This is what you need to know about SEO, including a checklist!

Within the online marketing world, SEO (see-o) is a common term. This abbreviation stands for Search Engine Optimisation, or search engine optimisation in Dutch. Together with SEA, it is part of search engine marketing (SEM), which forms the basis of online marketing. OK, enough jargon. What exactly can you do with SEO? You can increase your company's online findability with it. Simply put, it is used to optimise websites so that they rank higher in reader search results, without you having to pay for it. When we talk about search engines, we mainly refer to Google. However, the principle works the same with competing platforms, such as Bing.

Why is SEO so important?

What is the first thing you do when you want more information about a particular product or company? Chances are you then grab your phone and immediately open Google. There, you will then type in some keywords that are about that particular topic. After the search is started, the results will appear on your screen. The top ones are often adverts (more on that later) and then follow the results that Google thinks are most relevant to your search. To judge that, search engines 'read' your website and then attach a rating to it. And you can influence this: the techniques used to do this are called SEO. With strong SEO, you can create more brand awareness, make different pages on your websites more accessible and increase your reliability.

What are the three SEO pillars?

SEO can be broken down into the categories of technique, content and off-page:

• Technology: this is considered the foundation of your organic findability and revolves around the ease with which search engines can index a website. It includes various technical aspects, such as URL structure, loading time and the presence of secure connections.
• Content: search engines judge a website's content on relevance, quality and word count. The content should be of obvious interest, but a text should also contain enough important keywords. Readability is also important, with search engines paying attention to white spaces, headings, paragraph length and variety (e.g. with bullet points or graphs).
• Off-page: this is the extent to which high authority websites (which are popular or well-known) link to your page or website. We call this backlinks. You can use these to go purposefully link building, but that can start to stand out. Backlinks that are not forced but 'naturally' created therefore work better.

The difference between SEO and SEA

OK, so SEO includes techniques you can apply to boost the organic findability of a website or page. You don't pay (directly) for that. Its counterpart is SEA, which stands for Search Engine Advertising. This is the paid form to make your website more findable and an easy way to end up high in the search results. This way, you can even make a website appear in the top three results. The big disadvantage is that SEA can be (very) pricey. The search volume is often a determining factor in this. It simply means how often a keyword is searched for. Generally speaking, the higher the search volume, the greater the competition. The greater the competition, the higher the advertising costs become.

SEO is on-demand marketing

SEO is what? Well, SEO is seen as a subtle way to raise awareness of products or services. Everywhere on the internet these days, you come across advertisements and ads (e.g. through SEA). Many users don't like that and therefore use ad-blockers. Excessive use of such advertising can also affect the image a potential guest has of your company. You obviously want to appear trustworthy and deliver exactly what is asked for. With the help of SEO, you still get on the radar as a 'normal' search result, without advertising. If you do this properly, your name will appear when customers ask for it. Exactly: on-demand.

Qualitative visitors

Not everything revolves around the actual number of visitors to your website. Of course, it says something about how many people know how to find your website, but that doesn't tell you much. What you really want is for these visitors to take an action on your website. That could be an order, a reservation or a registration. So it is especially important to know the number of conversions on your website. You can use SEO to fine-tune your website's content and make your offerings attractive. This can help get more conversions from your website. Fingers crossed!

The SEO checklist for your website

Using SEO for your website? Then you need to take many things into account. We have therefore prepared a basis with 10 important points for you. Make use of them!

1. Reduce the load time of your website.
2. Set up 'share buttons' for social media channels.
3. Compress the images (and give them an Alt text).
4. Add readable, relevant and reliable content.
5. Use clickable headings as well as adding subheadings.
6. Do a keyword research and incorporate the words on your website.
7. Write SEO pages or blogs based on your keyword research.
8. Optimise meta descriptions (the small snippet under your website's name in Google)
9. Use short URLs without words such as 'the' and 'our'.
10. Provide varied types of content. Alternate written posts with videos, pdf documents or images.

Who visits my website?

It is also good to take a moment to think about your desired target audience. By adjusting the way you communicate (tone of voice), you may be able to reach your target audience better. For example, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does my target audience use and understand specialist terms?
2. What is the target audience looking for?
3. What does my target audience care about?
4. Does my target audience know about my product or service?
5. How does my target audience view my product or service?
6. What are characteristics of the individuals within the target group?

Before you start tweaking existing website texts or writing new SEO pages, it is good to have answers to these first.

The don'ts of SEO

Are you going to try to outsmart search engines? Or do you want to make it as easy as possible for yourself? Then beware. Search engines can recognise this kind of behaviour and it will actually have a negative impact on your website's ranking. So pay particular attention to the following:

• Don't copy content. Be creative! Write your own texts and make sure your content is unique.
• Don't 'spam' readers with a plethora of keywords. Think of a paragraph where the same word can be found 10 times. This does not read well and Google rates it as 'unnatural'.
• Don't write long texts. Keep content readable and clear. Readers may become irritated by texts that are too long and drop out.
• Don't deliberately put keywords in headlines. Rather, try to excite readers with, for example, a question, dilemma, or solution.

Finally, don't expect immediate results. SEO puts soles on the line for the longer term. It takes time for Google to rank your pages crashed (scanned + reviewed) and therefore it will also take a few months for your ranking to rise. Patience is a virtue!

Learn more about SEO

Want to get started with SEO yourself? Then delve into it thoroughly. You can find a lot of information on the internet, just Google it... But maybe you prefer to leave search engine optimisation and everything that comes with it to the experts. Smart! You've come to the right place then, at The Fully Bookers. Feel free to give us a call to discuss the possibilities. We can quickly see where there are gains to be made and, for example, start writing valuable SEO pages for you.