What Is Search Engine Optimization?

When someone searches for something online, a list of websites appears. Fun fact, “75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.” Search engine optimization is the process of improving elements of a page so it gets picked up by search engines and ranked higher.

Gone are the days of link building and keyword stuffing. Good SEO tactics force you to engage and study your target demographic.

The SEO specialists at WebCroppers know the most recent tactics and can help your business be seen. Search engines will always find updates. You don’t want an agency that will set up your content for just the present. You want quality content that’s future-proof. That begins and ends with your audience.

How Important is SEO?

A study by Outbrain shows that search is the biggest driver of traffic, which trumps social media by over 300%. SEO is the foundation your site is built on. If your foundation is flimsy, don’t be surprised when it topples over.

Today, some of the greatest authors, bloggers, and columnists are being contracted to write engaging content. Businesses are starting to invest millions in SEO alone. Proper keyword research, Meta descriptions, and keyword density are the difference between eroding and thriving online.

Fair or not, search engines like Bing, Yahoo!, and the all-powerful Google can determine which websites sink or swim. If you’re not using SEO your company will be dead in the water at some point.

Analyze Your On-Page SEO Tactics

There are five Search Engine Optimization (SEO) metrics that are important to all websites:

  • User Engagement (Bounce Rate, Exit Rate, Scroll Activity)
  • New and Returning Users
  • Session Duration
  • Goal Conversion Rate
  • User Behavior Flow

Poor user engagement over a sustained period of time can lead to indexing issues. In rare cases sandboxing from search engines. High bounce rates and low user engagement are key metrics that show a fundamental flaw in the structure of your website. If ignored, the end result is an index penalty (lower rank).

Gauging new versus returning users is important to determine the focus of the site.

A large decline of new users can have the same negative impact as declining numbers of returning users. Both scenarios point fingers at issues that need deeper investigation. Seasonality, loss of primary medium, a divergence of the vertical or even index penalties could be the issue.

Monitoring the historical levels of new vs returning traffic is vital to ensure consistency.

Average session duration is a quick but not 100% fool-proof way of identified interested traffic.

You should find the medium in this metric and create a benchmark for it. This way, you can weed out the extremes from both sides of the fence. The examples below will show you the unreliability of these metrics.

Users on your site for short periods can’t really perform an action (i.e. 1 second). Those who leave their browser on your website open (i.e. 30 minutes post activity).

Once your page has employed the proper SEO tactics, you should see a consistent visitor growth.

Optimizing all aspects of your content will open the doors to visitors that had never seen your site before. It will also show how ineffective your previous SEO efforts were.

By tracking your goal conversion rates, you can see how many visitors have become engaged customers. Only when customers engage with your on-site content will those clicks turn to conversions.

SEO is always about your audience. When people love what you do and keep returning, search engines see that and give you a better ranking. By understanding what your customers want and providing that information in quality content, you’ll begin to thrive online.

Search engine optimization takes an incredible amount of time to understand which keywords to use. Keyword research is only the start. Using SEO tactics, both on and off-site, and combine that with engaging written content is an art.

At WebCroppers, we help you understand what SEO means and help you grow your business with organic traffic.

Contact us today for a free consultation.