What is SEO and why is it so important?
If you’re like most female founders, every time someone asks you about SEO - your face does this:
Thoughts race through your mind:
“What is that?”
“How does it work??”
“How do I get my website to show up on Google?!?”
Sound familiar? Yeah, we’ve all been there! But it’s really not that scary, let me demystify it a little:
Search Engine Optimization
Sure, it don’t sound sexy but it is burns bright! What the hell does it mean for you though? In a nutshell, it’s is the process of increasing the quantity and quality of eyeballs landing on your site (aka web traffic) through organic search engine results (words people type into Google) without paying for ads.
Why is SEO such a big deal?
SEO is important because, as (creepily) smart as Google and other search engines can be when it comes to knowing what people are looking for, they don’t consume website content quite the same way we humans do.
For example, Google doesn’t see an image of a house and know it’s an image of a house. But if you name your image “house.png”, it will know what it is. Similarly, if you name your image of a house something random that has nothing to do with the image itself (like “image123.png), Google won’t know to produce that image in its results for a house.
Make sense? So think of SEO as a search-engine-friendly language that allows them to scan your site and it’s content and produce relevant results to people when they’re searching for specific topics, services, or products.
Basically, the ultimate aim of SEO is to get your site ranking higher up in search results (ideally on pages 1-3) for your specific keywords - these are search terms / pain points your ideal clients are typing into browsers seeking a solution. The higher up you are, the more of an authority Google thinks you are in that field - and so will your ideal clients! (You’ll need to do your own homework on keywords as these are different for every type of business eg: if you’re a health coach, then your obvious keywords might be: “health expert/advice near me + location”)
Okay, so how do I do it?
Now to the fun part!
If you want to build your own very first website but have no idea how to start let alone tackle SEO - then purchase one of my website templates! They include free access to my course of tutorial videos which has sections dedicated to Squarespace SEO that will help you figure out your ideal sitemap (a structured list of pages of a typical website - eg: Home, About, Services, Portfolio/Shop, Blog, Contact) including what you should include on each page, plus a bonus module for getting found on Google. If you follow each of the SEO and Google lessons in my template course, you WILL see your website ranking improve.
It’s important to note that SEO is never “done and dusted” - it’s like going to the gym, results take time! You’ll need to continuously add content to your website, by writing regular blog posts, updating your services, events or products regularly, and make sure your site includes helpful and accurate content. If you do these things, you’ll reap the benefits in no time!
If you’re thinking “Does my business even need a website” then read my previous post (it might surprise you!)
What else do you struggle with? Let me know in the comments below what you’d like me to cover in my next blog post.
