Organic SEO

What is organic SEO?

Organic SEO is a digital marketing approach aimed at enhancing your website’s visibility in unpaid search results on search engines like Google and Bing. This strategy encompasses various techniques, including keyword research, link building, content creation, and optimising page load times, all designed to achieve higher rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Why is organic SEO important?

Organic search engine optimisation (SEO) is essential for enhancing brand visibility on search engines, leading to increased conversions and revenue. Notably, 75% of users never navigate beyond the first page of search results. If your website doesn’t rank highly, it will likely receive minimal traffic, hindering its ability to generate sales and leads.

Companies must focus on organic SEO because users predominantly rely on search engines to find what they need. Approximately 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine like Google. Failing to appear at the top of organic search results means missing out on potential revenue. Organic traffic accounts for more than 40% of revenue, and search engines offer a close rate eight times higher than traditional marketing methods.

Search is a valuable marketing channel poised to drive revenue for your business. By optimising your site for organic SEO, you can start reaping these benefits.

Google & Organic SEO

Understanding Google’s role is essential when developing an effective organic SEO strategy. As the leading search engine, Google aims to deliver the most informative and beneficial results that align with users’ search intent. This means providing comprehensive resources that precisely match what users are seeking online.

Beyond content relevance, Google places significant emphasis on user experience. Page speed, mobile-friendliness, and overall site usability are crucial in determining search rankings. A website that offers a seamless and engaging experience is more likely to achieve higher positions in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Google’s algorithms assess the quality of content and the user experience a website provides. Creating valuable content and ensuring an optimal user experience are vital to improving your site’s organic search rankings.

How does organic SEO work?

Google’s primary objective is to deliver users the most relevant and valuable results. To align with this goal, organic SEO focuses on developing a website and content that merit top rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Implementing an effective organic SEO strategy is essential for achieving high SERP rankings. This strategy encompasses several key techniques:

• Keyword Research: Identifying and targeting specific keywords ensures your website appears prominently when users search for terms related to your business.
• Content Creation: Producing diverse, high-quality content targeting valuable keywords enhances your site’s relevance and authority.
• Internal Linking Structure: Establishing a robust internal linking system facilitates efficient crawling and indexing by search engine bots, improving site navigation and SEO performance.
• Incorporating Multimedia: Integrating visual elements such as images, infographics, and videos engages visitors, encouraging longer site visits and reducing bounce rates.
• User-Friendly Design: Ensuring intuitive navigation, functional buttons and forms, and an aesthetically pleasing design enhances user experience, making information easily accessible.
• Page Load Optimisation: Maintaining page load times within two to three seconds prevents user frustration and reduces the likelihood of visitors leaving your site prematurely.
• Image Alt Tags: Adding descriptive alt text to images enables search engines to comprehend image content, improving accessibility and SEO.

By integrating these techniques, your website aligns with Google’s ranking algorithms, increasing the potential for higher placements in SERPs.

How much does organic SEO cost?

The cost of organic SEO varies based on factors such as the aggressiveness of your strategy and the pricing model of your chosen SEO agency. On average, companies invest between £1,200 and £4,000 per month in these services. For organic SEO consulting, hourly rates typically range from £80 to £240.

How long does organic SEO take?

Achieving noticeable results from search engine optimisation (SEO) typically requires a timeframe of six months to a year. This duration can vary based on several factors, including the extent of your SEO efforts, the initial optimisation level of your website, and the effectiveness of the strategies implemented.

It’s important to recognise that SEO is a continuous process, not a quick fix. Immediate outcomes are uncommon; SEO demands a substantial initial investment of time and resources. However, this investment yields enduring and consistent benefits over time.

How to get started with SEO

Now that you know what organic SEO is, you might wonder how to turn that information into an effective strategy for your business.

Let’s explore a five-step organic SEO strategy that will surely get your website in Google’s good graces. You could also consider these organic SEO best practices.

Conduct Keyword Research

Keyword research is essential in digital marketing and SEO; many consider it the foundation of effective organic SEO strategies.

Begin by entering keywords related to your products or services into a keyword research tool. This will help you discover variations of those keywords, along with their search volumes, competition levels, and cost-per-click values.

Ideally, you’ll select keywords with high monthly search volumes and low competition—this is the key to finding effective keywords.

