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What is SEO and
Where it Fits in Digital Marketing?

By Jesse Masalia (Copywriter)
February 2nd, 2024

If you're reading this, you’re likely looking for what many smart Houston businesses are: a way to grow your online brand presence, reach more customers, and ultimately…increase your sales! But in 2024, the market has changed, as always and so too should your business. That’s why you need to know about SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it's one of the most effective digital marketing strategies you can use to boost your business' presence in your industry.

The word SEO covered by multiple symbols about Texas.

SEO 101 - The Intro of SEO in Digital Markerting

But what is SEO in digital marketing, and how does it work? In this blog post, we'll answer these questions and more. We’ll cover the following:

What is SEO in Digital Marketing?

Just a reminder as you’ll be seeing these letters a lot, SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO is a process that optimizes your website to increase its visibility in search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and countless more. SEO helps your brand’s website’s online visibility by giving it a higher rank in the search results based on keywords and phrases related to your business.

Take us for example, CRE8 Digital: We are a Houston-based digital marketing agency that offers digital marketing services. We want our website to show up at the top of the screen when people, such as yourself, search for terms like "Houston digital marketing agency" or "local SEO services". We (and hopefully by the end of this blog, you) want this prime digital real estate because it is a key factor in driving brand awareness, sales leads, and website traffic. In fact, SEO is very likely the reason you found your way to this blog!

SEO, as you can imagine, is not composed of any single solitary activity. Rather, it involves various techniques that help both the mechanical search engines and the human users on the other side of the screen better understand what exactly your website and its related content is all about.

SEO Technique Breakdown

  • Conducting keyword research to find out what your target audience is searching for online.
  • Optimizing your website's structure, speed, and mobile-friendliness to provide a good user experience.
  • Creating high-quality content that answers your audience's questions and provides value.
  • Maintaining Relevance by using the right title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and alt text to describe your web pages.
  • Building external links from other reputable websites to boost your authority and trustworthiness.
  • Analysis of your SEO performance using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

After reading these techniques, it should become clear that SEO is not a one-time, set-it-and-forget-it activity, but an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and updating. This process is to keep up with several ever-changing factors such as in-industry competition, new trends, changes to internal algorithms, and the ever-changing human element…your audience’s behavior.

A car with Instagram logo behind it and the city of Houston in the background.

SEO is Like a Fine Oiled Machine

This regular maintenance and upkeep can be likened to maintenance on your car. After you get your first oil change, tire rotation, or even a car wash, do you think your car is good to go forever? If so, your car before too long will be struggling to gain speed, get traction on the road, and will likely have a nice “wash me” scrawled on the window…not unlike the majority of vehicles seen broken down on the side of I-45.

Ready to give your brand’s website the tune-up it deserves? Contact CRE8 Digital today and let us help you get your business back in the fast lane. 

How Do Search Engines Work?

Search engines like Google use complex algorithms to search through (known as crawling), analyzing (known as indexing), and rank web pages based on numerous factors. And while these factors are not entirely disclosed, SEO experts like those found at Cre8 Digital have identified some of the most important ones through regular research and testing. So what are some of these key factors?

What Determines Your Rank:

  • Relevance: How well your web page aligns with what a person is searching for. Keyword management is critical here!
  • Quality: How useful, informative, and engaging your web page is. The value of your content heavily sways this.
  • Authority: How trustworthy and credible your web page is based on the quality and quantity of links to other trusted websites. Don’t link to sites posting misinformation!
  • User experience: How easy, fast, and enjoyable it is for the user to navigate and interact with your web page. A thoughtful and clean user interface, and by extension a UX Designer, is a must!
  • Technical factors: How well your web page is coded, structured, and optimized for search engines. A savvy programmer comes in handy here.

