WISE Thoughts: SEO Basics for Business Owners

When you’re a business owner, you’re focused on what you do best—running your business. Marketing strategies like SEO (search engine optimization) can be mystifying because digital marketing isn’t your specialty. But these disciplines don’t have to be confusing—we’re happy to share our knowledge so you can make smart decisions that will truly impact your business.

Carlo Victa, Director of Organic Strategy at WISE Digital Partners, recently sat down with our CEO, Patrick Dillon, for a Q&A to demystify SEO.

You can watch the full video here.

Q. What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art of getting found on search engines like Google—it’s getting found for the products, services, and solutions that you, as a business owner, offer (and which people are looking for).

The greatest tragedy for a business owner is running a great business and doing quality work without being invisible online. SEO is meant to combat that, to get your business found.

Q. Why are some websites immediately visible on Google while others are not?

Let’s say I perform a Google search for CPAs in San Diego.

First, I’ll likely see ads at the top of the page. That’s not SEO—those businesses have paid money to Google for that placement.

SEO comes into play for what’s displayed below the ads. What you see there is called organic search results, and to get your business shown in those coveted spots, you need to leverage the factors that help businesses rank higher on Google:

• Expertise
• Authoritativeness
• Trustworthiness

Google states that if you’re a business and display these three attributes, you are more likely to rank higher. Because, of course, Google wants to promote content that derives from an expert source and is authoritative and trustworthy. That content helps Google fulfill its mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Q. What’s the difference between on-page and off-page SEO?

On-page SEO refers to the factors on your website that can be leveraged to raise the conversation in Google’s eyes and the eyes of users, such as the content, code, structure, and performance. Here’s a full list of factors:

• Clean site architecture
• Quality outbound links
• Fast website speed
• Mobile-friendliness
• Use of HTTPS (for security)
• Well-targeted content with optimized keywords
• Good readability and UX (user experience)
• Image optimization
• User-friendly URLs

Off-page SEO is what is happening beyond your website—the signals Google looks at to determine that your business is alive and kicking, and thriving, such as:

• Online listings for your business
• Backlinks (links that point back to your website, which demonstrates authority)
• Social signals
• Domain authority

Q. I’ve hired SEO experts before but haven’t seen results. Why is that?

The problem is most likely that your SEO expert, or perhaps a well-meaning marketing manager you hired to do SEO for you, wasn’t looking at everything. There are plenty of companies, SEO specialists, and marketing folks out there that only focus on a few of the important factors.

At WISE Digital, we look at ALL the factors that Google uses to rank websites. One of our biggest advantages as a full-service digital agency is that we have multiple departments focused on different aspects of SEO. And when applied together, that mix of knowledge and resulting strategy is highly beneficial to our client partners.

Proper search engine optimization that squarely hits all of Google’s factors has the power to transform your business by bringing more people directly to you. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales says it best—“if it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist.”

If you’re ready to discover the impact of great SEO on your business, the award-winning SEO team at WISE Digital is standing by to help you get found online. More search visibility leads to more website traffic. And more traffic leads to more business. It’s that simple. 

Book a call with us today!