Did you know that the internet contains over 1.1 billion websites? And while only around ~200 million of those (approximately 15%) are considered active as of 2026, the task of parsing through that many sites is still a massive endeavor for search engines to take on.
With so many websites out there, how can your brand gain that edge it needs to attract the right audiences and stay relevant in search results? This is where Search Engine Optimization comes in – the powerful force secretly driving almost all of the world’s internet traffic.
What Does SEO Mean?
Keywords, backlinks, meta tags, alt text – all these terms fall under the wide umbrella of Search Engine Optimization. Rather than define every bit of SEO jargon, we’re staying focused on what really matters: understanding how these factors come together to form the basis of strong and effective SEO, and how that ultimately benefits your business.
So, what does SEO mean? Good SEO involves employing specific strategies and tactics for optimizing web content – both on the surface and under the hood – in order to help search engines like Google find that content and display it to more of its billions of users.
There are many ways to tackle SEO effectively and prop up your business’ digital presence. Implementing relevant keywords, attaching accurate tags to images, implementing robust accessibility features, and ensuring written content is grammatically consistent are just some examples of SEO best practices that can help a website gain the favour of search engines and improve their reach.
In short, SEO is constantly working behind the scenes and dictates a lot of what we encounter while using the internet. When SEO is integrated properly, it becomes a powerful tool for building a sturdy online presence for your brand that can reach and resonate with the right audience.
Why is SEO Important?
A website’s SEO score is essentially a rating of its legitimacy and relevance in the eyes of the almighty algorithm. In practice, websites with higher SEO scores tend to be prioritized by search engines, thus making them rank higher in relevant search results and leading to vastly increased reach and brand discoverability.
If the algorithm decides that your website isn’t worth showing – or if it simply can’t find your content amidst the sea of other results – then your brand will show up further down in the rankings, and may even be banished to the second or third page of search results. It goes without saying: this is NOT where you want your website to be.
When used to its fullest potential, SEO is directly linked to a more prominent online presence and better retention for brands, regardless of their size or scope. Unlike the real world, word-of-mouth will only get you so far on the vastness of the web. For any brand serious about staying relevant in today’s unforgiving business landscape, SEO is a tool that simply can’t be overlooked.
What Does Good SEO Look Like?
After more than 20 years of industry experience, we’ve honed our understanding and application of SEO down to a science. For our clients and their brands, that means higher visibility, more leads, and a better return on investment from their virtual initiatives.
SEO is graded on a scale from 1-100, with 100 being a perfect score and 75 representing the average. This rating comes from a series of tests that check for a website’s accessibility, content quality, and overall technical stability. These results are then compiled and presented in an SEO report that provides actionable feedback and recommendations that are likely to result in a higher score and better visibility in search results.
With every site we build, we strive to score as high as possible by adhering to best practices, thoroughly reviewing checks and warnings, and addressing any discrepancies that we may have overlooked.
Effective SEO in action can be seen in two contrasting SEO reports from one of our clients. In 2020, Websolutions.ca built a custom website for this client that earned a score of 87/100, with 43/51 passed checks. That score placed their website well above the average, meaning it ranked higher in search results and was displayed more prominently to relevant users.
On the other hand, their new 2025 site by a different provider scored 50/100, with 19 failed checks and 7 warnings. Some of the issues listed were the lack of strong keywords, a missing or incomplete sitemap, improper image formats and slow load times. All in all, these issues amount to a worse user experience, lower rankings in search engines, and reduced brand visibility compared to their 2020 site.
In another report for a different client, their new website scored 65/100, with 17 failed checks and 7 warnings. The report noted poor accessibility, inconsistent image sizes and formats, low responsiveness, and a missing 404 page as some of the biggest issues. While these problems might not amount to anything too detrimental on their own, they can quickly stack up and result in noticeably worse performance for your website.
Thankfully, most of the issues outlined in these reports can be fixed with a quick SEO pass and a couple hours of refinement. That small bit of extra effort goes a long way towards building a better and more effective website for your brand and increasing your ability to reach more potential clients. Much like a cake without frosting, a website without proper SEO is missing those finishing touches that push it from just a good product to an exceptional one.
At Websolutions.ca, SEO is an integral part of the services we offer. From websites to marketing campaigns, everything we build is guaranteed to follow SEO guidelines and best practices to a T. As a gesture of transparency, we offer a full SEO report to clients that lets them see exactly what’s working and where there’s room for improvement.
If you want to learn more about how we use SEO to enhance our clients and their brands, reach out today and start a conversation!
