So, you’re considering an SEO campaign or currently in the middle of one, right? If you have some burning SEO questions about the hows and whys of this strand of digital marketing here are some that we are most frequently asked. As this is only a top 10 list, we have covered the most fundamental to some of the more advanced SEO questions relevant to 2019.
1. What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quality and quantity of your website traffic through organic search engine results. It is an essential strand of digital marketing which involves optimising the structure, content and technical performance of your website to enable Google to rank it within search results for the most relevant search queries.
Google will consider your ranking position based on many factors including the relevance of the content on the website, and the quantity and quality of websites that link into it, known as backlinks.
2. What is web traffic?
Website traffic refers to users who visit your website. Quality web traffic are typically users who click on the website who have used a search term highly relevant to your site’s content. Having a higher quantity of this type of traffic increases your chances of conversion.
3. Why is SEO important?
Website traffic acquired by organic search on search engines like Google, accounts for a significant part of all website traffic sources. According to Google, 81% of consumers and 89% of B2B buyers use search engines to research new products and services.
With such a high volume of consumers and B2B buyers using search engines, having high visibility on the largest of these becomes a great asset for any business. On average Google processes 3.5 billion searches each day, which is over 40,000 search queries every second.
4. Will SEO deliver a quick ROI? (possibly the most relevant of all SEO questions)
SEO is a vital component of most digital marketing strategies. But businesses looking for immediate leads and website conversions may favour more direct and instantly targeted methods like Pay Per Click (PPC). But businesses that invest in SEO are investing in a mid to long term ROI, through a cost-effective marketing channel which allows prospects to discover their brand or business on their own terms.
5. What is the difference between an organic and paid search?
An organic search result is where Google lists relevant websites to a users search query. It is also referred to as a ‘free’ result because the owners of the websites have not paid Google for their ranking position. Organic search traffic comes from users finding website links among these search engine results. Achieving a high or top ranking organic search result is the very purpose of an SEO campaign.
Paid search on the other hand is the where website owners pay Google to display their website prominently as a sponsored listing on a search result page for certain search terms or keywords. The attractive nature of paid search is their high visibility, often above organic results. Paid search traffic is attributed from users clicking on a sponsored listing that a business has paid for in order to appear at the top of search results.
6. Are users more likely to click on organic or paid search results?
It’s no secret that great advertising attracts customers, improves brand awareness and generates revenue. Whether you use organic search, paid search or both to increase the visibility of your website, making your listing relevant and compelling will attract more traffic. Every business is different and understanding the needs of the target audience will determine whether organic or paid search is better at generating the best quality clicks/web traffic. According to HubSpot the following data provides a few clues:
- 70-80% of search users are only focusing on the the organic search results (MarTech, 2018)
- 61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority. (HubSpot, 2018)
- 49% of people said they click on text ads. (Blue Corona, 2019)
- 66% of buyer-intent keywords are from paid clicks. (Clever Clicks, 2018)
7. What is on-page SEO?
On-page optimisation or on-page SEO means the adjustments you can make on the website to gain improvements in Google rankings. These changes can include content optimisation; meta optimisation including titles and descriptions; the structure of the site; removing page and link errors; and improving page load speeds. These adjustments will incorporate technical adjustments as much as content adjustments.
8. What is off-page SEO? (one of the most asked SEO questions)
Typically, off-page SEO is activity done outside of the website to improve ranking on Google. With Google driving a value-based search system it becomes important to focus off-page SEO initiatives on growing quality backlinks from trustworthy high authority websites. Quality backlinks are regarded as very important for website owners because the higher the trust, the better likelihood of ranking on Google.
When identifying an SEO campaign on-page and off-page SEO activities are vital. Off-page SEO activities are responsible for about 80% of the influence an SEO campaign has on Google rankings. On-page SEO accounts for 20% of the influence, but is the foundation that all off-page SEO needs.
9. What are backlinks?
Backlinks which are also known as ‘inbound links’, are created when one website links to another. These are important because they help to raise the credibility and authority of a website. A backlink to your website from another site is essentially a vote of confidence, and is a signal to search engines like Google that your content is credible. More backlinks, and in particular more quality backlinks from high authority websites, will have a positive impact on the ranking position on Google.
10. Why is anchor text important to SEO?
Ok, so this is one of those SEO questions we haven’t yet been asked, but it sure is important to know about. Text links from one web page to another on a website is an internal link, and from one page to another website is an external link. Both of these types of links or hyperlinks use clickable text known as anchor text. For SEO, anchor text plays a key role in increasing the value of a link. For example, a backlink to one of our SEO pages on this website with the anchor text “Oxfinder” will have less value than “seo specialists”. Google will use the anchor text as an indicator of the topic of the page being linked to, and as a result influences the ranking position for that keyword or search term.
See how we run SEO campaigns using Google recommended methods.
Do you need help with the creation and implementation of an effective SEO strategy for your business?
Call us on 07968 027383 or email info@oxfinder.co.uk
