Need an SEO expert in Nigeria to oversee your website optimization, competitive analysis, identify industry-relevant keyword opportunities and position your website online for more organic (free) traffic from search engines then you’ve come to the right page.
First, let’s start by explaining What SEO really is.
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Who is an SEO expert?
SEO experts are specialists who are said to have proven-experience when it comes to improving a website’s visibility and ranking, they use varying methodologies including competitive analysis, keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, and content creation to achieve their optimization’s goal.
A professional SEO expert in Nigeria is expected to have an in-depth understanding of the local search landscape, and must also be able to highlight some of the roadblocks and importance of web positioning on the Nigerian market.
There must be a proven track record of success and substantiated experience when it comes to driving targeted organic traffic to websites.
To learn more about who an SEO expert is, and how to choose a SEO company please read this guide.
Let’s proceed to see what SEO entails and some of the underlying principles of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
What is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an internet-age-long principle underlying driving free organic traffic to websites on the internet since the days of modern search engines such Google and Bing.
It is also described as the process of optimizing your website to rank well on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). While website design is the creating, designing and constructing of a website and all of its pages.
If you combine these words: SEO and Web design, it birthed SEO web design.
SEO web design is the process of optimizing a website for search engines from scratch. There are certain SEO best practices that SEO experts need to align with when creating a website.
For any operational website to thrive on any search engine, it needs to have a fully functional SEO strategy and technique implemented on it. Because without proper application of SEO, your website would not rank.
Easy site navigation that results to great user experience is a side effect of a SEO-friendly and well-structured website.
Why Is SEO so important?
What is good about a website with good content and brilliant web design but doesn’t have any of its web pages ranking on the better parts of search engine results? No good at all. This is to tell you that SEO is a key element for the organic growth, development and establishment of your website.
5 Benefits of SEO for small businesses
The benefits of SEO for small business owners and anyone who desires to have an effective online presence is very numerous, but the centrality of it all is geared towards drawing an unprecedented amount of traffic to your site.
- Helps to increases organic traffic to your website
- It attracts high-intent traffic.
- Reduces bounce rate.
- Improves the user experience.
- Minimizes website maintenance budget.
- Positions you as an authority in your industry or niche.
- Gives you an edge to compete effectively.
- Helps you attract quality leads that convert better than social media lead.
- Suitable for online reputation management.
How Relevant Is SEO For a Successful Online Presence?
The main intent of building a recognizable online presence is to gain visibility in the online space. And SEO is an essential element that guarantees a successful online presence. Without it, your website cannot thrive. The growth, development, and establishment of any website on the world wide web are solely dependent on its SEO.
Whatever information you possess, product you want to sell, and the content you want to promote cannot reach your intended audience if proper SEO practices are not in place.
SEO helps to bring your online presence to the knowledge of those who make online searches for information, products or services relating to your niche. SEO does this by making your content rank high on search results pages (SERPs).
Each time a search is made with certain keywords related to your niche or business, your website is sure to pop up because of good visibility and strong authority.
SEO relevance for small businesses
Improves relevance
Your website would be highly sought after if you upload high-quality SEO-friendly content that contains useful information that answers and addresses related search that contains keywords concerning your business.
Enhance Website’s authority
There is no other way of building a solid online authority without the application of good SEO. And such a reputation can only come when you have other websites linking to your site. By getting recommendations from different notable sites, search engines will give credence to your website as one that possesses high value.
Quality Organic traffic
Good SEO practices boost website organic traffic, and this will in return improve your website’s overall ranking on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Another added advantage to this is that you get to make more sales. Survey shows that customers and clients have a higher likelihood of patronizing a business with organic traffic than paid traffic.
What aspect of your website is optimized by an SEO Expert?
There are several aspects of a website that needs to be optimized for better positioning on search, to help you avoid bad SEO agency, here are some aspects an SEO expert will focus generally on:
- Overall site-architecture & layout
- Website speed
- Image files & names
- Sitemaps
- Website navigation
- Indexable content
Role Of SEO In Digital Marketing
To make you understand the importance and role of SEO in digital marketing, I’d begin by giving the definitions of both terms and further explain the relationship between the two of them.
SEO aka Search Engine Optimization is the practice of optimizing a website’s visibility, relevance, traffic-driven, authority, etc. Its main goal is to put web pages on the better part of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). SEO also increases the likelihood of finding content when a search with a keyword that the content contains is made.
