SEO is a widely known acronym in the tech world that stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is basically a fancy way of saying “how you get found online.” Practicing good SEO is what increases that quality and quantity of traffic to your website and helps build up your brand authority to site visitors, both new and old.
High quality and technical search engine result strategy takes many factors into account to ensure you get found online in organic search results despite competition. It comes down to doing research on who's visiting your site, how they got there and the terms they used, and what they’re looking for.
You can create a beautiful website built with pristine web pages and quality text and images, but if SEO isn’t taken into account, those pages on your site will struggle to be found. SEO ensures what you post online will end up at the top of your search results and boost your online presence.
Should I hire someone to do an SEO audit?
Conducting an SEO audit is a great way to eliminate the guessing game of why you’re not getting found on Google.Doing an SEO audit will give you a clear understanding of what is working, what isn’t working, what’s broken and what needs more time and attention.
SEO auditors like will take a deep dive into an on-page and off-page analysis. That means they’ll be looking at the pages of your site and outside sources that are either associated with the site or that are promoting or linking to you.
What gets analyzed in an SEO audit:
Broken Links
Site speed
Bounce rate
Headings
Meta tags
Anchor text
Backlinks
Linking quality
By taking a look into both on-page and off-page SEO you get a look into the quality and authority of your site and its links. Quality and authority are two main key aspects when it comes to anything SEO related.
Outside sites that link to your website are known as backlinks. In a perfect world, anyone referencing your site would be much appreciated. They’re spreading the word and supporting you, right? Well, sadly that’s not necessarily always the case.
Understanding Google ranking
In order to fully understand the magic of search engine optimization, you need to understand how search engines work.
Search engines are what we use to get our answers online. Google is the most used search engine by a landslide across the globe, outweighing all competition by well over 80%. When someone is looking for information online, odds are they’re going straight to Google to get their answer.
When you type search queries into the Google search console and hit enter, the first page of results is actually categorized by Google ranking. Google does its homework in milliseconds, searching the web for the best answers to your question. How does it find the top results? Through search engine optimization SEO!
What factors play into SEO?
Google functions as a machine that sorts billions of searches into a fine-tuned list of results. Its search algorithm and ranking system are constantly updated to perform better and better, all the while weeding out spam sites, and delivering the best, most impactful answers to your questions.
In order to do that, it has to come up with a way to better sort through the ever increasing amount of content published online. There are certain aspects to on page SEO when publishing that can penalize your site and set you back further away from a top ranking.
Keyword stuffing
In the past it’s been a misconception that overusing a certain search term in the text of what you’re posting online would get you Google’s attention. Well it does, but not in a good way.
Keyword stuffing happens when you oversaturate the body text with keywords and key terms directly associated with your main search term. Though it is very important to incorporate those terms, overusing them can give your content a major penalty. By doing your keyword research while balancing your content, you can avoid keywords stuffing - but it does take attention to fine detail.
Just like keyword stuffing, duplicate content has to do with the body text of what you’re publishing online. It’s just like in the movies, when the cool kid gets in trouble for cheating off their friend’s test and ends up failing in the end.
Duplicate content stems from unauthorized use of reused content in its primary form. From pawning off someone else’s hard work as your own, or even adding small edits to make it look more legitimate, Google knows when you’re duplicating content and will give you a failing grade.
Image and video optimization
Both images and videos can be optimized as well. Visuals have never been more important in online branding and marketing, and especially for SEO. Formatting, title tags, and alt text all come into play. Infographics and visual data are some of the most impactful types of images to use in SEO, though any image or video published with SEO in mind will boost your sites performance and longevity.
How to measure SEO success
Here at Brand911 we use expert level tools and monitoring to ensure without a doubt your site is built with utmost attention to quality SEO practices that organically outperform competitor sites and boost your ranking in your search results.
With the use high quality optimization programs we are able to find out the who, how, where and why your visitors are or aren’t visiting your site, and use that information to coordinate a direct SEO and marketing strategy to bring you straight to the top, and ensure your brand or business long term.
What are backlinks?
Some links can be extremely harmful to the health of your website and brand as a whole. When doing an SEO audit, you’ll see just how many sites are linking to you. You blogs, your images, your videos, your pages - it’s all taken into account.
Some sites are considered spam sites with very low authority. When Google is searching for you on the web and sees you hanging around with a bad group of backlinks, it’s going to associate you with that rough crowd and not consider you a reliable source. This is not only bad for your optimization, it also diminishes your online reputation and reduces your SERP results, or Search Engine Result Pages, considerably.
Disavowing bad links may help with SEO
You do have the ability to “disavow” these links, which means break them away from your site and alert Google that you don’t want to be associated with them anymore. However, you should consult a professional before disavowing too many links, or mistakingly disavowing a healthy link.
This is where things get a little tricky. Disavowing too many links may actually bring you down in search results, because good links build your site authority. Just like hanging around with a bad crowd lowers your reputation score, hanging out with a good crowd helps improve it - but you don’t want to be a loner when it comes to Google ranking.
What is an organic search result?
