Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your website to move your site higher in search results, so it is more likely to be found by your customers.
There are two types of SEO: paid and organic.
This approach costs less time, but more money. Paid SEO is just that; you pay Google to show up at the top of the list when someone searches for "dumpster rental Cape Cod", for example. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad; the cost depends on how many people want that search term, but it's probably $5-$10 per click. You can set your own budgets to make sure things don't get out of hand.
Anyone can get paid SEO up and running by themselves in about 30 minutes, so if you are interested in that, check out YouTube for a free tutorial. You could also pay an agency to optimize and manage your paid ads for you.
This approach costs less money, but more time. Organic SEO is when naturally over time, Google finds your website and adds it to its search results because your site is trusted and contains relevant content. You can assist this process in a number of ways, like:
There are a number of free SEO analysis tools online that will help you find and fix low-hanging fruit on your site, like https://rankmath.com/tools/seo-analyzer/.
Anyone can organically improve their search engine results by following the tips above, it just requires more time upfront, and results are slow. You can also hire an agency to manage this for you.
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