Digital marketing is a modern marketing technique that is used to sell products and services to larger target customers in the online space via the use of the internet, search engines, social media, mobile devices, and other digital media platforms.
A careful examination shows that the two of them are inseparable and work hand in hand for business success. SEO as a marketing strategy plays a key role in digital marketing because it takes products and services to a vast majority of target customers. SEO brings your products and services directly to the fore screen of those that may require the value you offer.
Increases Traffic to Your Website
Applying the right SEO technique affects the overall ranking of your website, and this gives it a good position on SERPs. Customers can easily find your products and services when they make searches with keywords relating to information that they need, this will in turn help you to attract more targeted users to your website from SERPs.
Boosts Brand Awareness
SEO digital marketing takes the knowledge of your business or brand to the screen of those who may not know of it. And increased visits to your site improves its overall ranking and this gives it more exposure.
Makes Your Website Mobile-friendly
Statistics from Google state that 74% of the total queries are made from a mobile device. Local SEO helps optimize products and services of your business made from mobile phones. This is another way to gain and retain customers.
Making your website mobile-friendly is brilliant to keep visitors and potential customers glued to your site.
Improves Website User Experience
Proper application of SEO principles in the web design process translates to helping site users have a better user experience. And this will positively affect the ranking of your site on SERPs. Customers would enjoy assessing your website and also explore to know the goods and services you have to offer. The customer journey will be much smoother for them and the call to action are strategically placed to influence them to perform an action on the website.
Increases Sales Through Inbound Leads
The aftermath of the correct application of SEO digital marketing is good sales. The visibility and authority of your website give you an online reputation. Customers will seamlessly find your website to make purchases on their own or via referrals.
Types Of SEO?
Each time you hear about SEO, there are a couple of things that come to mind. The first may be the optimization of websites, the second may be ranking of contents to be on the better parts of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), the third may be driving organic traffic, etc.
Well, all of the above mentioned are indeed things pertaining to SEO, but there is still a bigger picture that links every one of these things together.
SEO, or better put SEO practices is not a single discipline that operates on its own, it is divided into four categories. And every fully functional website depends on the combination of these four types of SEO to become a success.
What Are The Four Types Of SEO?
The four types of SEO are:
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Local SEO
- Video SEO
On-page SEO
The main job of On-page is to improve a website’s visibility on various Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). And you can do this by posting high-quality SEO-friendly articles on your site. And to make your articles rank, you need to carry out proper keyword research, as well as employ brilliant SEO strategies.
The main on-page factors include:
- Title tag
- Meta description
- URL structure
- Content
- Images
- Internal linking
Off-page SEO
Using the on-screen and off-screen illustration; while On-page SEO may be regarded as the action that goes on on the screen, Off-page SEO is the practice that goes on behind the scenes. The Off-page SEO activities are not done on your website.
It is a digital referral method aimed at linking other websites to your website. And in return, this gives search engines the impression that your site is a trustworthy source of information. The result of this is a boost in your website’s organic traffic and overall ranking.
Off-page SEO tactics include:
- Backlinks
- Online reviews
- Brand signals
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is more like the architectural aspect of your site. It’s more or less like the type of SEO that keeps things in order; when you talk about monitoring the site performance, detecting and fixing errors, indexing, crawling, etc.
Area technical SEO work on:
- Increase your page speed.
- Create a site map.
- Ensure your site is mobile-friendly.
Local SEO
What is Local SEO? – Local SEO is what you do on and off your business website to make it rank on search engines. It is the process of optimizing your business website, to give it a higher likelihood of appearing on search engine results for searches related to that business’s location and services.
Local SEO guarantees your business shows up when people search for your type of business around your service areas.
If your business has a physical structure, then local SEO should be your greatest online marketing tool. Local SEO focuses on regional search results, and you can use it as a way of putting your business on the screen of your customers near your geophysical location.
It’s a double win for you. With local SEO, you get to drive traffic to your business site, which will improve your website’s ranking. And you also get to make more sales because your business would reach a wider range of customers that reside within your locality.
Local SEO tactics include:
- Putting your name, address, and phone number (NAP) on every website page.
- Ensuring NAP accuracy in local directories, business listings, and social profiles.
- Creating and maintaining your Google Business Profile.
Importance Of Local SEO For Small Businesses in Nigeria
Running a small business in Nigeria can be somewhat challenging at times, as there is a lot of competition in whatever market niche you may be in. And most customers would rather make purchases from other well-established big businesses because of their trade name.
