What is SEO Marketing?
SEO Marketing, or Search Engine Optimization Marketing, refers to marketing strategies based on search engines. The goal is to understand the intent of potential customers who conduct searches and use that understanding to deliver messages to targeted customers.
In other words, it is a marketing strategy that enhances connectivity by providing products or information to targeted customers through owned media like websites or blogs, especially when they enter specific search terms.
All marketing activities aim to create communication between the brand and the customer. Search engine optimization marketing is essentially about communicating with customers through search engines and content.
Importance of SEO Marketing
Today, search plays the most significant role in the consumer decision-making process. While the introduction of generative AI, like ChatGPT, has changed how searches are conducted, the act of searching for decision-making has remained constant.
Potential customers encounter search result pages as a result of their searches. These pages represent the best content that the search engine has listed in response to user intent.
Although it’s possible to answer consumer questions through advertisements, consumers generally trust organic search results more than ads. If search ads have a click-through rate (CTR) of 1-4%, organic search results can achieve a CTR of 5-60%.
Nowadays, search engines have become more sophisticated, allowing them to respond to various user search queries. A prime example is the “snippet” feature, which provides precise answers to user questions directly on the search results page.
Therefore, companies must create and expose content that provides the information customers seek to survive in the digital marketing market. This is why preparing for SEO marketing is essential, even if it’s late.
Through SEO marketing, companies can identify consumer questions and interests related to their brand and products and provide that information via search engines. This approach helps secure high engagement from potential customers.
5-Step Basic Guide to SEO Marketing
Having understood the value and importance of search engine optimization marketing, you might be ready to start SEO marketing. Here’s a basic guide broken down into five steps.
Website Checkup – Crawling and Indexing
Google crawls websites to select good content and then exposes it in search results. It’s crucial to ensure that all content on your website is correctly uploaded during this process.
If there are crawling or indexing errors on your website, it’s essential to address them quickly. These issues can be checked using tools like Google Search Console and other search engine tools.
- Google: Google Search Console
- Naver: Naver Webmaster Tools
- Bing: Bing Webmaster Tools
An increase in the number of valid web pages indexed by Google also affects website traffic. Google wants to feature reliable websites with good information at the top of search results. A large number of valid web pages suggests that the site has received a positive evaluation from Google, indicating it is a trustworthy website.
However, it’s crucial to avoid producing or duplicating low-quality, similar content to increase the number of indexed pages. If low-quality content is repeatedly found, the entire site’s content may not be exposed in search results.
Technical SEO: Structuring an SEO-Friendly Website
Since search engines cannot read every website and document, they crawl key content and rank it in search results. To ensure your content is chosen by consumers through SEO marketing, it must first pass the search engine’s tests.
Thus, it’s necessary to organize your site so that search engines can easily understand its content. This is known as an “SEO-friendly website.”
Technical SEO refers to the techniques used to create a search engine-friendly site, based on Google’s webmaster guidelines. There are two main approaches: strategies for indexing web pages and elements that help search engines better understand the content.
You can find more detailed information on the definition and construction of Technical SEO in the document below:
✅ On-Page SEO: Optimize for Google, Naver, and More
Content SEO: Creating Quality Content for SEO
While there are various ways to start SEO marketing, the most important is providing good content to customers. Even if your website’s structure and quality are excellent, poor content will not yield good results.
Search engine algorithms do not reward content that only chases ranking. Instead, they prefer content that fulfills visitors’ objectives, even if it’s slightly less readable.
Therefore, creating content that delivers value to visitors is the best strategy for achieving higher rankings.
Growth Marketing Agency conducts keyword research and customer journey analysis to create content that satisfies customers. Tracking the search keywords consumers use can significantly help understand the purpose and intent of customers visiting your web pages.
The easiest way to perform this search data research is to analyze the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) of relevant keywords. By examining the search results for a keyword, you can understand why users are searching for it.
Growth Marketing Agency uses this information to create content that successfully reaches potential customers. If you’re curious about Growth’s efforts to create great content, you can check out the detailed content in this article.
Improving Search Ranking
Websites that search engines deem the best answers to user queries usually rank within the top 10 positions.
Several factors, including the three mentioned earlier, determine the ranking. Analyzing and improving what is lacking on your website and what needs reinforcement is crucial.
Let’s start with some simple ways to improve your ranking:
- Improve website loading speed
- Shorten URL length
- Use security protocols
- Build backlinks
Have you ever visited a website for information but closed the page because it was too slow to load?
It’s said that for every second of delay in loading speed, 7% of visitors leave. If your website’s loading speed is unsatisfactory, the elements on the site might be the cause. You can easily check your site’s speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
Additionally, if your URL is too long, search engines are less likely to trust the content. Consider using Canonical URLs to shorten your website address.
Surprisingly, many overlook security protocols during website construction. Security is also a criterion for search engines to judge a website as good. Ensure that your website’s URL uses the “https://” format.
Backlink Building: Earning Recognition from Others
Lastly, building backlinks is essential. Search engines consider pages frequently mentioned by others as highly credible websites.
Some hesitate to cite sources or link to other websites, but mentioning URLs from highly trusted pages within your content can increase your website’s credibility. Content based on high-trust pages suggests that the content contains quality information.
According to a survey, 48% of over 14,000 online shoppers said they start their buying journey through a search engine. However, search engines can also help customers find your competitors. Therefore, those who rank first in search results with an excellent content SEO strategy can secure more potential customers.
Conclusion
So far, we’ve introduced a basic five-step guide useful for those starting search engine optimization marketing.
SEO marketing is a method that can succeed with some time, cost, and patience. It’s especially useful for continuously connecting with potential customers who haven’t been reached before. We hope that SEO marketing strategies help you establish your presence in the existing market and find new customers.
