As a next-door Google user, when was the last time you clicked on a top search result labelled “ad”? If your answer is anything from “barely” to “not sure”, you’re among the 94% of users who pick organic search results for their query. Now, you must be wondering, what are organic SEO services?
Now switch your lens to that of a business owner – what does this statistic mean for your online marketing strategy? Firstly, paid advertising works, but not most of the time. Second, and most importantly, your customers need to see your online footing first before you even convert a lead.
That is where organic search engine optimization services step in to change the game of your website traffic behaviour. If you’re curious about organic SEO services and their major elements, you’re in the right space.
But before that, let’s clear some smoke around organic rankings.
What is Organic SEO?
Organic Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a digital marketing process of improving your website rankings to the top of the unpaid listing. It is achieved when the content is high on relevance, value, and authority. It has sub-strategies like keyword research, optimised content, and link building to boost your position on search engines.
Organic vs Paid Advertising
Paid ads appear on top of SERPs, much closer to the organic listing. And this is a significant source of revenue for search engines. There are different categories like pay per click, for example, where you pay them every time someone clicks your ad. Others include native, display, and social media ads.
Now that the basics are out of the way, let’s steer towards various organic SEO services you might need when designing an SEO campaign.
What is Organic SEO Services?
Organic SEO works in a straightforward way: Google crawls and indexes your web pages with its algorithm to decide your website rank.
A website is where you can publicise and offer solutions, products, and the overall brand picture. However, what if you notice the website isn’t pulling in the needed traffic to grow your business? In such cases, you’re losing out on major revenue opportunities.
An excellent organic SEO strategy needs consistent optimisation. It includes everything from simple alterations to complex strategies. They equip you to handle and assess areas of improvement to naturally grow website traffic.
Why is It Important for Companies?
Organic SEO services are essential to a company for a spectrum of reasons, including:
- Advantage of Cost: This one easily takes the cake. Pay-per-click Google ads surely put you on the visibility map, but the long-run costs add up to big numbers. But with a sound organic SEO strategy, your organic traffic costs are low, without much compromise on the footfalls.
- Credibility: Consistently ranking high on search engines deliver more benefits than organic traffic. When customers find you on top of SERPs, they develop a sense of confidence and find your brand credible.
- Competitive Advantage: As your organic search rankings improve, your competitors will gradually be pushed down in the list. This way, you can outrank them to be on the first page without outspending them in digital marketing, giving more online authority and traffic.
- Long-Term Focus: SEO services do have quick results, but the traffic may halt once you stop paying for ads. Paid rankings can benefit you exceptionally in certain circumstances-it may plant challenges for growth and scalability. But a solid organic SEO strategy cements your traffic flow that’s not solely tied to paid campaigns.
Categories of an Organic SEO Strategy
A number of measures and tools form a wholesome organic SEO campaign to rank high on Google. Google algorithms rank a website based on three factors: on-page SEO, off-page or content creation strategy, and technical SEO. Let’s have a good look at each of these areas.
On-Page SEO Strategy
Also called on-site SEO, this process involves optimising a website’s front and back-end components for search engines to rank, and you experience more site traffic. Its components include content design, site architecture, and HTML. Unlike other tech areas, on-site is based on your decisions.
How, you ask? On-page SEO is vital as it feeds search engines a variety of cues that assist them in figuring out what your content is. Search engines aim to match web pages with keywords and search queries users type in the search box during the indexing and ranking procedures.
So, what should your on-site SEO checklist include?
1. Creating Quality Content
With regards to SEO, high-quality implies original and relevant content.
So, the best action would be to run a quick Google search for your target keywords. Observe the top search engine rankings and examine the results on its first page. Note down things like:
- The type of content
- Top keywords for under search intent
- Use of images and video elements
- Page design – UX and fluid site structure
Once through with it, design your content around informational and core business areas. You need in-depth keyword research, so pay attention to the organic search results. The process involves using tools like Google Keyword Planner or Trends to discover and identify relevant keywords and their search volume by region or season.
That apart, informational content like blogs and articles along with internal linking helps boost the SEO quality by making your website visible as an answer to customers’ questions.
2. Title Tags & Description
When search engines crawl for results, they read your title and description, among other things. It helps them grasp the page’s authority, competition, et al., to rank your website.
Each web page needs unique titles that help both search engines and customers understand the relevance of your site.
