Confused About SEO?
Our what is SEO page explains SEO in plain English and our SEO explained page illustrates SEO using a superhero cartoon. This page answers some key SEO questions.
SEO - Frequently Asked Questions
What is SEO and how it works?
SEO is fundamentally about making sure your website provides the information people need. For most businesses, this means information about the problems they solve.
It's a process of understanding your customers' problems and the search terms they use when looking for solutions online. Once that's established, SEO becomes about employing proven methods for presenting that information in a way that helps it appear higher in the search engine results pages or SERPs.
It's not about merely providing information on the products and services you offer; it's about understanding the problems your ideal customers need to solve.
Businesses who understand this and create useful content get the most search engine traffic, enquiries and sales online.
What SEO means?
SEO means Search Engine Optimisation. It's the process of creating a website that helps people solve their problems by answering their questions.
Why is SEO important?
If your business wants to attract new customers from search engines, then SEO will be an essential aspect of your digital marketing strategy.
A well-executed SEO strategy will make sure your website gets found by the right people at the right time. It will create a steady stream of enquiries from your ideal customers, people trying to solve the problems your organisation solves.
What is SEO writing?
In simple terms, it means writing content that uses the words and phrases your ideal customers use when typing questions or queries into search engines.
The term SEO writing is quite misleading. A better description of SEO writing would be content marketing or creating content that helps your ideal customers solve their problems.
What are the SEO tools?
Many software tools can help you execute SEO more effectively. For example, Google's page speed tool can help you improve the speed of your website, a ranking factor, and their Structured Data tool can help ensure their search engine can better understand your content.
Commercial tools such as SEMRush can help you analyse your competitors' websites and find valuable search terms to use in your content.
How can I do SEO for free?
If you have the time or if you can't afford to hire a digital marketing expert, you can learn SEO for free using one of the many excellent online resources. Our favourite is the SEO guide at Moz.
How much does SEO cost?
The cost of SEO depends on the nature of your business and the market in which you operate. If, for example, you only sell locally and don't have much competition, securing the number 1 spot for a specific search term will be simple.
If you're operating in a global market, trying to rank for competitive search terms, your digital marketing and SEO budget will need to be much more significant.
Does SEO really matter?
SEO matters if your business strategy depends on attracting potential customers online. It's not the only aspect you need to consider, PPC and social media being two others, but if you want people searching in Google to find your business, SEO matters.
How long does SEO take to work?
A well thought out digital marketing strategy, including SEO, is likely to take 6 to 9 months to start working effectively.
There are exceptions. For example, if your website is good but needs some SEO improvements, you may see results much quicker. Conversely, if your website is new and you are operating in a competitive market, it may take much longer to secure enquiries as a result of one of your web pages appearing in a Google search result.
How can I learn SEO?
You can learn SEO using one of the many excellent SEO training tutorials available online. Our favourite is the one provided by Moz.
What are the benefits of SEO?
An effective SEO strategy that makes sure your ideal customers find your website will create a steady stream of enquiries.
If you handle these enquiries correctly, this will, in turn, generate revenue for your business. So the main benefit of SEO can be business growth.
How often should SEO be done?
SEO is a continual process of making sure your website's content answers the questions your ideal customers are asking. Therefore, SEO should not be seen as a one-off task but as part of your week to week business activity.
How effective is SEO?
Well executed SEO can be a very effective way of growing your business by making sure your ideal customers find your website in search results.
The overall effectiveness depends on having a good strategy, along with excellent execution.
Is SEO easy to learn?
For most people, learning SEO isn't difficult. There are some technical aspects to it, but the most powerful SEO tool is the ability to understand your customers and create the content they need.
What skills are needed for SEO?
Excellent analytical skills and the ability to create targeted, interesting and compelling content.
There are some technical aspects of SEO, but these are not beyond the skill set of most people.
What are the basics of SEO?
The basics of SEO involve developing an understanding of your ideal customers. This information is used to create content that provides the answers they are looking for when they search online.
How often should you blog for SEO?
The more often you can create compelling content designed to attract your ideal customers, the better. This doesn't mean creating short, low-quality blog posts; it means creating the sort of content people will enjoy reading and find useful.
