For small business owners, email is a big part of running their operations. You start every morning checking your email. One morning, you notice an inquiry from Webtek Digital Marketing in Salt Lake City, Utah. The email asks whether you are interested in improving your organic search results.
You have heard of organic search but are not sure what it is. You are also not sure that your company needs any help online. You have your website, and it runs just fine. You are happy with the way things are. But should you be?
Knowing little about organic search results indicates not knowing all that much about how Google works. Without at least a basic understanding of Google search, it is nearly impossible to take seriously advantage of Google’s potential to increase website traffic.
Search Is Google’s Business
Google isn’t the only search engine in the world. However, it is the dominant search engine. Furthermore, search is Google’s business. If their search engine fails to do its job to user satisfaction, people will stop using it. If that happens, Google’s ability to generate revenue will go downhill.
So, how does Google produce search results? Through a three-step process that involves crawling, indexing, and serving. That process is a different topic for a separate post. You need to know that Google produces two types of search engine results: organic and paid results.
1. Organic Search Results
Organic search results are the results that show up without being paid for. They are not paid links or ads purchased through the Google Ads PPC (pay-per-click) platform. Organic results make up the lion’s share of the results the search engine returns when users search keywords. Furthermore, almost all the traffic Google generates for other websites is developed through organic results.
2. Paid Search Results
Paid search results are exactly as their name implies: they are paid for by the companies that want them. Companies can choose from several different platforms, including PPC ads. Paid results are beneficial to some degree, but Google visitors are much more likely to follow organic results first.
Google Wants the Best Results
Google’s business model relies on producing the best results for every search. They consider themselves successful if users can find the information they seek by following one of the links on the first page of the industry’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
How important is it for your site to show up on this first page? Critically important, according to the experts at Webtek. As most of all Google-generated traffic comes from organic results, the most successful websites in Google’s produced results are found on that first page. Users sometimes go as far as the second page in search of their data but rarely go to the third page or beyond.
As High as Possible for as Long as Possible
So, what do companies like Webtek do to improve organic search results? They aim to ensure a client’s website appears as high as possible in organic results for as long as possible. SEO experts cannot guarantee a top 5 position permanently, so expecting as much is unrealistic.
The long and short of it is that your website needs to perform well in organic searches if you expect people unfamiliar with your business to find you online. That’s what it boils down to. Organic search results are essentially your calling card.