Take note of these important page title SEO tips for improved site quality:
- Inserting keywords at the start of page titles after careful keyword research
- Including crisp descriptions
- Adding numbers or power-words (top 5 tips or Ultimate Guide, etc.)
Meta tags
Like title tags, meta descriptions are on the top of a website and contains target keywords. Ideally, they should be within 150-160 characters, easy to understand to appear on the search engine results page. It is your chance to capture user attention and convince them to click on your link.
3. Optimisation for Mobile
With more people spending time on their mobile phones, it’s important your website adjusts to the screen size and page scroll speed. Move to responsive page designs with CSS3 media queries for standard content experience across devices.
You also need to optimise for local SEO by being consistent with your name and contact and adding your location in the site’s metadata.
Off-Site SEO
This includes all the efforts made outside of your site design to improve your SERP ranking. Off-site SEO is important as it contributes to more than 50% of the ranking factors.
Think of it as primal in establishing your authority among web browsers. Websites commanding higher authority tend to take plum positions in organic search results than those with low or none. That is because search engines tout such sites as credible and high-quality.
Have a look at the common off-site SEO strategies that are integral in your organic SEO campaigns.
1. Link Building
Also called backlinking, it’s the process of directing to another website. It’s crucial you gauge what links work best for your content marketing strategy. As Google considers backlinks or external links as a stamp of popularity, linking to websites with excellent authority contributes to your standing. Naturally, there’s a correlation between sites with high-quality links and high organic ranks.
There are two kinds of links that can spike your organic SEO performance.
- Natural Links
- Self-Promotion links
Earning good backlinks adds a component of trust towards your brand, as others are vouching for your content.
2. Content Marketing
It’s not just an on-site element where you only create posts on your website. Consider if your post or infographic is picked by a reputed website or content company: that’s content marketing.
Include guest posting in your SEO strategy to help your business grow beyond traditional marketing methods. But take a step back and focus on creating highly engaging content that adds value to users and is shareable. Popular content marketing tactics are:
- Well-designed infographics
- Ebooks and whitepapers
- Research papers and related resources
- Surveys and relevant studies
3. Social Media
The previous point brings us to the most vibrant channel for increasing organic SEO results.
It’s seen that 93% of online users visit a social media platform every day. Platforms like Instagram are search engines in their own right, and the right SEO strategy cannot overlook the immense potential there.
Present your brand identity, and channelise the platform as a customer service tool. It’s most likely customers would prefer to raise queries on your social handles for a quick response or inquire about your business. Consider opting for influencer marketing if you’re a product-based business. It’s a promising way to reach the masses, a sort of outsourced marketing (in a way).
4. Local Listings
This involves steps to amplify your presence in your own location of service. To collect information for local queries, search engines rely on specific keywords around location, links, citations, etc., to present relevant results.
Use free SEO tools like Google My Business that helps get the Local Pack to include and update your prime intel like work hours, contact, and key products & services.
Technical SEO analysis
Borrowing from Neil Patel, a strong technical foundation is necessary along with other organic SEO work to rank high on a search engine like Google.
You need to be in tandem with the search engine bots to help understand your web architecture to easily index your content among organic results. But how do you accomplish this?
1. URL Structure
URLs are also known as links. But is it a key area of concern in organic SEO strategies?
Indeed.
URLs are an important factor for ranking and promoting Google PageRank. Your URL structure must consider user experience. That means simple URLs with easy-to-read components and keywords related to the page’s content are SEO-friendly.
2. Fix Broken Links
This space is to touch upon crucial status codes – 404, 301, & 302. Understand using redirects correctly during link building.
Both a user and search engine would be badly surprised to find a blank or an erroneous link, which hurts your visibility. You can avoid and manage such events by using a broken link checker like this one to stay ahead of the tech glitch.
3. Website Speed
All your digital marketing efforts may take a hit if the page loads slowly. People are impatient and will hop on another page for their answers, and you’ll miss out on traffic.
Google knows this is an undesirable experience and choose pages that load faster. Test your website for speed, and check out the Core Web Vitals to create a user-centric environment.
The Bottomline
Whether you choose SEO specialists or do it yourself, a successful organic SEO campaign involves multifaceted areas of work. What makes organic SEO important is its immense potential to feature on top of SERPs without shelling too much money in Google ads or other digital marketing services.
Your search engine optimization strategy must envision and align with your business goals of creating a seamless user experience with outstanding support and services.
