Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving a website’s structure and content in order to rank high in search results of search engines including but not limited to Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This is done to drive traffic to a website. The higher your rankings are, the more likely your page will be visited. Businesses, both big and small, now hire SEO service providers as part of their digital marketing campaign.

But if you’re still wondering what SEO teams do, this will give you an idea on what they can do to help your business grow:

SEO-Friendly Content

Not everything that’s well-written skyrocket to the top pages of the search results. Google’s system ranks websites based on relevance. SEO service providers make sure that you have accurate page titles and informative meta-descriptions that will help users find your content especially if it’s something that concerns them.

While it’s good to be creative, using a vague title or metaphor that does not directly mention your topic isn’t likely to make your webpage rank. This is especially crucial for niche topics. It’s better to be direct to the point and use “How to Get More Leads through Social Media” than use “The Science of Attraction for Businesses”. You are, after all, trying to get more customers, not trying to win a Pulitzer Prize.

More than the title, it’s the SEO team’s job to remind you to center your content on one topic per page. A blog post fails on relevance when it uses too many keywords, or if the actual content has nothing to do with the keyword and was just forced there. While there is a technical aspect of SEO, one of the best ways to rank is still to provide valuable content.

Easily Navigable Sites

SEO experts make sure that your website has a hierarchy that’s easy to follow. It should be easy for visitors to go from general content to more specific content. The navigation bar is crucial to this. The SEO team will cluster your content into categories if it’s necessary just to make sure page visitors won’t get a headache when looking for what they need.

The goal is to make the website user-friendly. Design must follow function. It’s a must to avoid complicated schemes in building your website because it discourages your visitors from staying in the website and encourages them to look for other ones.

More than that, it’s the SEO team who creates working internal links so that it’s easy for visitors to jump to related web pages and to avoid 404 pages.

Creation of Backlinks

All of the things above are on-page efforts. While the goal is to optimize your actual website, it also needs to be referenced by other blogs and websites for it to rank as well. SEO service providers create off-page blogs and submit articles to article submission sites that contain keywords that will link back to your website.

That’s just the technical aspect of it. The other part is marketing your content to influencers who will share it on their own blog posts. The goal of any SEO team is to reach a point where your website is organically being recognized as an expert in the field, and referenced by other sites and social media accounts.

An SEO team is usually composed of information technology experts, content developers, and social media managers who work together to create quality content that will eventually lead you to become a trusted reference by users and other websites. They also make sure all your content are optimized for search engines. Hiring an SEO service provider is worth it.