You know it's important, you know it has something to do with Google, but you can't quite define what SEO is. So what is SEO and why should you care? We're laying it all out in simple terms so you don't have to feel like you missed that class in small business school ;)

What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization (usually shortened to SEO) is the process of improving pieces of your website or content to increase website visitors, organically, from search engines.

Let's break that down even further, SEO allows you to appear as the top post or on the first page of Google results without paying for advertising.

What Goes Into SEO?

So how does SEO really work? We all want to show up on the front page of Google, even better as the first result, but what does that really mean?

• Quality traffic. When people come to your site because they think you're a coach but really your a yoga teacher, they're not going to stick around because they aren't your audience. Quality website traffic means you have website visitors that are interested in the content you are sharing, whether that's just a homepage or a large website with a blog.
• Volume of traffic. The more quality content you share, the more quality traffic you build and the larger volume of traffic you build to your website. Each of these things builds to tell Google (or any other search engine) that your website is one people want to see and are seeking out.
• Rankings. The more quality traffic you have, the more you build the volume of that traffic and the higher your Google rankings go (meaning you get closer to the first result when people search on Google).

How SEO Works

It's easy to take Google (or any search engine) for granted as something that delivers the exact answer you're looking for (I can't tell you the amount of times I've searched something and found the exact answer I was looking for as the first result). But Google has worked over years to perfect the code that delivers the answers your looking for.

This code is an algorithm. This algorithm, in very simple terms, basically says "if someone searches for this then they will get websites that feature these top keywords and phrases, have high traffic that stays on the website for a significant amount of time and other websites link to."

Now you know what SEO is, are you ready to begin implementing it into your website? Check in next week for the simple steps you can take!