A Simple Guide to SEO for Business Owners
If your business can’t be found online, you’re missing out on customers who are actively searching for your services. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is what helps your website show up in those crucial search moments, making it easier for people to discover, trust and choose your business.
This guide covers:
- What is SEO?
- Why is SEO important?
- How Do I Get Started with SEO?
- How SEO helps your business
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of improving your website’s visibility in search engines like Google. Put simply, the better your SEO, the more likely your website will show up when potential customers are searching for your products or services.
Google’s goal is to give users the most useful and trustworthy results. To do this, it assesses websites against a wide range of “ranking factors.” SEO experts understand these factors and adjust both the content and technical setup of a website to ensure it ticks as many of Google’s boxes as possible.
To make SEO easier to understand, it’s usually broken down into four main areas:
- Technical SEO: Behind-the-scenes improvements such as faster load times and making sure Google can properly access and index your site.
- On-Page SEO: Optimising the content on your site by ensuring your pages clearly answer user questions and include relevant keywords in the right places.
- Off-Page SEO: External signals like backlinks, mentions and your online reputation, which show Google that your site is credible and authoritative.
- Local SEO: Optimising your content for location-based searches (e.g., “plumber near me”) so nearby customers can find you easily.
Google combines these factors with how people interact with your site, like how long they stay or whether they quickly return to search results. The stronger your site is across all of these areas, the more likely it is to rank well and attract new customers.
Why is SEO Important?
A strong SEO strategy directly improves your visibility online, increasing the amount of revenue that is driven through your site. A poor-ranking website can tend to have a “snowballing” effect. The lower you rank within Google’s directory, the less likely you are to receive website traffic, giving Google less signals that your website is useful to its users.
How Do I Get Started with SEO?
Here are a few simple first steps you can take
- Build valuable content: Create articles and pages that answer the common questions your clients ask. Tip: linking between your articles helps Google understand how your content is connected, and how it relates to your business.
- Check your site’s technical health: Use Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool to identify and address any technical issues.
- Strengthen your external signals: If you’re a local business, setting up a Google Business Profile that links to your site is essential. Encourage positive reviews from happy clients, as they act as trust signals for both Google and potential customers.
Having a strong SEO foundation keeps your website visible in Google’s directory, ensuring your business appears when people search for the products or services you offer.
How SEO Helps Your Business
At its core, SEO is about bringing more of the right people to your website. Without it, potential clients searching online may never discover your business, leaving you reliant only on your immediate network or word-of-mouth.
When your website is optimised, it:
- Appears in front of people actively looking for your services
- Builds trust and credibility through higher visibility
- Converts search traffic into inquiries, leads and sales
In short, SEO helps expand your reach, grow your client base, and open up new opportunities that wouldn’t exist without a strong online presence.