SEO is important for any business owner as it can increase website traffic and therefore hopefully sales and revenue. Many businesses are looking for ways to optimize their websites google ranking by hiring any SEO services. However, do they really understand what SEO is and what it does? Unfortunately, most of business owners have little to no idea what exactly SEO does for them and they often expect immediate results from the efforts.
It is also true that if their expectations do not meet reality, they will think that the SEO strategies have failed. Therefore, it is important to understand the ins and outs of what to expect when enlisting the services of an SEO company. In the meantime, let’s heed a short explanation of SEO to some some things straight.
What is SEO?
SEO or Search engine optimization is best known as an effort to improve results of a web page or a website in search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. There are two popular categories of results that search engines display when they list results; they are Organic results and Paid results. Most clients have a basic understanding of SEO, but they do not have a clear understanding about organic results vs paid results, or black hat SEO and white hat SEO. So let’s review these two concepts first.
Black Hat SEO vs. White Hat SEO
It’s important for every business owner to know that there are good SEO practices and there are bad SEO practices. Bad SEO practices are also known as black hat SEO while good SEO practice is also known as good SEO practice. So, how to differentiate between black hat SEO and white hat SEO? Basically, white hat SEO is about creating high quality content that people want and as a result it satisfies user search intent, so Google gives content higher ranking. Conversely, black hat SEO tricks Google into giving content higher rankings. Therefore, black hat SEO tricks are also often associated with fast short term gains, but in turn, heavy delisting penalties apply when those same tricks are discovered and google optimizes against them.
Stick to a good white hat SEO technique, and instead, spend more of your budget on increasing the depth of the keyword coverage using these well-established techniques to get long lasting results.
Paid Results vs. Organic Results
We know that there are two types of categories of results that search engines display when they list results: Organic results and Paid results. So, let’s see what makes them different.
Paid Results
In this case, one must purchase the rank and they will be displayed as Paid results at the top or in the sidebar of the search engine when a user looks for related topics. Those results have a small ‘Ad’ square below the title which signifies that it is a paid result.
Your paid results will appear when users search things that match with your business. Search engines claim that they don’t spam the search result page with unwanted results, so if the searching does not match there will be no results shown. Nowadays, paid results are becoming very popular and these are often referred to as SEM, Search Engine Marketing.
Advantage of Paid Results
It can be said that paid results are the easier way up to the top of the ranking results. You will get noticed based on exactly the terms you are willing to pay for.
Disadvantage of Paid Results
- Many users who know that these results are ads will likely ignore and prefer to scroll down and click the organic results.
- Business owners have to spend a certain amounts of money each time a user clicks on the result as the price is dependent on every other advertiser in the same pool deciding how much they are willing to spend.
- Your ad might appear on pages that your organic results also appear. In a sense, you will end up paying for a click that you could have got for free.
Organic Results
Opposite from paid results, organic results are gained when a website does certain efforts that are in line with Google’s requirements. Search engines will display the possible website matches through an ordinary search. Usually, they are placed after paid results.
Advantage of Organic Results
- If your organic results are in the top place of Google’s page, then it is a sign that Google see you as a successful business and trustworthy in a sense that it is willing to prioritise your website over others.
- Google will link near the top of the search results to generate more clicks.
- Web users will consider giving you their business if it appears that your website gets lots of hits.
Disadvantage of Organic Results
- Organic results take time; it usually takes at least 3-6 months before you can see any results and that may not be in the top 10 (first page) where it’s most important to be. Therefore, don’t expect to see any results too soon, especially during the first few months.
- Hence, your upfront outlay for promoting your works through SEO will take time to show full return.
By knowing the explanations above, hopefully you can have a clear understanding about SEO strategies. You can apply these strategies the right way on your websites as having a website alone will not be effective without being found.
If you find any difficulties while applying any SEO strategies, feel free to contact our SEO engineers as we have years of experiences to help you with and get you on the right path for online marketing!