One of the most common misconceptions about SEO is that it’s all about manipulating Google in order to drive more traffic to your website. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Certainly, more traffic is indeed a part of it, but having a website that can actually convert that traffic into paying customers is another story entirely.
In this article, we’re going to look at why SEO goes deeper than the surface expectations, and that it is in fact ‘fitness for your business’.
SEO is fitness for your business
One of our favorite SEO analogies is that it’s ‘fitness for your business’. But what does that even mean? Let’s unpack it starting with the example of driving more traffic through to your website:
- It’s all well and good having more website visitors, but if they aren’t converting into paying customers it is a total waste of time. That’s not dissimilar to doing more exercise, but having poor form and sticking to a terribly unhealthy diet; fighting a losing battle.
In the above example, we highlight the importance of ‘technique’ and ‘diet’. In order to get the most from exercising, you have to be exercising properly and fuel your body with the proper food.
SEO is not so dissimilar:
- The technical SEO that goes into the back end of your website is the ‘technique’: technical SEO refers to the process of carrying out a multitude of technical tasks that improve the overall health and performance of the website. One such example is that technical SEO experts will work to improve page speed. The faster the website loads, the more likely your website visitors will be to stick around – and indeed enjoy the user experience. This example is just one component of a much broader subject, but each of the technical changes made will ensure that your website is performing at its absolute best.
- The onsite optimization and content creation is the ‘diet’: the onsite optimization and the content that you have featured on your website is the fuel. It ensures that when more traffic is driven to your website, they have high-quality information to consume and an intuitive onsite experience. This is the key to converting as many of those clicks into customers.
Why is a website’s ‘health’ so important?
Remember that when Google is deciding on which websites to rank for certain keywords, they are not only looking for the most ‘relevant’ website; it’s not just about the information – but the overall experience provided.
As such, if a website doesn’t meet a certain standard, Google will be far less inclined to promote it.
- Your website must be safe and secure.
- You must have an attractive, well-branded design.
- You must have excellent link hygiene.
- It must perform optimally.
- You should have intuitive internal linking.
- And so on.
The healthier your website is, the better it will perform both in the eyes of Google and for your prospective customers when they arrive on your website.
Conclusion: Hire a personal trainer for your website
To recap, SEO is paramount for the overall health of your website because it can help to improve it in a multitude of ways that help to bolster your online rankings and ultimately increase conversion rates.
Of course, there’s an awful lot of work involved, so if you want to get it right, you might want to hire a personal trainer of sorts for your website; a reputable New York City SEO specialist can make light work of the technical aspects and help you develop a solid content creation strategy – which means that your ideal target audience will have an easier time of finding you and feel more compelled to stick around and (more importantly) spend their money!
