In small business, there’s very little time for lunch, let alone getting the lowdown on the latest trends in online marketing. But some things are worth knowing about, like SEO. You’ve probably heard the term before, but exactly what is SEO?

In this blog post, we’re going to break it down for you into as plain English as we can muster – absolutely no jargon! And we’ll also look at why it’s important to your business that you get at least a basic understanding of SEO and how it works.

This blog post forms part of our free program: Online Storytelling That Generates Leads [SEO Basics]. Join our Facebook Group HERE to get access!

If you missed it, the first blog post in this program series is: Do This One Thing To Get Your Business Seen Online

What is SEO?

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the methodology for raising the authority and visibility of your website content in search results without advertising.

Your website authority is how strong or influential your website is. This is an important factor in how Google’s algorithm ranks or orders your content in search results.

Your website visibility is how close to the top of the search results your content appears. If your website appears at the very top, it ranks #1 . If it ranks halfway down the first page of results, it might rank #4 or #5 but it’s still appearing on p.1 so has a high visibility.

Why is it important?

There are 1.8 billion websites in 2018. Only about a quarter of these are active, but the fact remains that all of your competitors are online. They’re all talking about similar products, services, problems and solutions as you. So how do you make sure your voice is heard?   

Here at Narrative Marketing, we still believe wholeheartedly that storytelling is the most effective way to get your message across. However, to make sure your fantastic stories aren’t lost in the ether, you need SEO.

In short, SEO increases the likelihood that your brand will be seen by your target audience. And in today’s noisy digital marketplace, that’s half the battle.

How does it work?

Good question. If online marketing is a game then Google holds all the cards!

Search engines like Google update their algorithms hundreds of times annually. Though many of these are minor changes, major updates have huge implications for how brands and businesses get found online. So SEO marketers are always playing catch up, adapting and developing new techniques as Google’s algorithm evolves.

But there are various SEO tactics that remain relatively solid over time. Broadly speaking, these are split into two categories: on-page and off-page optimisation.

Off-page optimisation involves link building and other activities that build the overall authority or strength of your website. On-page optimisation is the process of boosting a particular page’s visibility in search by making the content of that page more appealing and easier to “read” for Google.

In this Online Storytelling That Generates Leads [SEO Basics] program, we’re mainly going to focus on on-page optimisation. We’ll explore the murky world of SEO together. And we’ll provide tools and resources in our Facebook Group so you can supercharge your website yourself.

–> Click here to join now!

For more business tips and marketing insights, check out our Be The Drop podcast. We release new content each week!

PS: REMEMBER to follow us on FacebookInstagram and Twitter.