When choosing keywords, consider targeting a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords are general terms like “ice cream cake,” while long-tail keywords are more specific phrases like “chocolate chip hand-dipped ice cream.”

These keywords differ significantly and attract searchers with varying intents.

If you run an ice cream parlour and create a page targeting the keyword “ice cream cake,” you’ll find it challenging to rank for that term in search results.

Why? Because countless other ice cream parlours are also trying to rank for that exact same keyword.

As you can see, while the search volume for this keyword is extremely high, so is the competition.

On the other hand, if you write a page targeting the long-tail keyword “chocolate chip hand-dipped ice cream,” you’ll have a much easier time ranking since not every ice cream parlour has content about that specific product. The search volume is lower, but so is the competition.

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Develop Content Targeting Your Most Relevant Keywords

Once you’ve identified a list of keywords that effectively reach your target audience, it’s time to create content that aligns with these terms. Google ranks this content in search results, so it’s crucial that it is informative and beneficial to readers in order to achieve top organic rankings.

You can choose to publish various content types to target your keywords.

For example, a blog lets you publish a steady stream of fresh content, which Google favours. You could also publish long-form content, typically more than 2,000 words. Google tends to favour long-form content as it demonstrates expertise on the topic.

Other types of content include:

• Homepage content
• Product pages
• In-depth industry articles
• Industry news and updates

Regardless of the content type you choose to create, aim to provide users with the most valuable information about your target keyword.

Incorporate Multimedia into Your Content

Enhancing your content with multimedia elements—such as images, infographics, and videos—offers several advantages for your organic SEO efforts.

Multimedia serves to break up lengthy text, making your content more visually appealing and easier to digest. This approach enriches the user experience and encourages visitors to spend more time on your site.

Extended dwell time, or the duration users remain on your website, is a significant factor in Google’s ranking algorithms. Integrating engaging multimedia can increase user engagement, which may positively influence your search rankings.

Optimise Your Website’s Page Speed

Page speed is a critical factor in Google’s ranking algorithms, and for good reason. Google aims to provide users with the best possible experience, and a slow-loading website can hinder this.

Studies show that 53% of users will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. While this may seem swift, it’s a common expectation in today’s digital landscape.

To enhance your page speed, consider the following strategies:

• Compress Images: Large images can significantly slow down your site. Utilise tools like Kraken.io to reduce image sizes without compromising quality.
• Minimise Redirects: Excessive redirects can delay page loading times, as the server must process multiple requests. Streamline your site’s structure to reduce the number of redirects.
• Implement Browser Caching: Browser caching stores website resources on users’ devices, allowing for faster load times on subsequent visits and reducing the need to download resources repeatedly.

By implementing these techniques, you can improve your website’s performance, enhance user experience, and potentially boost your search engine rankings.

Organise Your Internal Linking Structure

Establishing a well-structured internal linking system on your website facilitates Google’s ability to crawl and index your pages effectively.

For Google to assess the relevance and quality of your pages, its bots must first crawl them. This process enables the bots to understand the keywords your content targets, the context of your images, and more.

To enhance this crawling process, creating a robust internal linking structure is beneficial. This can be achieved by linking related pages within your content. For instance, if you’re discussing the ease of cleaning a carpet on one of your service pages and previously wrote a blog post on that topic, you can link to your blog within the service page. Similarly, you can link to your carpet product page within your blog post.

To adhere to organic SEO best practices, ensure that each of your site pages is linked to at least three other pages on your website. Additionally, consider the hierarchy of your website pages when linking internally, as this can influence the distribution of page authority and relevance.

Should you do organic SEO yourself?

Many businesses opt to manage SEO in-house. However, the workload required to enhance your site’s performance can be challenging for some organisations. Some companies begin by implementing SEO techniques gradually and later collaborate with an agency to accelerate their results.

When deciding whether to handle SEO internally, consider the following factors:

• Budget: Assess the financial resources available for SEO activities.
• Team: Evaluate the expertise and capacity of your current team to manage SEO tasks effectively.
• Timeline: Determine the urgency of achieving SEO results and whether your team can meet these deadlines.
• Current Website Optimisations: Review the existing state of your website’s SEO and identify areas needing improvement.
• Previous SEO Efforts: Reflect on past SEO initiatives and their outcomes to inform your strategy.

While managing SEO internally is feasible, partnering with an agency can be advantageous if it aligns with your objectives and resources.