Best SEO Services in Hamilton

What is SEO and How Does It Work?

Back in the days when people still used paper telephone books to look up local companies, there was an old strategy of giving your company a name that started with the letter “A”. That way, it would be your business that appeared at or near the top of the list.
SEO is about getting a company’s website to rank near the top of search engine results for specific keywords – but the strategies and tactics have become much more sophisticated than they were in the era of the telephone book!

Say for example, that you own a company that sells steel toed, safety shoes. It is very likely that there are people who are online right now who are not familiar with your company but are looking to purchase a pair of safety shoes. When they type the words “safety shoes” into the search field, the search engine will give them a list of results – ranking websites according to what programs called spiders deem to be the most relevant to the user’s search. Having a good SEO marketing strategy in place can help to ensure that your website appears near the top of the list, thereby increasing your odds of gaining a new customer.

What Makes For a Good SEO Marketing Strategy?

SEO should be considered less like a single tactic and more like a complete toolbox of strategies to help your website stand out amongest all the other “noise” on the internet.

SEO starts with website design and content. The search engine spiders of Google, Yahoo and Bing look for elements such as having the right keywords incorporated into the content, proper use of Meta tags, page load time and website responsiveness.

Adding fresh and engaging content at regular intervals will keep visitors coming back to your site. When your site receives return visitors who actually take time to read and interact with your content, search engine spiders take notice and rank your site higher.

There are also other elements of SEO that don’t take place on your website at all. Off-site SEO involves getting other websites – ones that are of a certain quality and authority – to link back to your website. The best way to do this is to have engaging and useful content that others will want to share.

Did you know?

  • There are on average 3.5 billion searches on Google every day
  • 97% of consumers have used the internet to research products and services in their local area
  • 92% of searches only look at the first page of results
  • More than 50% of searches on Google are on mobile devices.
  • The website at position #1 in the search results gets 300% more clicks than the website in the #3 position!

So, what are the benefits of getting ranked higher in Google Organic Search?

If you get your business to rank higher in Google, then it’s obvious that you’ll get more traffic to your website and more enquiry and more traffic means more business.

Research shows that on an average, the #1 ranked site in search results gets 32.5% of clicks. The #3 site gets 11.4%. Whereas the #10 site (the last place on the first page) gets only 2.4% of clicks. The full results are shown in the table below.

Stats showing benefits of getting ranked higher in Google Search - Hamilton SEO

92% of people only look at the first page of search results. So it’s important for your site to be on the first page. But that’s not the final aim. Getting higher up the first page will significantly increase the amount of search engine traffic you receive.

Research has shown that 50% of users who search for a local business on a mobile device visit or call that business within a day4.