It’s Organic - A note on Organic SEO vs. Paid PPC

One of the best parts about SEO generation through the previously mentioned factors is that it’s entirely organic! That is to say, it makes your website appear to your audience naturally, not through the artificial pay wall of the search engine itself. And while it’s true that your typical search engine result page (SERP) will come up with these paid results as a high priority, they will always be notated by the “Sponsored” tagline. More pricey and not always as relevant, this paid method, lacks the long term sustainability and trustworthiness than its organic variant packs. It does provide an on-demand push for more instant results, oftentimes good at the start of an important marketing campaign.

This said, for some businesses, a combination of both organic and paid methods is certainly a sound digital marketing strategy. Organic SEO can in fact compliment the paid, or PPC (Pay-per-cick), methods by further extending said business’ brand awareness, credibility, and website traffic.

Unsure which version will be the best fit for your company, organic SEO, paid, or a combination? Check in with the CRE8 Digital marketing team today to receive a free consultation from your local digital marketing experts.

A visual description of SEO working progressively for a business.

What are the Benefits of SEO in Digital Marketing

As we’ve touched on, SEO is one of the most effective and cost-efficient digital marketing strategies present that can help you grow your brand’s online presence and finally meet your marketing goals.

The notable benefits of SEO in digital marketing are:

  • Increased visibility: SEO can help you rank higher in the SERPs for relevant keywords and phrases, which can increase your exposure and awareness among your target audience. If a potential client never sees your sight on their search, why would they ever think to buy from you?
  • Increased traffic: SEO can help you drive more organic traffic to your website. Think, the more people on your site, the higher the chance a visitor turns from a stranger, to a customer and ultimately a fan to your business' brand!
  • Increased credibility: SEO can help you establish your authority and trustworthiness in your industry by showing up in the top results for authoritative and informative content. If they don’t trust you, they probably won’t buy from you.
  • Increased ROI: SEO can help you generate more revenue from your website by attracting more qualified leads and customers who are ready to buy your products or services. Simply put, SEO is just plain cost effective.
  • Increased competitiveness: SEO can help you gain an edge over your competitors by outranking them in the SERPs and capturing more market share. You don’t want people buying from your competition because they saw them first!

Now that we’ve taken a look at some of the perks of using search engine optimization for your next digital marketing campaign, let’s take a look at how you or a professional digital marketing team like CRE8 Digital can get started building your brand with SEO…

How to Get Started with SEO in Digital Marketing

If you want to take advantage of the benefits of SEO in digital marketing, you need to have a solid SEO strategy that aligns with your brand’s goals and operational objectives.

A good SEO strategy consists of four main steps:

a group of business people talking about SEO

The Four Steps:

If you want to take advantage of the benefits of SEO in digital marketing, you need to have a solid SEO strategy that aligns with your brand’s goals and operational objectives.

A good SEO strategy consists of four main steps:

As the four steps mentioned quickly show, SEO can be a complex and challenging process that requires patience, effort, and expertise. That's why many businesses choose to hire a professional SEO digital marketing agency, like CRE8 Digital, that can handle all aspects of their SEO strategy, taking this unique weight off of their shoulders.

CRE8 Digital - The Clear Choice for your Digital Marketing Strategy

Are you or your business looking for a reliable, experienced, and digital marketing SEO agency that can help you achieve your marketing goals? Contact CRE8 Digital today. We are the Houston-based digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO services for companies looking to gain the digital edge in today’s modern marketing landscape.

Looking to further increase your brand awareness with the power of social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok? CRE8 Digital has your back in managing your brand’s various platforms, leading to more eyes on your brand without the hassle on your end.

Uncertain what content to create to best showcase your brand, unsure where to start or what equipment to use? Trust the professionals at CRE8 Digital to help generate authentic and engaging content for your business with our high-end video equipment, including drone technology!

Lastly, for companies looking to develop their website for the first time, or wanting a complete overhaul due to poor work from your previous design team, did you know that CRE8 can also help develop and design your website from scratch? We pride ourselves in creating professional websites that generate leads, share quality content, and accurately reflect their respective company’s culture and mission.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you and your business or brand thrive, and stay tuned for future blogs where we’ll cover more topics relating to digital marketing.

Get Started With Your Digital Marketing Today!