Table of Contents
- How Organic SEO Works
Ayup! This introductory guide to organic SEO covers the importance of a long-term vision that doesn’t rely on paid ads. Sounds good already, right?
Furthermore, I’ll dive into building a web presence that works for your business around the clock. An essential ingredient to any digital marketing strategy.
Following eleven years in business, a strong online reach has always been our primary source of new clients. Here’s how you can start generating leads and enquiries with one of your most important marketing channels.
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How Organic SEO Works
Nobody likes waiting around to see results. I get it. However, for your business to succeed, it needs a solid plan to secure ongoing phone calls, emails or visits from potential clients or customers.
This is where search engine optimisation comes into play. More specifically, the organic variety. Much like in the supermarket, it’s better for longevity. Firstly, let’s untangle all of this discombobulating jargon.
FAQ
Organic SEO improves your natural web presence. It optimises how and where you show up when folks are searching for your product or service.
This type of search engine optimisation doesn’t provide any quick wins, as paid ads sometimes can. Instead, it relies on continually increasing your online visibility and conversion over time.
As a result, your website and online listings, such as Google Business Profile, will show up right when you need them to. In contrast to pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, you won’t pay a penny whenever anyone visits your website.
Local SEO Vs Organic SEO
Aren’t these just the same thing? Kind of, yes. Many of the traits of local and organic cross over. For example, a local business will nearly always benefit from the organic SEO practices outlined in this article.
With that said, an organic strategy could also be on a much wider scale. In this case, it wouldn’t require any local optimisation. For instance, a worldwide software service would lean heavily into organic reach, without needing to target local areas.
How long does it take to see initial results?
If you’re not already accustomed to this phrase, us SEO folks use it a lot; it depends. A brand new business and website should expect to see initial results within three months.
This may vary, though, depending on the difficulty of your competition. Generally speaking, the easier your niche is to rank in, the quicker you’ll rise towards the top of page one.
Once you start building your E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), your pages and posts will start ranking in a shorter space of time.
E-E-A-T is Google’s way of determining how high they’ll rank you. Furthermore, it’s a solid basis to increase your visibility on all search engines. More on this under ‘Where to Start’.
The good news! As you build your domain authority and target the right keywords, articles on your website can rank on Google in under 24 hours.
Domain Authority (DA) is a metric first developed by Moz that predicts how likely a domain is to appear in the SERPs compared to its competitors.
How long do I need to work on this for?
Your SEO strategy should be a continuous process throughout the lifecycle of your business.
For most local businesses, the first couple of years are the most important. During this time, your website, listings and online presence will require constant attention.
Once you’ve reached all of your ranking goals, it’s likely you won’t need to assign quite as many hours to your SEO strategy. Therefore, you could potentially reap the rewards of your prior investment without spending all of your marketing budget each month.
With that said, it’s important to track and maintain your results, making relevant tweaks when required. Your competitors will always be trying to catch up with you.
It can take a long time for SEO to work because Google considers many factors when ranking search results. And there are often hundreds of pages competing for the same spots.
Is organic SEO free?
While you won’t be paying for online ads, you’ll pay in one of two ways with organic SEO:
- Your time – If you’re looking to take this on yourself, set aside plenty of time to dedicate towards learning how it all works and constantly testing and improving your results.
- Your marketing budget – Alternatively, you can pay an SEO specialist or agency to do it all for you.
Where to start
Here are seven key areas to initially focus on when implementing an organic SEO campaign. They’re roughly in the order you should complete them in, but feel free to switch it up and circle back.
Research
Firstly, one of the most crucial steps is researching the keywords you want to rank for. Nine and a bit times out of ten, this is primarily going to be your product or service, followed by your town or city.
A keyword, or a focus keyword as some call it, is a word that describes the content on your page or post best. It’s the search term you want to rank for with a certain page. So when people search for that keyword or phrase in Google or other search engines, they should find that page on your website.
For example, estate agents derby. Go ahead and Google your product or service with the area you’re located in. This will give you a good idea of what you’re up against.
Take note of the top three Google Maps results, the AI overview (if it shows one) and the websites ranking on the first page. Have a gander at their titles and meta descriptions. What keywords are they using?
If you’re up for getting a little more involved, set up a free account on Semrush. This will allow you to use the Keyword Magic tool for up to 10 searches per day.
Enter the same keyword /phrase that you just Googled, and you’ll then see a handy list of related search terms and questions that folks are asking.
Keep it simple initially, but start recording the keywords you want to rank for on a spreadsheet or notes app. This will then become the focus for everything else in this list.
Your website
Without a shadow of a doubt, a website is the most crucial ingredient in any SEO strategy or campaign. WordPress (paired with the Yoast plugin) is well-renowned as one of the most SEO-friendly ways to build a website.
