To put it simply, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it basically means the likelihood of you showing up in Google searches.

When I am designing a website, there are best practices for SEO throughout the entire process. From making sure all your links work correcting to editing the data connected to your photos, it all adds up.

There are even specialists out there that you can hire (for a pretty penny) that will do extremely extensive research on you, your competitors and your industry and try to get you to the number one search result.

I read a book written by one of the top SEO experts in the world and he even mentioned that it could be months before his work even starts to have an effect on the search ranking.

Is SEO important? Absolutely. Is paying 6-figures for a consultant for it? Probably not.

People aren’t just going to search for “coach” any more. They will search for “life coach in Milwaukee” or “money mindset coach for retired women.”

That is why the first stage of working with me is so important. The better you and I understand your customer, the more targeted we can create our keywords.

Keywords are the word or strings of words that you search for. For example, “web design for speakers” is a keyword. For my SEO, I strategically place that string and similar strings of words around my website.

While you want your keywords scattered around your site, that doesn’t mean to put it everywhere. Search engines scan your site periodically and can pick that up very easily. They will actually take you off the search results page if you appear spammy.

Fun fact: This is in place because when search engines were new, people would insert their keywords thousands of times in hidden code or in white text on the webpage and back then, whoever had the most would rank the highest. Needless to say, it didn’t take too long for search engines to figure that out.

Anyway, when you are shopping around for a web designer, asking about SEO is a good practice to have. While it is not a required skill of a designer, many offer basic assistance like me!

It is just one more way that I work and have done my studying to make your website the best it can be.

I hope this answered your question of What is SEO and is it important to my business! I tried to be as high-level as possible because this topic could get pretty deep.

If you are interested in doing research for what keywords you should use in your business, you can check out Moz.com and if you are interested in what people are searching online for, I highly recommend https://answerthepublic.com/!