It seems like everyone emphasises the importance of balance. But what do you need to balance when doing SEO? How do you ensure you’re paying the right amount of attention to the needs of web users, search engines and your budget and not overdo it in any area? Best practice SEO involves balancing many different elements: technical resources, different marketing channels, and the size and skills of your team.
SEO is not the only factor driving traffic to a website, but it’s an important one. Choosing what to prioritise while building an SEO strategy (among other strategies) is an ongoing process. A search engine optimisation professional can identify the factors likely to make the biggest difference and offer an approach for them first. If you’re looking for an SEO company in Brisbane to help you climb higher on search engines, Anchor is always at the forefront of what’s happening in SEO and the best practices. We can keep all aspects of your strategy balanced as we help you climb up the search engine results.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a set of practices designed to improve how websites appear (and where they rank) in search engine results pages (SERPS). Unlike pay-per-click (PPC) ads, SEO is organic. It’s based on the results that the search engine has decided are most relevant to the user’s inquiry. You can’t pay for organic search engine results, you need to earn them using the proper techniques.
Search engines have bots that crawl the Internet to gather information and put pages in an index. When a user types a phrase into the search bar, the search engine uses algorithms to go through the results and pull out what it perceives to be the most accurate ones. These picks are displayed in the coveted position on top of the search results pages. There are many places to learn SEO best practices and what you need to balance when doing SEO: from how-to guides to blogs, seminars, and podcasts. Key components of powerful SEO include high-quality content optimising for readers’ needs, the right targeted keywords, meta tags and descriptions, links and social media posts.
Why is SEO Important?
SEO is important because it makes your site more visible and means more opportunities to turn web users into customers. It’s one of the most effective methods for driving traffic to your website without paid ads. Good quality search engine optimisation not only helps your brand positioning and sales but also makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable for readers, boosts your credibility and helps establish you as an authority in your field.
What Do You Need to Balance When Doing SEO?
There are a few factors you really need to balance to make sure your SEO strategy is successful. Among them are
Your users’ needs
To rank highly on a search engine, you have to think about readers and their experience, not just about bots. Successful SEO is about pleasing both web users and search engines, striking a balance between user experience (UX) and algorithm-pleasing techniques. Google penalises spammy content stuffed with keywords and rewards the well-written, informative kind with high rankings.Often, user experience and best practice SEO go hand in hand. There’s no conflict. At times, however, trade-offs must be made, and you must use your judgement. Including a video might slow down your page’s loading time and, if it auto plays, cause some users to leave immediately. It can also be informative, excellent for SEO and keep people on your page for longer. Likewise, there’s an art to using the right keywords in your copy to rank higher without appearing spammy or compromising readers’ enjoyment of the content.
The search engines
Search engines have evolved to the point at which user experience is the most significant ranking factor. Easy-to-read, informative content and fast loading times provide a more pleasant experience for web users and indicate to search engines that your page is of very high quality.These days Google is designed to recognise good content when it sees it and reward it accordingly. That doesn’t mean there’s no need to pay attention to keywords, links, content length and location-based targeting. These things are still important. But it does mean you need to pay a little more attention to thorough research, accurate information, well-written and informative text, and a clear purpose complete with a call-to-action.Most of the time, what’s good for web users is good for search engines. Especially when you focus on providing what both are ultimately looking for: answers.
Your budget
While SEO is generally free as opposed to paid advertisements, that doesn’t mean you won’t spend any money on your SEO campaign. You may have a full-time SEO specialist or copywriter on your team and need to pay them a salary. You may need to pay for the services of an SEO company in Brisbane or the city you live in. Some SEO measures, such as changing your content management system, cost money.So the important question is, what is your budget for SEO? How much can you afford to spend, and what kind of results can you expect from your expenditure?
It may be tempting to go for the cheapest SEO on the market to balance the budget and get more for your money. But that can be worse than no SEO and ultimately cost you money. Google penalises poor-quality SEO and spammy web pages. An SEO company that promises miracles at bargain-basement prices is a red flag, and engaging with them can be a mistake that leads to your whole web presence disappearing.
Your competition
Like it or not, it’s essential to pay attention to what your competition is doing. What’s the quality of their content like? What’s the user experience on their site like? What keywords are they using? You don’t have to steal their entire strategy or compromise your own identity or approach, but competitor analysis helps you find out where you stand and what else you need to be doing.What do you need to balance when doing SEO? All that and more. But with a search engine optimisation professional on your side, it becomes easier than it may at first appear.
SEO Services in Brisbane at Anchor Digital
Looking for a reliable SEO company in Brisbane? Anchor can guarantee your search engine strategy is effective so you can devote more time to running your business. We can answer any questions you may have, from “what do you need to balance when doing SEO?” to “is my current strategy the best use of my time and resources?”
Anchor keeps up with SEO changes and delves deeper than just keywords and bots. We optimise for web users, maintaining your business’s authentic voice through and through. We work closely with you to ensure we stay true to your business objectives and vision. Check out our SEO services and drop us a line to optimise for the fish, not the bait.