Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Your next customer is searching the web. Will they find you?

What is SEO?

The curiosity has to be killing you.

When you search for something using Google, you can receive millions of results, all laid out nicely page after page. But, how many pages do you actually scroll through before you decide on a result to click on? Not many. Typically you'd choose one of the returns on the top of the first page that seems the most relevant to what you want to know. That leaves the rest of the results to remain unseen.

Search Engine Optimization is what the experts do to increase your website's chances of ranking on the first pages. By ensuring your code in the backend of your website meets the parameters established over the years by Google and by increasing your links and providing optimum content, your site will be able to rank higher when the next prospective client comes looking.

The WEB

Think of the Internet as a giant spider web, each sticky strand a link from one destination to another. This is the basic framework of the web. Each destination along the web is a website (and there are millions of them) and in the center is a cluster of databases that store the content of all of the sites on the web.

Each search engine, like Google, sends out spiders to crawl the web and visit each site to collect content and site information. These spiders then bring back the data to the database, where it will be indexed and stored.

Keywords

When a user searches for something on the web, they will type into the search engine a word or a phrase that describes what they are looking for. The search engine uses these keywords, or search queries, to track down and identify website content that is relevant to those keywords and displays the website information in a ranked listing.

Page Rank

The results are ranked by a series of algorithms that assigns each web page with a relevancy score. The relevancy score is based on factors such as the frequency and location of keywords on the web page, the length of time the website has existed, the relevance and usability of the pages, the expertise of sources, and the number of links to that page.

Search Engine Optimization

This is the process by which your web pages are constructed or modified to receive a good relevancy score and be ranked as high as possible on the results page. It is broken up into two basic parts: on-page and off-page. On-page SEO refers to the process of optimizing those things that can found on the page. Things like content and HTML code. Off-page refers to things outside of the page, like link building, guest blog writing - those things influenced by human behavior.

On-page SEO

This refers to anything on the web page that can be changed by modifying the content or HTML. On-page SEO can have a huge impact and consists of:

Great content relevant to the searcher's query is the backbone of Google's ranking. Google thrives on expertise, authority and trustworthiness in the content.
HTML optimization includes making sure certain items are done correctly. These include Header Tags, Meta Descriptions, Headlines, Content Readability, correct use of Keywords, Image Optimization, Page Load Speed, User Engagement and Internal Linking.

Off-page SEO

This is anything that occurs outside of the web page and is directed by human behavior. It always centers around great content. These include:

Link Building is by far the biggest influencer when it comes to achieving higher rank. The more relevant links to your site, the higher the Google score.
Social Media Marketing is the actual engaging of customers via social media to increase brand awareness, drive traffic and increase sales.
Blogging is a form of customer engagement that shares content with web visitors about topics involving your product, service or industry. Since it is engagement, blogs must be refreshed often.
Influencer Marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses individuals who have a high social following and are considered experts within their niche.