In the hustle and bustle of building a digital presence, it’s easy to focus on the flashy bits – the website design, the social media campaigns and the paid ads. But what about SEO? Often relegated to a “we’ll get to that later” task, SEO deserves a front-row seat in your digital strategy.

In this blog, we journey through the problems with making SEO an afterthought and explain why it should form the bedrock of your online efforts. 

SEO In A Nutshel

When people search for the products, services or information you offer using a search engine like Google, you want to be top of the list, right? 

That’s where SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, comes in. It’s all about optimising your website and its content so that search engines like Google can read, understand and rank it higher. When it’s done well, SEO makes sure your website is considered the most useful option, putting you ahead of other relevant websites. 

A key thing to know about SEO is that it is tied to organic ranking, and you don’t have to pay to appear in search results. This is wildly different to Google Ads, where you part with your hard-earned cash to be more visible. The best way to improve your online visibility? SEO and paid ads work beautifully together. A robust SEO strategy builds a strong foundation of long-term visibility, and paid ads provide instant exposure. 

Whilst focusing on shiny paid ads is incredibly enticing, skipping SEO altogether makes it harder – and more expensive – for potential clients to find you.

What Happens When SEO Is An Afterthought?

Here’s what can go wrong when SEO isn’t woven into the fabric of your website…

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring SEO from the start means missing out on valuable organic traffic. Without SEO, reaching your target audience and building brand awareness is more challenging and takes a lot longer – if it happens at all.

Sadly, a lack of SEO can also impinge on work you’re doing in other areas. All that effort you’ve been putting into other realms of digital marketing, like email campaigns and social media? Squashed!

Costly Rework

Adding SEO as an afterthought often requires major website changes and content revisions. Let’s run through some of the things that typically need addressing when SEO hasn’t been implemented from the get-go…

• Restructuring content to fall under proper heading formats with considered hierarchy (H1, H2, etc). 

• Rewriting content to include keywords and search terms.

• Naming and tagging images for visibility.

• Optimising your website for use on mobile devices.

• Introducing metadata. This means creating titles and descriptions that improve click-through rates.

Making all of these changes quickly adds up – both in time and money. 

Poor User Experience

A website that doesn’t have good SEO is often slow, hard to navigate and features irrelevant content. Not only does this put potential customers off, but it puts the search engines off too! Google notices when your website isn’t user-friendly, and it can be a reason to rank your site lower.

Benefits Of Using SEO From the Start

We’ve looked at what can go wrong without SEO in place. Now let’s explore the advantages of integrating strong SEO from the beginning. 

Reach Growth

Starting with a robust SEO strategy means your website works for you right from the off, climbing the rankings and becoming easier to find the longer you’re live. 

Cheaper Marketing

Because you’ve fine-tuned your website for strong SEO, people will begin to find you organically. This reduces the need for you to target and acquire visibility through expensive paid ads. 

Compete With Competitors

Your competitors are likely using SEO. If you don’t follow suit, they’ll always be one step ahead of you. 

Improved Content Performance

Did you know you can optimise blogs, too? Content marketing and SEO work brilliantly together. By optimising both, you increase their chances of ranking highly and attracting more traffic. 

Better Website Quality

SEO doesn’t just focus on search rankings. Optimising your website means paying attention to mobile-friendliness and accessibility. Setting your website up to provide a fantastic user experience gives you a strong foundation from the start.

Getting Started With SEO

Employing SEO as a core component of your digital strategy from the outset is crucial, but it’s not as simple as chucking in a few keywords. You’ll need a website structure that is both user and search engine-friendly. 

Here’s how to get started with SEO so that you can refine your website and reap the benefits. 

Conduct Thorough Keyword Research

What terminology do people use when they Google a business like yours? (Hint: It’s not always obvious!). Understanding your target audience’s search behaviour will help you use the right keywords to position yourself for higher search engine rankings. 

Top tip: Remember to use both short (1-2) and longtail (3+) keywords throughout your copy.

Use Strong Titles And Descriptions

Short, relevant page titles that naturally utilise keywords are important. Whilst meta descriptions don’t influence rankings directly, they can impact whether your audience clicks through to your website. 

Create Relevant Content

Producing high-quality, relevant content is vital for a strong SEO strategy. Address your audience’s intent and include plenty of the keywords and phrases you identified earlier to ensure Google and other search engines read your website as useful. 

Make It User-Friendly 

Optimise website speed and mobile-friendliness to appease the search engine gods. A website that isn’t easy to use will not rank highly! 

Large images can slow your site down, so compress them and use descriptive alt text so that search engines can understand them and deem them relevant. Linking to other pages on your website helps visitors find their way around and enhances the strength of your site’s structure.

Review And Optimise

SEO is an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring and optimisation to maintain and improve rankings. Tools like SEM Rush can help you track your keywords’ performance and keep the momentum going.

SEO: A Building Block Of Good Websites

A strong SEO strategy is non-negotiable for businesses looking to thrive online. A well-optimised website doesn’t just make your business easier to find; it keeps potential customers engaged and builds your digital creativity over time. 

But SEO is more than just keywords scattered across your webpages. It’s a thoughtful, ongoing process that requires research, refinement and future planning. And, unfortunately, bad SEO can be more damaging to your rankings than none at all – so don’t go it alone unless you are confident in your understanding and skills.

Unsure where to start? Not seeing the results you want?

Don’t stress. Get in touch with WP Creative today and access professional support to get you up and running.