Before we begin: The mission of P&P is to equip and empower confident female creators to success. Normally I blog about mindset and personal development changes, but recently, I have been fielding questions from colleagues about SEO, a field that I worked in at an agency level for almost 5 years. I put together this post as an introductory-level post for creators about the power of SEO for businesses, and how to employ it efficiently to grow your traffic. Enjoy!

No matter what sort of business you’re in (or looking to start), you can’t argue the importance of an online presence. In today’s world, your prospects and customers pretty much expect to be able to find you online, and if they can’t in less than a minute, then you’re setting yourself up for a hard road to success. By using proven, streamlined SEO tactics, you can not only make sure that prospects can find you online when they’re searching for you, but also get in front of them when they’re not. Here’s what entrepreneurs need to know about SEO (only the good stuff – no fluff or questionable tactics!)

What is SEO?

First thing’s first – what exactly is SEO? SEO, or search engine optimization, is an online visibility strategy for boosting your website’s credibility and relevance in the eyes of search engines (mainly Google), so that those search engines are then more inclined to serve your website and pages as results in search engine results pages (“the SERPs”).

By optimizing your website and pages for search engines, you will be shown as better and higher results when users search for specific keywords that relate to your content. The goal is to be on page 1 of the SERPs, in the first few positions (positions 1-3, above the fold), although there are 10 results total per page, and up to 10 pages of search results given for any given keyword.

By increasing your site’s rankings for specific keywords, you will increase the organic traffic to your website, which is one of the most qualified and sustainable traffic sources out there! 

So, how does Google decide whether or not your website and website pages are results-worthy? There are three primary criteria: Accessibility, Relevance, and Authority.

SEO Criteria 1: Accessibility

Accessibility is the most straightforward aspect of SEO – it has to do with whether or not Google can easily “crawl” your website and access the information that it need to. Accessibility has a lot to do with the technical structure of your site, as well as other technical health elements, such as:

• Site security (https vs. http)
• All content is indexed or easily indexed
• Making sure the site is easy to navigate (and provides a good user experience)
• Minimal broken links, broken redirects, and dead pages
• Overall clean site structure

Luckily, if you are just starting out and creating your website, then accessibility is not something you will have to spend that much time worrying about. A new site is already set up for success – just make sure you follow best practices for website building and content production. This article by Moz, The Basics of SEO-Friendly Design & Development, provides a great overview of that

TL;DR on Accessibility: Accessibility has to do with how easily search engines are able to crawl your website. Optimizing for accessibility is pretty easy and can typically be done with the right plugin/Wordpress setup.

SEO Criteria 2: Relevance

Relevance has to do with the on-page content of your webpages. This is where keywords and meta data come into play. Keywords are what users use to find the content they are looking for, so Google will do its best to show content and results that are relevant to their intent.

Typically you optimize for relevance by identifying the specific keywords that you want to rank for, and then incorporating them in your target page’s meta data.

For example, with this article, I am trying to rank for the keyword, “SEO for entrepreneurs,” which I know through research has about 10 monthly searches – this is NOT a lot, and typically you want to go after keywords with much higher MSV (monthly search volume), but I’ll explain my play behind this shortly. 

Then once you identify your target keyword (or keywords), you integrate it into these core elements of the page’s meta data, which are listed in order of importance:

• Page title
• URL structure
• Header tags, including H1, H2s, H3s, etc
• Page body content
• Image alt tags

There are other ways to integrate keywords to increase relevancy, but those listed above are your bread and butter, and will work just fine for starting to get your content to rank. 

How Do I Choose Keywords?

Typically, you want to choose keywords that have at least 100 monthly searches (MSV) to qualify that there are enough people searching for that keyword to make it worth going after. You can view specific keyword search volume through the Google Ads Keyword Planner (although as a caveat – you must have an ads account setup to be able to see exact search volume, otherwise it will just give you a range), or through an easy to use, free tool like SearchVolume.io (this is my favorite).

Generally, keywords with higher search volume will be much more competitive, and it will take longer to see results in the form of rankings. Going after lower search volume keywords, which tend to be more specific and “long tail” is a great strategy for getting less, but more qualified traffic.

