How SEO Helps Businesses in 2022 (SEO for Dummies)

SEO or Search Engine Optimization generally helps your website to be shown on search engines such as Google & Bing. Having a marketing strategy that involves a targeted approach to search engines can create a massive opportunity for you and your business. Many of your favourite brands like Nike, Apple and Levis are using variety of SEO practices to be easily found by their potential clients.

We all have looked for a product on Google and what we usually do is we type in: “The best vacuum cleaner in 2022” for example and what we usually see on the 1^st page on Google are articles talking about “Top 10 Vacuum Cleaners to Buy in 2022”, then you click and start looking for the Top 10 ones and they all have a link to another website which takes you to either Amazon or the company’s website to buy it. That my friends is a successful SEO strategy.

The actions we take as people online are called consumer online behaviour and the experts and marketers behind these websites know exactly that – what we as people will do when we look for a certain product or service online. You as a customer bought the product and you found it on one of those articles with “Top 10 Vacuum Cleaners to Buy in 2022” and you are happy with your product, but what you don’t know is that in order for that website with this article to appear on Google, they have done search engine optimization successfully, by including the following in their article:

1. Choose the Right Focus Keyword

A focus keyword that you typed in on Google. In this case is “best vacuum cleaner”, and if you go back to that article and search for this keyword, you will most likely see it more than 5 times – this is a part of the strategy, so when you are creating articles, you should definitely include your keyword at least 5 times to make sure that Google picks it up in their search results.

2. External & Internal Links mean Clicks

The 2^nd thing you see, is some type of comparison between other products like “Henry The Hoover” or “Hoover Brand” together with “Phillips” to make you decide which one you want to pick, but most importantly to include different links in their article. When they do a Top 10 comparison, that’s 10 new sources they are linking to on 1 article. Having external (links to other websites) and internal (links to your own pages) on an article increases the chances to get recommended on Google, because when the creator of the article sends people to other pages, this is classified as a healthy thing for their website, meaning that it helps them to get ranked on Google and a higher chance of you clicking on that article and even better, buying something from it.

3. Add Affiliate Links (Affiliate Marketing)

Now let’s talk about the buying. This is where the real money is for the creator, because while they have done well to rank on Google, how are they going to make money right? They make money by having affiliate links in their article. Affiliate Links are links to websites such as Amazon that go directly to the Product they are comparing for you to Buy. When you buy the product, the creator of the article gets a small commission of 1-2%, but think about how many people have bought from them and if the item costs $300 and they made over 100 sales from their website, they will make around $600 only from passive traffic – people like you clicking on it and buying a Vacuum Cleaner. This not only makes them money, but also helps them with their SEO because they continuously send people to other websites.

4. Now You Are Looking at “The Best” Product

As the creator added their main keyword “best vacuum cleaners”, they also added what we call in the marketing world: Related Key Words. Related keywords are keywords that are added to support the main keyword. A related keyword is a keyword such as “best vacuum cleaners in 2022” or “best quality vacuum cleaners”. These support the main keyword, but also help the creator to reach to a bigger audience when people start searching for those keywords, they also get to the main one. It’s complicated to understand at first, but it’s just like when you talk to people in London for example and you ask them: “Do you know the best Fish and Chips in the neighbourhood” – this is an example limited to location, and they can definitely tell you the one they know of, now what if there was an article ranking the Top 10 Fish and Chips in London. You will now look for the best of the best and go there. Of course, those creators sometimes are paid PR agencies who rank the 1^st one based on how much they got paid for that, but this is unknown to the regular consumer like you and me. So in a nutshell, a related keyword can be location, year, a verb for the product/service or a certain quality and so much more.

5. Add your Meta Descriptions

In order for you to find them on Google, their main keyword also needs to be in what we call “Meta Descriptions”. These are the little descriptions above the title of each thing you find on Google. It’s a sentence above the title explaining what the article is about – this drastically helps Google to recognize your article and send traffic to it, because if people see the “Meta Description” or you can call it – the overview text, you are more likely to open it if it’s captivating. And when you open it, that’s where your journey starts as a consumer

6. Choose the Best Describing Title

Lastly, let’s talk about Titles. Having a title that’s interesting but also unique, can differentiate you from other creators for example, you can rank Vacuum Cleaners by something very specific to the product’s features. A title you can use is “What’s the best vacuum cleaner for cleaning carpets in 2022”. This now will attract only these people who have a crappy vacuum cleaner and are trying to fully clean their carpets in their bedrooms, so you differentiate yourself from other basic articles and you provide real value to people to help them clean their rooms.

There you have it!

The basics of SEO and how it can help you business succeed online. The reason I wrote this article in a casual way is to ensure that you and I can understand every step in a simple way and to get your business to the next level. Even though it would have been profitable for me to put a lot of affiliate links in my article, I decided not to profit from it, but only to teach you how you can create a successful SEO Strategy and rank on Google. At first, you are most likely to not rank, but with time and the content you produce, you should get on the 1^st three pages of Google. The only thing that I will ask you is to subscribe for my Newsletter as I will be sharing more useful articles and videos with you to help you elevate your business, so if you felt this article helped you understand SEO, please subscribe and I will send you a freebie.