Welcome to the latest installment of the Big Marketing Bite - the blog that looks at all things marketing within the food industry. To date, we have looked at Google Analytics and Big Data Analytics as important parts of your digital marketing strategy. Todays topic is a great one - we will look at the importance of Search Engine Optimisation within the food industry.
What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
So back to basics, a search engine is a tool we use to search the web. Examples include Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. (You will see below that Google is by far the most popular).
These search engines use bots to crawl and index web pages and then rank them according to specific criteria. That ranking comes into play when you do a search on Google for example - it basically determines what sites you see, in what order.
Search engine optimisation refers to all the activity the website owner can undertake to ensure that their site has the best possible ranking on the search engine results page (SERP). It refers to "organic" search results - (that is to say, it does not include paid ads). This concept is illustrated below.
Why would SEO be important for a business in the food industry to adopt?
SEO is an essential part of the digital marketing toolkit for any food business. Coffee shops, restaurants, fast food with online delivery etc all have one thing in common - and its a simple enough concept- they need to be found when the potential customer searches for them online! It matters where the company ranks in the search because if they are too far down on the listing, research shows that they wont be clicked on:
"Page two and three only get 5.59% of the clicks. On the first page alone, the first 5 results account for 67.60% of all the clicks, and the results from 6 - 10 account for only 3.73%" -Martec 360
What factors effect how well my food business is ranked?
How well your site ranks is dependent on a number of factors including:
- Relevance to the search query - does your page use the same keywords as the query and also does it contain content relevant to this keyword (simply filling your entire site with the word 'Pizza Delivery', for example, wont cut it, in terms of optimisation!) There are a number of free online tools available to help you identify keywords such as Semrush.com. Relevance also includes a geographic element e.g if I want a takeaway, I most likely am not interested in one in the UK if I'm based in Dublin. Browsing history is also a factor - the thinking being that you are probably interested in the (restaurant) you used before.
- Authority in the field - is the site a trustworthy source of information and do reputable sites link back to it. Links between your own pages also helps to facilitate the indexing process.
- Other factors also come into play such as:
- The websites design and whether it works well across all platforms. Cross platform testing is therefore essential.
- Engagement on your site (do visitors stay or leave immediately) Using a tool like Google analytics could be used to measure this and any necessary alterations to your landing pages can then be made.
- Page load time
- Unique content
Careful investment in SEO can really bring long-term gains to your company and this area deserves attention. Often comparisons are made between 'Free' SEO versus paid advertising. I don't know if I necessarily agree with this categorization. Good SEO involves considerable expertise and time input - so from a manpower point of view this really is not 'free' - but does make a lot of sense and is a good place to invest your digital marketing budget!
That's all for this week - I hope you enjoyed it! If you still have an appetite for more on SEO check out another great blog on the subject here - a different industry, but the same principles apply!
As always, feel free to comment below.
Suzanne McCabe
Suzanne, I thoroughly enjoyed this post. I really believe SEO is an essential tool for any business' digital strategy. There is considerable time and effort required for keyword research and for the creation of rich and engaging content. This may be the reason some businesses rely on off page SEO only, they literally do not know where to start - big mistake! They will reap the many rewards of new customer engagement and customer loyalty should they choose to put the effort into on -page SEO. This leads directly to our point on the importance of first page ranking. I wholly agree that relevance and authority are key. Suzanne I look forward to your next post, as always a really interesting read.
ReplyDeleteColette Breen-O'Boyle
Suzanne what a wonderful in-depth blog about SEO. I really enjoyed reading it and found it so useful! I really like the statcounter graphic you use and it really highlights the power google has on the World Wide Web.... It also makes you very much aware the ultimate benefits on using something like Google ads to up your businesses ranking on the SERP... It is very true in terms of a food business as if I am in the mood for something to eat and need to find it I will just google it and most likely click on the first link!! Thanks for going into the detail on how food businesses are ranked, I think this will be most useful for business owners to use.. Thanks again Suzanne
ReplyDeleteAmazing post Suzanne...this is probably my favorite blog post from you to date. You start by explaining SEO clearly - what it is and why it is important, then following on later in the post, I really like the way you specifically explain why this is vital for the food industry and more importantly, the steps that a business can take to begin to implement Search Engine Optimisation. You have written a really creative and useful blog post that businesses can use.
ReplyDeleteGreat example image of the paid advertising at the top of the page and the organic search results. A lot of people may not necessarily realise that the first few results are paid - and if they do they may be more inclined not to click on the adverts. Interesting fact that most people rarely go past the first page when searching for something on the web - that just reiterates the importance of having your results at the top of page one. Great post, looking forward to next weeks
Suzanne Earley
great post Suzanne, SEO is so potentially vast its great to read such a clear description of whats important in SEO.
ReplyDeleteCaitriona