Want to learn more about selecting the right keywords for your website? Pre-Enroll in my SEO for Entrepreneurs course, opening in March 2019, today!

TL;DR on Relevancy: Keywords make up the core of relevancy as an SEO ranking signal. Integrating strategically chosen keywords into your on-page content & meta data is the best way to send relevancy signals to Google.

SEO Criteria 3: Authority

Authority has to do with how useful and credible your website actually is. Google wants to show results to users that have a proven track record of being helpful and authoritative.

One of the primary ways that websites and pages are scored as being authoritative is through their domain authority (DA) score. Your site’s domain authority will range on a scale from 1-100. A brand new site will start out with a domain authority score of 1. It is very hard to achieve a DA score of 100. For reference, at the time I’m writing this article, the site HuffingtonPost.com, arguably one of the most linked sites on the entire internet, has a DA of 94. 

Most blogs and information websites have domain authority scores that range from 15-60. 

So how can you increase your own domain authority score, and subsequently, your likelihood of ranking higher in Google search results. The best way to grow your authority is by building your backlink profile. 

Backlinks, or links that are coming into your site (referencing your site), are the highest authority signal for Google. This is because a backlink demonstrates that someone thought to use your site as a reference – to point to your site to give THEIR users more information on a certain topic. It is a signal of credibility and authority.

Among the 3 SEO criteria – authority is definitely the hardest one to build up. It’s much harder (and takes a lot more time) to built a significant portfolio of backlinks to your website. There are shortcuts, like paying for link building services, but these can be very risky, as Google penalizes sites that are clearly practicing “black hat” SEO tactics, like paying en-masse for inorganic, manufactured backlinks. 

Rather, the better route for building up your website’s authority and backlink profile (although it will take time), is to do it organically. We cover strategies with integrity for acquiring links in my course, SEO for Entrepreneurs, but here’s a short list of some of my favorite strategies:

• Conduct manual outreach (send emails) to trusted sites
• Participate in guest blogging
• Put together link roundups featuring other credible sources, and then ask them to share to their network

TL;DR on Authority: Authority is the hardest SEO criteria to hit, since it is dependent on other sites and webmasters linking to your domain. But there are ways to garner natural, authoritative backlinks – they just take time to implement.

Do I Have to Pay for SEO?

You should not have to pay for quality SEO tactics. You can do all the work yourself and see a substantial lift in qualified traffic. That’s the great thing about this channel!

SEO traffic is FREE traffic. 

Unlike other channels, like paid ads on Facebook, Instagram or even Google, using SEO as a channel to garner organic traffic is one of the best marketing strategies to employ for your business, since you do not have to pay a cent for it.

Why Choose SEO Over Other Channels?

Free Traffic: As mentioned above, one of the biggest reasons to choose SEO as a marketing strategy over other channels is the cost: since there is none! If you get your SEO strategy cranking, you’ll see a natural, consistent increase in traffic, without paying a dime.

Increased Credibility – As I mentioned above, it’s one of the best ways to drive qualified traffic to your site, as the users who arrive will have searched specific keywords that lead them directly to your content. 

SEO is a “pull” marketing tactic. Users arrive on your site of their own accord. Paid ads is a “push” marketing tactic, where you’re placing ads in front of users forcibly (even if they are great, helpful ads, they’re still being shown to users without those users having asked to see them). Right off the bat, this fosters increased trust and credibility for users who arrive at your website through organic search results.

It’s Evergreen: Another reason SEO is a great traffic channel is that it’s evergreen, meaning it’s not depending on specific efforts or actions to be successful. Once you put an SEO strategy to work, and start to see results from that strategy, they will remain consistent. Once you start to rank for a keyword, you can expect (for the most part), that traffic to continue, pending new competitors to the space that may bump you down in rankings. 

I hope you found this overview on SEO for Entrepreneurs helpful! Let me know if you have any specific questions, and I will answer them in the comments. 

Header photo by Adriana Zuniga-Williams