Any piece of content you publish online has different ranking page factors built into it whether you know it or not. From social media and blog posts to websites and press releases, it all gets broken down into bite-sized pieces for search engines like Google to digest and sort out into search results. Your search engine result pages, also known as “SERPs,” are filled with both organic results, as well as paid advertisements. The paid advertisements are labeled “Ad” in green.Paid advertising comes into play when you have high rates of competition in the industry. However, according to research, most people are much more inclined to choose organic results rather than paid advertisements. Organic search results are always your main goal.The results that appear below paid advertisements on the top of your Google results page are known as the organic search results. In order to get there, many factors need to be taken into account and processed accordingly to aim for the top spot.The better optimized the content you post online is, the more likely you’ll land on well ranking pages and reach your target audience.
What is the E-A-T algorithm update?
Unlike updates in the past, the new E-A-T was set in place in adherence with Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. E-A-T is an acronym that stands for expert, authoritative and trustworthy. It was created to put emphasis on the new direction that Google wants top search results to follow. Good content is written with E-A-T guidelines in place, writing textbook worthy yet relatable text available to your audience in an interesting way that increases the user experience. Google wants you to write to a person, not to a computer.
How does link building establish domain authority?
SEO not only has to do with the site itself, it also helps in establishing your domain authority and link building to other sites. The higher quality your site’s content is, the better it will perform as a trustworthy site that others would want to link to and reference.
This also plays in reference to the E-A-T principle mentioned above. When the content you produce is written in a way that is expert, authoritative and trustworthy, outside sites will naturally be drawn to your site for linking purposes.
In turn, you want the external site link to be from an equally authoritative source to improve your own credentials and avoid spam sites. Any page linked to your own site that is a credible source will boost your SEO.
That high quality content translates as authority in the eyes of Google, as well as the eyes of your audience, customers and clients.
Should I hire an SEO expert?
Someone who is specifically trained in SEO writing and editing can be a massive time saver. When it comes to marketing, time is money. Whether you are building a business or just focusing on establishing your brand, hiring an SEO expert could be extremely beneficial in learning how to successfully market in the long run. Basic insight and information can be very useful, especially from someone who is confident in the industry and truly wants to see you succeed.
At Reputation911 we employ a trained team of SEO writing and editing specialists. Not only do we fully understand the importance, time, and attention that revolves around the optimization of what you publish online, we understand how crucial it is to our client’s success. Let’s get your SEO on track and design a plan catered to you!
We also ensure that your business appears in local searches not only on desktops, but also on mobile devices and tablets. Our goal is to earn outstanding listings on top of your local traffic competitors.
Developing a solid content strategy plan will give you the confidence you need to get some free SEO working in your favor. Once you know where your SEO is lacking, you know where to supplement the faults once and for all.
Based on suggestions of improvement, creating your content marketing strategy plan will not only help with optimization, it will also boost your site conversions drastically with just a few simple changes and shifting of focus.
Outline your mission
Disregard the current state of your site. Where do you see it going? What goals would you like to reach? How would you want your site to perform, to look like, to function? Who do you see using your site?
Really try to envision the goals of how you would like to build content to better your brand or business. You have all the tools, all you need is the direction and you’re off to the races. Having a clear vision of what you want to do with your content strategy will help you develop it entirely.
Compare that to where you are currently
Okay, now that you know where you want to be, let’s compare that to where you are currently. Don’t freak out if you’ve got some big steps to take, you’re in the right place just by being here and reading this article!
In order to know where you’re going, you can use your knowledge of where you’ve been in the past to help you move further into the direction of your goals.
Take into account all the current outlets you have for content. Think website, blogs, social media, press release sites. Write it all down and get it on paper so you can get a good idea of other sources you can utilize next. Don’t have any? Then you’ve only got one place to go - up!
Find your target audience
The main reason anyone delves into marketing is to connect someone or something to an outside audience. Your target audience is very specific to your own business or brand. Things like age, economic level, gender, occupation, interests - it can all be useful depending on your products or services.
For example, if you’re selling construction equipment, your target audience is most likely not going to be females ages 18-25 with interests in ballet and baking (not to stereotype, we’re just looking at a generalization here.)
In order to define your specific target audience, you need to take various aspects about the lives of the people you’re trying to reach into account.
Choose content types and channels
Depending on who your target audience is, you can use that to choose the best place to find them online. Hospitality and product based businesses for instance do very well with social media marketing, whereas higher stake services do better with more professional avenues like news sources and press releases.
Hold yourself accountable with a content calendar
Holding yourself accountable with a content calendar helps you stay on track and keep your growth and success consistent across the board. Creating a posting and sharing calendar will help you track your content and better measure its impact.
Create your content
Content that is specifically aimed at bettering SEO should be optimized using keywords and search terms in the body text and taglines. Images and videos are also very useful in this step, as they are considered when calculating your google SERPs.
You should also pay close attention to your competitor’s sites and content. Making sure not to copy, plagiarize or misuse any of their hard work, you can always do your research on your competitors to see what is or isn’t working and to boost your creativity.
Start marketing
Now it’s time to pull it all together! Publishing content on your site that is specifically designed to boost SEO while sharing it across social platforms will organically boost your Google ranking, build domain authority, and increase your brand awareness.
Track your results
When all is said and done, it’s very important to track every step you take, including your results. Being consistent in your upkeep in marketing efforts will ensure you success long term. By tracking your results, you’ll have a physical representation of how much your work is paying off, or show you where to improve.
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