Google’s Webmaster Central Blog is one of the foremost resources for web developers who want to ensure their sites are optimised for the search engine’s organic ranking algorithms. When the blog’s writers share best practice tips to help your website reach its intended audience, it’s definitely time to sit up and take notice.

That’s why we were so excited to see that their latest blog has put the focus squarely on the value of search engine optimisation (SEO). This is one of the first times Google has publicly acknowledged the benefits of a well thought-out and implemented SEO strategy, shining a light on its importance to organic search and getting your website noticed by the right audiences.

Tools to Optimise Websites for Google

In the first of a new series of case studies showcasing online success stories, the blog’s authors have placed a spotlight on online recruitment tool Samarin. The article reveals how the business used SEO best practice techniques to enhance user experience on their website and increase both traffic and conversions. 

One of the tools they discuss using is Google Search Console, which helped them identify and fix crawling issues. Put simply, this means making sure the automated legions of digital ‘crawlers’ that Google uses to index pages on the web can access each page on your site, then share them with audiences searching for terms relevant to their content. In the case study, putting these changes in place was shown to yield an impressive 15% increase in organic traffic for Samarin.

The Benefits of Investing in SEO

Samarin also added schema markup or ‘structured data’ to their site — additional information that helps Google understand a page’s purpose and displays relevant information in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). If you look for new clothes online and see the price displayed as additional information in some of the search results, that’s a great example of schema markup in action. 

The blog also reveals how they explored other SEO best practice techniques, including making sure their website was optimised for visitors using mobile devices, learning how to make their website pages load faster, and getting rid of duplicate content that was clogging up their site. The case study rightly talks about the importance of patience when putting these measures in place, because when it comes to SEO there are no quick and easy fixes. 

SEO can offer enormous long-term benefits for your website, but it’s an ongoing strategic practice that requires a lot of care and attention to get just right. One of the key reasons for this is that these changes cannot have an effect overnight — it takes time for Google to recognise the improvements we make and confirm they are offering increased value to visitors. 

How SEO Helps Improve Traffic and Conversions

Moon Tae Sung, SEO Manager at Saramin, discussed the many benefits brought about by the changes his team had made in the Webmaster blog: “We are very happy about the traffic increase, but what’s more exciting is it also accompanied improvement in the quality of the traffic… we saw a 93% increase in the number of new sign ups”.

This highlights a key point that isn’t always recognised about SEO, but one that Google clearly reinforces here — it’s not just about getting eyes on your website, it’s about finding the right audience. Optimising your site to attract users who’ll gain the most value from their visit is the key to an SEO strategy that can help drive your business forward.For more tips and hints on how to make sure your website is being found by the right audience to help your business, follow Flaunt Digital on Instagram or Twitter.