Getting Started With SEO
Everyone who has a website talks about SEO, but only so many people understand what it truly is. If you want the website for your event industry business to be easily found through search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing, SEO is a marketing tactic you cannot afford to do without.
Today we are sharing an introduction and overview of search engine optimization (SEO) so that you can start increasing your chances of your event industry business being found online today!
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. According to this source, SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's unpaid results. Business owners, like yourself, leverage SEO to help drive more relevant traffic, leads, sales, and ultimately revenue for your business.
How does SEO work?
When a web user goes online to look for information, they usually begin at a search engine, such as Google. They will type in a search query, for example, “popular wedding venues”, and in return the search engine will provide pages upon pages of search results – or, the websites and web pages relevant to “popular wedding venues”.
In order to rank well on a search engine, the content on your website and web pages need to be properly optimized for the search engines to be able to “crawl” through and decide that your content is relevant to “popular wedding venues”. As more people search for that query and find your content helpful, it sends a signal back to the search engine that your site satisfied what they were looking for, and continues to increase your ranking.
How Do I Optimize for SEO?
The first step is to decide what you are optimizing your website for, or in other words, what terms do you want your website to show up in search results for. This is where your keywords come in!
Let’s say you are a luxury hotel in New York looking to book more events in the upcoming season. Now depending on your audience, these events can be anything from weddings, seminars, tradeshows, corporate events, etc.
Rather than using a very generic term such as, “wedding venue” or “New York hotel”, you would have a better chance ranking for a very specific and relevant term such as “luxury wedding venue in New York” or “Manhattan corporate event venues”. The more specific you can get with your keywords, the more chances you have of outweighing your competitors in search results.
We hope this gives you a better idea of what search engine optimization is and how it can benefit your business. Make sure to stay tuned for the next step: keyword research and planning!
