Offokaja. Uche is the Client Solutions Manager Wild Fusion, Africa’s leading Digital Marketing Agency.