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SEO Basics: What it is and how to make the most of it

By 6th October 2015March 10th, 2022No Comments

You are trying to get your online presence built up to a level where you generate leads that convert to sales. To do this, you are investing time and energy into your website. One of the tips that you have heard bandied around the Internet by friends and colleagues is that you have to make sure your site is SEO ready. Yet what is SEO? How does it impact your online presence to where people are visiting your website and clicking on the desired buttons to purchase or inquire about your products and services?

SEO Basics: What does it mean?

SEO stands for, “search engine optimisation.” Basically, it is a process where you enhance your website and social media pages so they can be found more easily on search engines’ organic result pages or SERPs. So if someone typed in “bookkeeping software” or “accounting software” into their search field on their browser, they would get various top results of companies offering such products.

Businesses want to be on the first two pages of the results because that is where most people will browse for the services and products they desire. So adopting SEO best practices will allow you to drive more traffic to your web pages that can generate more sales.

How to take advantage of SEO?

The main focus of SEO is to create the optimal user experience to garner the attention of website visitors, have them stay on your website to browse for information they want, to make a purchase, and to share your website with other people who may also lead to a promising sale. This tactic leads to your website performing well with web traffic and increasing your chances of rising in the page ranks until you are at the top of page one in search results. We’ll come back to this topic again but to start with here are three SEO tips you can use for your main business website, landing pages, and social media sites:

  1. Analyse your online presence: Find out where the most traffic comes from and which pages visitors check out. There are dozens of online analytical tools available for blogs, websites and social media sites. By analyzing web traffic patterns, you can figure out what interests your visitors the most and build on that experience while optimising other web pages for better user engagement.
  2. Appropriate keyword placement: People will type in specific terms to help them narrow down their search results to get the most relevant information. So they might type in words such as, “cloud accounting software Ireland.” By targeting the keywords that best describe your business and placing them in your content, you can appear in the results. One caveat: search engines will punish sites that are involved with keyword cramming or stuffing, as they will see you as a spammer. Be careful about what keywords you use and how many to place in your content.
  3. Provide engaging content: Lots of websites will go about tackling the basics of SEO by providing link backs in content, having URLs that are searchable, linking to other relevant sites, providing a sitemap, and placing links on social media pages. Yet they miss the boat by not enhancing the content on their websites. You need to create an interactive, pleasant experience for visitors to entice them to return and spread the word about your business. Posting relevant content, updating product and service pages, and offering industry-related information that helps your visitors are all SEO tactics you need to use.

It doesn’t matter if you run a car parts store, a beauticians, a coffee shop or an accounting firm. If you have websites and social media pages, then you have to get involved with SEO. Rise to the challenge by taking the time to work on the above three tips and you’ll see a rise in your ranking on search engine result pages. This is proven to bring in more web traffic to your business and now you have a greater opportunity to convert them into sales.

Please note: There is no quick fix to SEO so stay clear of anyone that promises immediate SEO ranking increases. Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines are very wary of websites that that are overloaded with SEO updates and improvements in a short space of time. Check back in a few weeks as we’ll provide more advice on how to set up your own SEO strategy.

Marc O'Dwyer

Marc O'Dwyer

After completing a Graduate program in Marketing, Marc’s impressive sales career began at Allied Irish Banks, Pitney Bowes and Panasonic where he received numerous Irish and European sales performance awards and consistently exceeded targets and expectations. In 1992, Marc’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to set up his own business, Irish International Sales (IIS). Initially, this company was a reseller for Take 5 Accounts and Payroll software. Within four years, IIS became the largest reseller of Take 5 in Ireland, acquiring four other Take 5 resellers. He also found time to set up two mobile phone shops under the Cellular World brand and a web design company offering website design services for small businesses. In 2001, he bought the majority share in a small Irish software business, Big Red Book. At that time, the company was losing money. The company became profitable within two months, and Marc then acquired a payroll company to compliment Big Red Books Accounting products. In 2003, IIS were appointed as Channel Partners with SAP for their new SME product, SAP Business One. Marc sold his Take 5 business and concentrated on developing this new market for SAP As a result, by 2007, IIS was recognised as the largest Channel Partner for SAP in EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa). In 2008, the IIS Sales Manager bought the Company from Marc in an MBO. He launched Big red cloud in June 2012, the online version of big red book, to date the company successfully converts 59% of trials into sales and the number of customers is growing rapidly. Marc continues to run both Big Red Book and Big Red Cloud which now support 75,000 businesses. He is a very keen sportsman, having played rugby for 20 years, represented Leinster at under 16 and under 20 levels, and league squash with Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club for 10 years. Marc has competed in 11 Marathons, including the London and Boston Marathons, and has completed several Triathlons and Half Ironman races. He has also completed six Ironman Races in Austria(x2), Frankfurt (Germany), Nice (France) , Mallorca (Spain) and Copenhagen (Denmark)