What is SEO?

SEO is a widely used digital marketing term, but what does it really mean? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, it is the very process of making sure your website, blog post, even social media posts, are set up properly to be found. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing utilize complex algorithms to look at every single piece of data on the internet and then use the data they obtain to list (or rank) your pages based on relevancy. If the data you provide is hard for them to understand, then your pages will rank lower in their search results.

What is an SEO Audit?

An SEO Audit is the activity taken to review the current SEO status of your web page, your entire web site, blog, or social media post. In digital (internet) marketing, an SEO audit is performed so the content owner (you) can have a deeper understanding of how your content “looks” to all of the search engines, it gives you a good view of your current standing.

An SEO Audit looks at many aspects of the content such as the content structure, the structure of the site as a whole, indexing, social-media engagement, back-links, and other various pieces for analysis. Understanding how all the components work together is crucial to determine how easily your content can be found on the internet.

What’s the difference between SEO and Local SEO?

The term SEO is a very broad term that can have a couple of different meanings, depending on the strategy and targeted outcome. First, there is the general meaning of SEO, which is to set the site up so it is found and properly indexed by the search engines. This is generally relating to broad search categories and is more on a national level. If you did a search for Tires on Google, you will get results for any company that sells tires and most likely have a method of shipping them to you. You might find a really good deal on a special tire from a dealer on the other side of the country, but they can ship them right to your house so you buy them. You found that dealer because of SEO, because their site was set up to show up in searches for those special tires you wanted, even though they are on the other side of the country, and even though a local tire dealer may have the same tire for less money, but his site was not SEO optimized.

Then we get to Local SEO, this is a more focused approach to SEO and is targeting a smaller geographic location. This is where a local business wants to show up in searches for people in their area. If you did a search on Google for Tires near me you will get a very different search result than in the previous example. This isn’t Local SEO though, this is just the search engine doing what you asked, to get to Local SEO we need to look back at the local tire dealer who missed out on a sale. Had the local tire dealer optimized his site, and took it a step further to be optimized for Local SEO, he very well might have ranked higher in the search results. He had the tire that we were looking for, he even sold it for a better price, but his site wasn’t found because it wasn’t set up properly.

It also has an impact on your marketing budget, for good or bad. Let’s say you are spending some money on Google AdWords each month and you’re confident you have your site properly optimized for SEO. You read all the articles, you have all the plugins on your site, you got this dialed in. You run your ads and Google takes your money like clockwork, but sales aren’t improving much. You look at your Google Analytics and notice a lot of the clicks are coming from 3 states away, but you only sell locally, 3 counties away is as far out as your customer base goes. You did a great job on the SEO, so good that you are showing up in searches all over the country, and your ads are so awesome everyone clicks on them (cha-ching). This is where Local SEO plays a big part when this is dialed in then you are only showing up in the searches that are related to your target market, in your target area.

What are some of the benefits of an SEO Audit?

Through an SEO Audit, issues related to content and website architecture will all be brought forward. Understanding these issues and how they impact your performance in search engines will help you strengthen your SEO strategy.

• Know your site health score: There may be issues in your website that prevent you from improving your ranking, from missing Alt tags on images to broken links, that are hurting your search rankings.
• See the competition: With a competitive audit, you’ll see what your competitors are doing, you’ll learn more about their strategies, strengths, and weaknesses.
• Increase conversions and sales: With the help of a Site Audit, you can gain detailed insights helping you drive the most traffic and provide a better lead generation strategy.

As you can see, SEO can be a big factor in how well your site is viewed, not just by the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, but also how its viewed, or not viewed, by your potential customers.

Do yourself and your business a favor, get an SEO Audit done today.