**EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION**

So today I am talking about search engine optimization. Which is such an exciting topic because a lot more people are starting to understand just the power and actually being able to drive free traffic to their website. And it isn’t such a scary thing when you start to really just break it down into more simple terms. And I feel like some people think that SEO is just too hard. You’ll never get enough traffic to make a difference. You’ll never rank on the first page. But the thing is that yes, it takes a long time to get to that point, but it is possible, but it’s not always just about getting on the first page for one specific term. It can be just about increasing your overall traffic and really just starting to expand your reach through different channels. We all spend a lot of time focusing on social media, we might even be considering Facebook Ads or some type of advertising but search engine optimization can really build such a strong foundation within your whole overall business strategy. And unlike paid advertising, it’s not something you just turn on and off, it takes a long time to actually build up rankings and start getting noticed on Google. But it also takes a long time to actually lose those rankings unless there is a major algorithm change or something like that.

When we are comparing paid advertising to search engine optimization, we need to remember with paid advertising, there is a direct correlation between return on investment. Search engine optimization, you can’t really track exactly how much you’re getting in return, but it does actually allow you to sustain ongoing or compounding increases in traffic over time, which is actually going to help you more long-term. So if you have a specific launch or product or service that you’re wanting to promote paid advertising can be great for that. But just remember that paid advertising is literally getting more expensive year on year. So that is because there’s a lot more competition coming into the market. And because it’s auction based, what happens is if there’s a certain number of people bidding on someone’s attention, which is the most valuable resource right now, someone’s attention, then you’re always going to be outbidding each other and the highest bidder will always win. So what will happen over time is more people will come into the market, it’ll get more competitive and so the bidding will get higher and higher. Because there’s only a certain number of people or audience out there that you can actually bid on their eyes and getting them to see your ads in their newsfeed or wherever it is that you’re advertising.

So firstly, what is search engine optimization? It is literally just the ability for your site to be index and found on Google or other search engines. So there are other smaller search engines, but generally we focus primarily on Google because it’s the biggest player in the game, but there’s three main areas that we look at when we’re doing search engine optimization. And this is really the reason why your website and search engine optimization are really a match made in heaven and really something that you should consider doing or implementing when you’re doing a new build, but also something, I mean that you can implement it into your established website or one you already have up and running.

So there’s three main areas that we look at when we’re doing search engine optimization. The first is the technical aspects. So this is things like how fast your pages are loading, making sure that the structure of the site is correct and that there’s no dead ends, broken links, broken pages, all of these different things that kind of alerts Google that you shouldn’t send people to this site because it’s going to be a poor user experience.

The second is on-page SEO. So this is what a lot of people focus on or know about, which comes into the keyword you’re using on the site where those keywords are placed and really just the content across each page.

And the third is off page SEO, which is things like building up internal and external backlinks and everything that you can do to actually build up domain authority, which is an indicator to Google that you are someone that they should take notice of, and they should send traffic your way because you have authority in the marketplace.

So the technical SEO, the on-page SEO and off page SEO, all work together to enable Google, to be able to read your site effectively, to show you in results for relevant key terms and rank you high up in the results so that your pages get traffic from people that are searching for answers to the questions that your business can answer or problems that your business can solve. When you have a website and you want to give it the best chance to get free traffic. And this is where search engine optimization comes in. So we can use the technical on-page and off-page SEO strategies to help build up your traffic month on month, or just simply lay the foundations to allow Google to be able to send visitors your way.

So I hope that this was helpful or send me a message if you’ve got any other questions about search engine optimization. I try to break it down in the most simple terms to really help you understand what SEO is and how it could actually benefit you and why you should consider building it into your overall business strategy, because it will help with your long-term success and the performance of your website. And there is nothing more valuable than getting free visitors onto your site. And especially those who are actually searching for solutions to the problems that your product or service consult. So send me a message. If you have any questions or reach out if you are thinking about doing SEO on your website.

If you’re looking for more information on SEO or how it works, you can reach our SEO Specialist here.