In This Article
- A Short Overview of SEO
- How SEO Works
- AI and SEO
- The Role of SEO in Digital Marketing
- Should I Have an SEO Strategy?
- How SEO Can Boost Your Business
- Knowing the Difference Between Paid and Organic Searches
- Contact Us Today for Your SEO Digital Marketing Needs
SEO: three simple letters that hold the key to online success. You might know that search engine optimization (SEO) is important and has something to do with search engines. But what is SEO, and why does it matter?
This article is your primer on all things SEO and its potential impact on your business. If you’re ready to start honing your SEO knowledge without getting lost in the tech jargon, buckle up! We’ll explain SEO’s ins and outs, help you tap into its potential, and help your business shine online.
A Short Overview of SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization, meaning optimizing your website content and technical setup so that Google (plus other search engines) can crawl, index, and understand your content to rank your web pages higher in search results. This digital marketing strategy will help you increase your site’s visibility and likely more organic search traffic.
If a potential customer or client searches for a topic relevant to your products or services, you want to be on the top of that search engine results page (SERP) alongside your competitors. If you aren’t, another business may have just gained a new customer—or you lost one.
SEO allows you to lead the customer through your buying process. In addition to visibility and increased website traffic, SEO contributes to your company’s authoritative voice in your industry. And that authority builds brand trust, which ultimately becomes brand loyalty.
Why Is SEO So Important for Your Business?
SEO is one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies you can deploy to improve sales, build credibility, increase brand awareness, and gain a leg up on your competitors.
A solid SEO foundation not only attracts new customers but also lets you deepen your business’s relationship with those customers because of the trust you establish with them.
How SEO Works
SEO is about both quality and quantity. Search engines want to provide the most relevant, high-quality results to searchers, so websites need substantive, helpful content and technical optimization to rank well.
A solid SEO strategy typically includes these elements:
- Keyword analysis
- Backlink building
- Content creation
- Technical maintenance
Let’s look at how each of these strengthens your digital marketing efforts.
Keyword Analysis
Every SEO strategy starts with research. More specifically, you need to understand the words your audience will use on a search engine when researching products, services, or topics relevant to your business.
At the most basic level, keywords have varying difficulty levels and search volume. For example, consider the keyword “biotech.” As a broad term, ranking on Google is quite difficult. Here is what Semrush tells us about this keyword:

It has a 88% difficulty level, which means it’s “The hardest keyword to compete for, and it will take a lot of on-page SEO, link building, and content promotion efforts.”
Does that mean a company should give up trying to rank for that keyword? Not exactly. In keyword research, you’re also looking for long-tail keywords with a high enough monthly search volume and more reasonable keyword difficulty. Long-tail keywords are phrases or several words rather than a single word.
For example, you could instead target a keyword like “biotech startup.” Now, the keyword difficulty is 42%, which is “a competitive keyword to rank for, and you will need well-structured and unique content.” It also still has a 720 monthly search volume, which refers to the number of times a specific keyword or phrase is queried in a search engine monthly.

This type of strategy works for all businesses and niches looking to improve their SEO, from law firms to e-commerce. And it’s not just finding the right keywords; it’s also placing them in the right places in your content. If your content contains those words and phrases used by customers, you will increase your visibility by providing helpful answers using the right language.
Backlink Building
Backlinks refer to when other websites link to your website. Historically, there were some practices we now call “black hat SEO” where companies bought backlinks from hundreds or thousands of websites that they or a vendor built for the specific purpose of backlinking. Buying backlinks is a direct violation of Google’s guidelines because it’s considered link spam.
That strategy will get you some hefty penalties if you try it now. Also, you want backlinks from high-quality, highly relevant websites to get the SEO benefit. Essentially, when someone links to your site, this link helps tell Google and other search engines that you’re an authority on the topic.
So, how do you capture some of these elusive backlinks? You must create excellent and high-value content that people will organically backlink to you. We know, easier said than done, but if you want true results, you have to put in the work. You can also supplement your backlink strategy by hitting the digital pavement and building strategic partnerships.
Content Creation
Content is the heartbeat of your website’s SEO strategy. Without helpful content, search engines have nothing to rank. Content is anything your audience reads, watches, or listens to, including:
- Blogs
- Webpage text
- Infographics
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Newsletters
- Social media posts
You should always strive to publish helpful, robust content that directly answers your audience’s questions.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers to a website’s behind-the-scenes technical elements that allow search engines like Google to crawl efficiently, index, and understand its content.