Search engine optimization is more commonly known as its acronym SEO. Optimization is the basis of all SEO practices. Once your brand's presence (website, content and social media platforms) is optimized across the internet, you increase its online visibility. Your website will find its way to the first page of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Your online customers will find your business much quicker too.

SEO is the practice of making changes to your online presence, particularly your website, making it more attractive to search engines like Google and Bing. Search engines crawl (or scan) your website to understand what it is about. The best SEO practices make sure it is easy for search engines to understand your website. SEO increases the quantity of organic website traffic and the quality of your site visitors at no additional cost. It doesn't include any paid media or placement and it excludes direct traffic. With a robust SEO strategy implemented on your website, Google will identify it as an authority site and point users in your site's direction.

SEO is a multifaceted practice that requires many different actions to be taken on a website for it to be optimized for search. Many people correlate SEO with high-quality content as search algorithms have highlighted content as an important ranking factor. Algorithms are looking for content that answers the users’ search intent. If your content speaks directly to your audience, your website will be served up to users by Google. But content alone isn’t good SEO practice. You need links from authoritative external sites pointing to your site in the form of a backlink and these external sites need to have a good domain authority score.

Also, best practice entails full blown on-page optimization which means optimizing your meta content, images and tags. And then, consider the technical aspect of SEO - does your website have great architecture? How’s the User Experience (UX)? Is it easily navigable? And have you made sure to link your pages internally?

Yes, you can - it takes a bit of know-how and learning by trial and error, but it's possible to implement a basic SEO strategy across your website. However, SEO is time-consuming and to do it properly you need to consider both technical SEO and on-page SEO. What's more, you will need to keep up-to-date with the algorithms' changes to the various search engines.

SEO and pay-per-click or other paid media options work together to boost your website and position your brand as an authority in your industry or niche. SEO often gives you a far better return on your investment by comparison to paid media options. That’s not to say that SEO is cheap and easy; it takes a fair amount of time and resources to get it right but it’s long-term rewards are immense and sustainable. Most times, SEO and paid advertising will work together to provide the best results.

This is entirely dependent on your goals and the search campaign tactics you employ. Most SEO experts will estimate four to six months before you begin to see results. Bear in mind this is when you begin to see the results not when you achieve your identified goals.

There are three factors that directly impact your SEO ranking, even if you’ve only implemented a very basic search strategy on your site. The factors to be aware of are:

Page Load Time - If your website loads too slowly your visitors will bounce and likely go to a competitor’s website. Google (and all search engines) will rank your website lower because of a slow page load time. This is something to pay close attention as we draw closer to the major update confirmed by Google. The Core Web Vitals update in March 2021 focused on three aspects that directly and dramatically impact user experience on your site. Page load time features in this update and is paramount to securing your ranking or reaching the top of the SERPs.

Keyword Selection - Your keywords must be carefully chosen so your website and pages are listed under the correct search terms your ideal customer is looking for.

Content Creation - If you create quality content on your website your audience will find your site quickly, easily and will stay on your site to learn more. This increases dwell time which boosts rankings on search engines.

PPC is the acronym for pay-per-click. It's a digital marketing tactic and it buys web traffic to your website. You, the advertiser, pays a small fee each time one of your ads is clicked on by a user. Search engine advertising is the most popular form of PPC. However, many other platforms such as social media giant, Facebook, now offer PPC ad models. You can promote your company in search results, on websites and across social media platforms. PPC ads can feature text, images and video.

Ads that appear in search results are targeted to meet a specific audience and often earn almost half of all page clicks. Users who click on paid ads are usually ready to make a decision and therefore more likely to buy a product or service by comparison to an organic visitor. With PPC ads, your ads are targeted for the online users searching for your type of business. This can make a significant impact on your bottom line.

The cost of running a PPC ad campaign varies. Different cost factors include your industry type, business type and business size. These will influence the pricing of your PPC ad campaign. Pricing can also be affected by the type of strategy you're rolling out. However, expect to spend up to $5,000 per month for a small-to-medium company. This price includes both your ad spend and professional services from your chosen PPC agency.

Your PPC costs must be calculated based on your bid, your targeting and your ad quality. The amount of money you're willing to spend for a user to click on your ad is called your bid. You enter your bid into an ad auction and the highest bidder wins, so you could end up paying less than your bid amount, but never more. Targeting factors include all aspects of your goal, from the keywords you’re ranking for to the demographics of your audience. The more competitively you want to target, the higher the costs. For instance, bidding on a very competitive keyword costs more because it features a higher cost-per-click (CPC). Google also monitors the quality of your ads. If your ad quality is high, you can often maintain lower costs because Google will rank your ad ahead of competitors with low-quality ads. Understanding and accounting for all of these factors are how you determine your PPC budget.

PPC is a flexible online advertising method that lets you create a budget and adjust it at any time necessary. Most importantly, you can target your ideal audience directly, which is impossible with traditional advertising or digital marketing campaigns. The insights gleaned from the data tracked from PPC campaigns is invaluable because it gives you a better idea of your users' behavior. Your paid advertising campaigns appear ahead of all organic results in search results, helping you to instantly outrank your competitors and support your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.