How do businesses use SEO?
Businesses use SEO to attract potential customers who are searching for answers to their questions online.
They do that by making sure they understand who their ideal customers are, and the problems they are trying to solve.
How do you write a good blog?
The purpose of a blog is to educate and help readers. Therefore, if you want to write a good blog, make sure you understand the questions people are asking and then provide a well researched and well-written answer in your blog post.
How do you do SEO on-page?
Getting the basics of on-page SEO right isn't difficult. Simply make sure you use the search terms you are trying to rank for in the page title element and make sure you use the same search terms, along with related words, in the content of your page.
For a more details explanation, check out the guide at Moz.
How do I choose a good SEO company?
Choosing a good SEO company involves engaging with several potential search partners to establish their credentials and approach. All good SEO companies will ask questions about your organisation, your market, your competitors and your business goals.
Should I hire an SEO company?
The answer to the question of whether or not you should hire an SEO company should be based on your business goals. If your business wants to attract new customers from the major search engines, your website needs to be optimised. If you haven't got the in-house skills to do this, you need an SEO consultant or an SEO company.
What are the benefits of SEO?
The main benefits of SEO are increased exposure in search engine results pages, or SERPs, along with an increase in traffic to your website. This usually leads to a rise in the number of enquiries or sales made online.
How much does SEO cost per month?
The monthly cost of SEO is dependent on who carries out the work and the volume of work undertaken. A good inhouse person will command a salary of between £30k and £40k. A good agency will charge a monthly fee between £2k and £5k per month.
Does SEO really work?
Google and the other major search engines struggle to understand poorly optimised web pages correctly. This results in their underperformance against competing pages. So yes, SEO resolves this and improves the likelihood of your web pages being found in search.
How important is SEO to a business?
The importance of SEO to a business depends on the likelihood of the companies potential customers using search when making purchasing decisions.
What is an SEO consultant?
An SEO consultant is a person who helps businesses secure more website traffic from search engines leading to an increase in sales.
How many types of SEO are there?
There are two types of SEO. On-page SEO refers to your website content and how it is optimised. Off-page SEO refers to the promotion of your site on other websites.
Is SEO worth the money?
SEO is worth the money if its cost is outweighed by the increase in business attributed to it.
What is the difference between SEO and Google Adwords?
Google Adwords, or as it is now known, Google Ads, is an advertising platform where advertisers pay when their adverts are clicked. The adverts are placed on search engine results pages. SEO is a process of securing natural positions on search engine results pages, and clicks on natural results do not incur a charge.
Does Google AdWords improve SEO?
No. Google Adwords or Ads does not help with SEO. However, if your website appears on page one in the natural search results, and you also run a Google Ads campaign, your business can appear twice on the same page.
What is a SEO strategy?
An SEO strategy is a considered and structured plan created to improve the number of visitors a website receives from search engine results pages.
Why SEO is required?
SEO is required if you want your website pages to be found by potential customers.
What is SEO in business?
In business, SEO is the process of making sure your ideal customers find your company while looking for solutions to specific challenges using a search engine.
How long does it take for SEO to work?
SEO usually takes 6 to 9 months but very much depends on your market and the authority of your website. Sometimes, the results of implementing a specific SEO tactic, such as on-page optimisation, can be seen quickly.
How much should I spend on SEO?
The amount you spend on SEO depends on your market and the amount of work required. Some businesses may only need to spend a few thousand pounds, while others need a significantly higher budget.
What is the difference between SEO and PPC?
SEO helps to secure traffic from search engines by improving a page's ranking. PPC is used to buy traffic from search engines by bidding on placements based on the search terms users type in.
How does pay per click work?
Pay Per Click is essentially an auction. However, other factors play a part such that better quality adverts and landing pages are rewarded.
Is SEO a dying industry?
No. Search engines need web pages to be well structured so they can understand and rank them. Just as a librarian brings order to a library, SEO work brings order to web pages.
How can I improve my SEO traffic in 30 days?
If you can establish roadblocks are preventing your web pages from being understood and indexed by search engines, it's sometimes possible to see improvements in 30 days.
