In this digital era, a business website is an absolute must for your company’s success. It plays a vital role as a gateway or a storefront online, making it easy for customers to find and buy your products in the long term. To make the most out of the website that you have, SEO comes in handy.
According to a 2019 study by Brightedge Research, 53.3% of all website traffic comes from search engines like Google, and SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media. Most importantly, SEO increases FREE traffic to the website for months or even years to come.
Let’s take a look at an example. Say, we want to promote our company’s content marketing service. A keyword research tool shows that 1,000 users search for 'content marketing' each month. According to statistics, the first result in Google's search page gets about 20% of all clicks, which accounts for around 200 visitors to our website per month if we can make it to the top of search engine rankings. Normally the Cost-per-click (CPC) for that keyword worths $0.7/click. The web traffic of 200 visitors is worth around $140 a month, that’s how much you can save instead of using search ads.
Likewise, SEO in Thailand is more relevant than ever, so it really helps to learn what it is and how it can benefit your business. In this article, we will introduce the fundamentals of SEO in plain language to step up your content marketing game.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, the practice of increasing targeted organic traffic to your website through Google's search results. It is entirely about improving the website rank in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
SEO companies do this by creating high-quality content, optimizing the website using specific keywords, and building backlinks, which is to be discussed later.
The first step to understand SEO is to know how Search Engines function.
How Search Engines Work?
When you search for something on Google, an algorithm (known as a crawler) scans billions of sites on the internet in real-time to get the most relevant content they can find.
The crawler then builds a long list of links that it considers the best results for your search based on several ranking factors.
First, Relevancy.
Google looks for pages that are most closely related to the keywords you search for.
For example, if you search for "SEO Agency Thailand," the algorithm is likely to show millions of related results. It compares the search keyword with related words to find the best sites that contain these terms. We can use keyword research tools to find the best specific terms to optimize the site's content.
Google picks a handful among these pages to rank at the top, by using these other factors.
Second, Authority.
Google ranks search results based on whether the web site's content is trustworthy and reliable. Authority is ranked by the number of other pages that link back to that website, i.e. Backlinks.
The page with 100 quality backlinks will rank higher than one with 10 links. The Domain Level rises accordingly. Therefore, link building is another crucial part of SEO.
Google also rates the quality of the external websites that link to the page, so spamming your own blank website with links to the targeted page will not work. Guest blogging can be one way to do it. Also, the right anchor text for each link may affect quite a lot as well. We will talk about link building in more detail in future blog posts.
Third, Usefulness.
Say, you have a page with so much quality content that lots of people have linked back. However, if the content is unorganized that it is hard to navigate and is full of jargon that most users do not understand, the page is not likely to rank so well in the long term.
Compared to another site with not as good content and fewer links, but the texts are better organized and easily understandable.
This page will perform better on the "usefulness scale", based on User Experience Signals. Positive user experience ratings and high site load speed usually result in a higher search engine ranking.
Keep in mind that a well-organized site architecture for mobile devices is also a great plus. This is for the most part related more to technical SEO than on-page SEO, so we will be discussing this in another blog post.
Tips for Getting Started
We can see how much Search Engine Optimization SEO can help your company website gain more organic traffic without actually having to pay extra for search ads, which usually costs a lot and may not be really worthwhile.
So here are the short best practices for getting started with SEO; create a user-friendly website with great content (and blog posts), create organized internal links by guest blogging and gain backlinks for off-page SEO. This will come in handy for the next steps in search engine marketing.
We now know about 'what is SEO?'. Continue learning about SEO in our next article at SEO Marketing Guide: Learn Basics of Google Ranking.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do SEO tools do?
SEO tools provide insights into the overall health and performance of your website. They help uncover areas of opportunity and identify weaknesses or issues that may prevent you from ranking and earning visibility on search engines.
Can I do SEO on my own?
Yes, you can do SEO marketing on your own. Like any other form of online marketing, anyone can learn how to do SEO for their business with the right amount of research and lots of practice.
Do I have to pay for SEO?
Search listings on Google are free, and no one can pay for a better ranking because of the commitment to keeping search content useful and trustworthy.
Is SEO Marketing difficult to do?
SEO in itself could be easier than you thought. Still, you should not underestimate the amount of time and effort it will take to get your website ranked. Don't expect to climb the ranks on a national scale if you only spend a few minutes a day. Digital marketing requires constant performance analytics, and so does SEO.
What are the 3 types of search engines?
Search engines are classified into three categories based on how they work:
- Crawler based search engines.
- Human powered directories.
- Hybrid search engines.
- Other special search engines.
What are the 5 most commonly used search engine?
The most commonly used 5 search engines in the world are Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, and Yandex respectively, according to Netmarketshare, Statista and StatCounter.
Need Help Planning SEO Strategy in Thailand?
Does your brand need help with SEO Marketing? Our team at Sphere Agency is here to help you optimize your website for the highest ranking on Google. Check out our SEO Services for more information and Contact us today.