As a small business owner in Nigeria, you need to equip yourself with every digital tool at your disposal. And this is where you’d use local SEO as your biggest digital marketing too.
- Increases the visibility and authority of your small business in the area where you do business
- An excellent cost-effective marketing strategy for small businesses in Nigeria. It reduces the payment for ads.
- Grants easy reach to your small business by customers who may be needing your products and services via their mobile phones.
- Increases the credibility and reputation of your small business, and this in return builds customers’ trust
What Are the Key Components Of SEO?
Competitive Analysis
Competitive analysis in SEO is the act of looking up and monitoring the online performance of websites in the niche as yours, evaluating and comparing your SEO competition. And analyzing the information you have gathered to boost your website SEO and climb up the rankings.
SEO competitive analysis requires a lot of research. Because its main aim is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your and your competitors’ SEO and put such knowledge to good use. It gives a preview as to why you are outranked by other sites.
Responsive Web Design
Responsive web design is an approach to web design whose goal is to make web pages function properly on different devices and windows, regardless of orientation and screen sizes to ensure usability and satisfaction.
Page Load Speed
Page load speed as the name implies is the amount of time it takes to request a page and have the page completely loaded in the browser. Page load speed is one of the most important components of SEO because it directly affects the way users feel about your brand or website services. Slow page load speeds will certainly increase bounce rates, result to bad user experience and poor review from your site users.
Mobile Optimization
Mobile optimization, often referred to as mobile SEO, is the practice of optimizing a website for search engine queries made directly from mobile devices. This particular search engine optimization (SEO) technique may help your website to rank for mobile searches.
Websites that fit mobile screens have a larger advantage compared to websites specifically designed and optimized for desktops, and also rank better. This is because mobile SEO is mainly focused on local search. And a high number of mobile users are looking for local results. Google knows where the mobile user is searching from while they are searching.
Keyword Research and Implementation
Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing specific search words, terms and phrases about your website niche that people enter in search engine queries. The end to this is to know the topic of interest of your target audience.
The implementation is seen in the correct application of the keyword research; applying excellent keyword placement, knowing how to use the appropriate keyword density, avoiding keyword stuffing, proper usage of short tail and long tail keywords etc.
On-page Optimization
On-page Optimization can be referred to as carefully adopting page-level search engine optimization strategies to boost the chances of ranking better on top search engines such as Google, Bing and Duckduckgo . It is the process of tweaking a page’s content, tags, and internal links to improve search visibility and draw traffic. And this can be achieved by posting relevant and quality SEO content.
On-page Optimization plays a very vital role in SEO. Despite the constant update of Google’s algorithm, On-page SEO helps search engines analyze your website and the content linked to it so that it can identify if a searcher’s query is relevant to your site.
Off-page Optimization
Off-page SEO, also known as off-site SEO, is defined as the numerous courses of action or techniques taken off your website to influence your rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs).
Off-page SEO can be viewed as a process of building your site’s reputation. You can leverage backlinks, social media, blogging etc to get more links to your website. The main reason for this is that getting more sites linking back to your website gives search engines the impression that the contents on your sites are of high quality and very well customer-satisfactory. This will automatically have a positive effect on the overall ranking of your website.
Quality Link Building
Quality link building is simply said to be the process of getting notable or reputable websites to link back to your website. Quality link building is one amongst the list of SEO components that should be taken very seriously. because links sort of notify search engines that your site is a quality resource-worthy pack with relevant information.
As you may know, Google’s algorithm is not so easy to understand, and it is in a state of constant change. backlinks remain an important factor in how every search engine determines which sites rank.
SEO Service in Nigeria
Web Design Nigeria is your most reliable partner when it comes to delivery your Search Optimization goals and effectively positioning your business online. Some of our SEO Services includes;
- Goal Definition
- Technical Site Audit
- Content Analysis, Strategy & Creation
- Proper Site Architecture
- Competitor Analysis
- Website SEO Maintenance Support
- SEO Web Design
- Off-Page & On-Page Optimization
- Keyword Strategy
- Realtime Metrics, Analytics & Reporting
We can help you drive targeted traffic to your website, create an effective online presence for your small business, attract targeted organic traffic to your websites and covert them to buying customers or clients.
Discuss your SEO project with us today on 08114900422 or Email us your project requirements.
