Did you know that around 53 percent of website traffic comes from organic searches? These are users that took to Google or Bing to search for a product or service that you offer and landed on your webpage. When someone searches for an item you sell, you want your website to be one of the first things they come across.
Organic SEO, when executed correctly, can be a major driver for revenue for your website. It’s a cost-effective marketing strategy that increases clicks to your website and boosts your customer base.
This guide will discuss what organic SEO is and how you can use it to grow your small business.
What Is Organic SEO?
Organic SEO is a form of search engine optimization that utilizes organic strategies to get your website to rank high on various search engines. It generally refers to the unpaid aspects of SEO, like off-page and on-page tactics.
Some of these methods include:
- Posting high-quality content
- Backlinking
- Keyword boosting
When you incorporate organic SEO into your website, your web presence and traffic will grow and expand over time. The word “organic” means something has the traits and characteristics that an organism does.
Black hat SEO strategies might boost your website’s rankings in the short term, but those types of methods could have a negative effect on your website. This includes link farming and keyword stuffing.
Benefits Of Organic SEO
When you incorporate small business SEO into your website, it’ll start to slowly climb the search engine results pages. 75% of people don’t go past the first page of search results, so you want to ensure you land on that page.
In addition to helping your website rank higher, there are other benefits organic SEO will have for your company.
Increased Brand Awareness
Brand awareness refers to when users become more familiar with your brand and products over time. Building awareness around your brand increases the likelihood that users who are looking for what you have to offer will remember your company. The more often a user sees your company, the higher chance that they’ll become a frequent and loyal customer.
Improved Visibility
The internet is one of the best places to target potential customers. You’re putting yourself in a good position to increase your qualified leads as you boost your visibility.
You can get an advantage over competing companies that don’t have an online presence. You’ll also level the playing field with competitors who have an online presence.
Cost-Effective
Marketing campaigns can quickly get expensive. What’s great about organic SEO is that any company can implement it into their website, no matter their marketing budget. You can compete with large companies when you have an effective organic SEO strategy.
Increased Value Over A Period of Time
With a paid ad campaign, your rankings on the search engine results pages will disappear once you stop the campaign. When you rank high for keywords with organic SEO, your ranking will stay the same. It could actually increase with adjustments and maintenance over time.
Once you implement organic SEO, you should continually provide value to your website. Search engines could increase your rankings on their search engine results pages and continue to drive traffic your way.
What Are Organic SEO Strategies?
It’s important to know the different methods and techniques that are related to organic SEO methods. Some of them could have negative repercussions on your website.
White Hat SEO
White hat SEO refers to the techniques that match the terms and conditions set by the major search engines. These methods are considered the most compliant and safest form of organic SEO.
Some of the guidelines include:
- Meta-descriptions and alt text that doesn’t include keyword stuffing
- Information-rich and original content
- Quick website loading that has simple user navigation
Keyword stuffing is when a website stuffs or fills a webpage with the same target term. This tactic is employed to manipulate their website’s ranking, hoping that it’ll rank higher on Google. These keywords often appear in a group, list, or out of context.
Google, and other search engines, will penalize your website if they catch your keyword stuffing. Your website will decrease in ranking or could get removed entirely.
Grey Hat SEO
Grey hat SEO methods fit into a grey area and are difficult to categorize. These techniques carry more risk than white hat SEO, but they don’t fall into the black hat SEO category. Grey hat SEO has some methods that aren’t completely acceptable by the terms and conditions of different search engines.
If you decide to employ grey hat SEO, you have to check often to evaluate if Google has said the tactics are acceptable or not. Some common techniques include:
- Duplicated content
- Purchasing old domains
- Automating your social media
- Purchasing links
It’s best to avoid grey hat SEO. An experienced SEO agency will give you expert advice on what strategies to employ.
Black Hat SEO
The term “black hat” started in Western movies as a way to separate the good guys from the bad guys. Think of black hat SEO as the villain in these types of movies.
As we discussed earlier, black hat SEO carries with it some heavy risks. These techniques violate the terms and conditions set by the major search engines. Doing these techniques can result in your website getting banned.
In addition to keyword stuffing and link farming, some black hat SEO practices include:
- Spinning content
- Creating subdomains or domains that have duplicate content
- Automating your content
- Making false reports of your competitors
- Link schemes
- Hidden links or texts
Follow the rules and guidelines set by the major search engines to ensure your website doesn’t get banned.
For example, a white hat SEO tactic would be posting relevant and valuable content that other websites would want to link to. Black hat would be hacking into a website to inject your links into its website content.
Partner With A Qualified Agency For SEO Services
Organic SEO can be an overwhelming and intimidating process. Partnering with an experienced SEO agency is key to ensuring the success of your online presence.
Contact us today to schedule a strategy call with one of our specialists.
