What is SEO? SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from various search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic (known as "organic" results) rather than paid traffic. 

Why is it important - SEO practice is a key component for companies because when using the correct strategies and following Google’s algorithms (if you can keep up with them), your website will rank higher in search results leading to more visitors and potential customers.

New to SEO? Well here are 5 main components to focus on when getting started building your strategy.

Keywords 

Keywords are target words or phrases related to a particular topic that are frequently searched by users. You will want to come up with top keywords related to your brand to increase search traffic driving your target audience to your website. 

Images 

Compressing Images will greatly improve page loading speed and help SEO ranking. If an image is too large and not compressed, this slows loading speed essentially harming site ranking. There are many free image optimization tools available, such as JPEG optimizer online but keep in mind you don't want to sacrifice the quality of images.

Images should use one of the common file types such as GIF, JPEG, or PNG and keep in mind that image file names should be relevant keywords since Google uses file names to understand images.

All images should have an Alt image tag using a keyword phrase. Alt text helps Google understand the image and also allows users to understand images when using a screen reader.

Metadata 

This is essentially the communication between your website and search engines which lies within the source code of your site. There are various types of Metadata, such as meta tags, which are a key component in SEO strategy. An example of meta tags include the <title> and <description> elements. Google uses this data to understand information about webpages on your site for ranking and search results.

Link-building

Google views how many people link to a particular page on your site along with page rank so if you want your website to rank high in search, you will certainly need an inbound and outbound link strategy. Key items to keep in mind are link relevancy, position on the page, topical relevalnce etc. Link building can be complex and does take time to build a strategy but when done correctly provides great results.

The Google Algorithm

Marketers must stay up to date and understand the implications of an algorithm update to react and adjust their strategy accordingly. For example, Google’s algorithm determines how closely the web page contents match the search engine’s specification of a ‘good’ website.

Search engines change their algorithms regularly so that a ranking can change. Tactics that were useful ten years ago are not as effective now. Updates can affect how consumers discover business online.

What's Next? 

It’s important to remember that site optimization is ongoing. Staying up to date with Google’s algorithms, continually monitoring analytics and making tweaks accordingly, as keeping content updated will provide great results and help drive the most traffic to your website.