Top tip: Make sure your site is loading quickly. This will affect user behaviour and plays a role in your rankings.
Yoast will ask for a focus keyword on each of your pages and blog posts. Based on this, it will then help you optimise your page for that particular search term.
You’ll be presented with a traffic light system. The more green lights you can check off, the better.
If you’re up for going a little deeper, enter your domain name as a project in your free Semrush account. This will audit your site and provide available insight on any technical areas that need fixing.
Google Business Profile
Although your website takes priority, if you’re a local business, your Google Business Profile is equally important. When optimised correctly, this completely free online listing has the potential to bring in a consistent flurry of enquiries.
Once your profile is set up, maintenance is key. Keep adding images, further details, updates and offers. Tweak your products and services when needed, and always make sure your main service best reflects your business.
As with your website, check out your competitor’s listings. What primary category are they using? How many reviews have they got? What keywords are they using in their copy, and how often are they posting updates?
A YouTube channel that I always recommend for Google Business Profile tips is Zanet. Clear actionable advice that’ll level up your profile and web presence in no time.
Bing Places for Business
The Microsoft equivalent of your Google Business Profile is Bing Places for Business. It’s well worth spending some time and attention here. You’ll probably also find it much easier to rank well on Bing Maps.
This is because most businesses generally focus more on Google than they do on Bing. Chances are, most of your competitors aren’t optimising their profiles (if they even have one). Again, this listing is completely free.
While it won’t bring in anywhere near as many enquiries as your Google Profile, it’s a vital source of enquiries that will benefit your business.
If your business or client is currently getting traffic and conversions from Bing, then consider giving Bing Places a try and adding it to your local SEO strategy.
Your blog
One of the easiest ways to drive traffic to your website is via your blog. It’s also a quick win for your E-E-A-T (more on this in the next step).
Start planning articles based on common questions related to your product or service. These can often be found under People Also Ask on Google.
Additionally, head back to your Semrush account to start gathering ideas and see how easy or difficult each search term is to rank for.
Build out a collection of content that serves to a) help your audience and b) bring in website traffic. You can then use a call to action to convert some of your visitors into leads.
Again, the Yoast plugin is going to assist you with your writing and other aspects of your post. Extremely useful.
E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s a system used by Google to determine how highly they’ll rank your website.
Furthermore, it’s a standard practice that will benefit your rankings on any other search engine.
Ultimately, what they’re looking for is trustworthy advice from experts in your industry. Become the obvious choice by demonstrating your knowledge and experience with your audience.
This will be in the form of:
- The content on your website
- Blog posts
- Your reputation (reviews, etc)
- Your social media posts
Throughout the entirety of your organic SEO strategy, tie it all in with E-E-A-T. This way, every website update, blog post or social media update contributes towards showing Google that you know your stuff.
Social media & online listings
Your social media profiles and online business listings play an essential role in SEO. Start building your E-E-A-T by sharing industry knowledge and practical advice.
It’s also beneficial to make use of online business profiles available with Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. No need to use all of them, but consider where your target audience is most likely to hang out online, and make sure you’re there with them.
Lastly, sites like Yell, Freeindex and Cylex let you set a free business profile with your information, contact details and a link to your website.
Yell will call you to try and sell you their SEO services. They have a solid reputation for being completely useless, so politely declining is recommended.
While social media management and SEO optimization tend to be two very different strategies, they can complement each other. Leveraging both can help you gain traffic from a variety of different sources.
Bonus – Analytics & Google Search Console
With all of the above in place, you’re going to want to view your website traffic and how people are finding you.
While I don’t advise using Google Analytics, there are plenty of privacy-friendly options out there as an alternative. For a simple set of stats that you can view directly from your WordPress dashboard, take a look at Koko Analytics.
Google Search Console will become an invaluable source of insights as you grow your online presence. View your impressions, clicks and what people are searching for when they find your website.
Organic SEO – Conclusion
During the eleven years I’ve been in business, I’ve relied on two simple channels to drive turnover. Organic SEO and repeat customers.
When you get the former right, it takes the pressure off of sourcing new customers or clients. Yes, it’s a long game, but it’s undoubtedly a game that’s worth playing to secure the longevity of your business.
While paid ads can bring in quick wins, most small to medium-sized businesses can’t afford to run these every month.
An organic SEO strategy will eventually reduce the need for paid ads, as you’ll be showing up in all of the right places anyway. Your cost per click: Absolutely nothing. Happy days!
Thanks for stopping by…
Ayup! My name’s Mike Hindle. I’m a WordPress sustainability professional with eleven years of experience and the owner here at Clearcut Derby.
I specialise in low-carbon websites that achieve maximum online presence with minimal environmental impact. If I had to be an animal, I’d be an elephant.