SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of proving to search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and others that you are an authority in your niche and that you are worthy of that search engine’s trust. In other words, can that search engine trust that if they display your website on page 1 of search results that their users will appreciate that result? You’d better hope so!

OK … So How Do We Gain Authority and Trust?

So how does one go about the process of building authority and trust with a search engine such as Google? That’s always the million-dollar question – and some of the answers seem like they change as fast as Google’s algorithms. Yet some things never change:

Technical On-Site Optimization Is Critical

It’s critical that your website is optimized according to Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines (or best practices). Remember one thing: Google is a robot. Our job as SEO’s is to give that robot the code that they need to understand who you are and what you do. It’s also important that your SEO provider gives Google-bot a website that loads quickly and has great content that draws the reader in.

Content. Is. King. 

You may have heard that before – in fact, you may have heard that a lot! It’s critical that the static content on your website (such as the content on this page) is of great quality. What do we mean by static content? Well … while we put great care into writing this page, it’s unlikely that it will be updated more than a couple of times per year. It’a also critical that your website is dynamic – a living, breathing organism. That’s why blogging is so important. If done correctly, it shows Google and other search engines that your website is a living, breathing thing. New content (pages) are being published frequently. It’s not stale or static. Blogging (again … only if done well and with purpose) can also show you a dramatic increase in the amount of traffic you receive from search engine referrals.

Links Matter

Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. While links have always mattered, some things have changed. For example, spamming the Internet with low-quality links doesn’t work anymore – and that’s a good thing! When building links from a third-party website to your own, you must ensure that the link is on a website that is:

  • relevant to your own
  • authoritative
  • trusted

Building links from domains that are relevant to your own, authoritative, and trustworthy is probably the hardest part of an SEO campaign from a strategy perspective. Given the challenges that technical on-site optimization of a website present, do you really want to try to do SEO on your own? While SEO is not rocket science, it’s not something you can really be good at unless you are able to devote all of your time and energy to the discipline.

Thou Must Convert

It’s one thing to gain favor with Google and other search engines. Sure, you might see higher keyword rankings and more traffic from organic search referrals. But if you are not focusing converting that traffic into new customers you are missing the boat. That’s why it is so important to make sure that you

  1. Make it obvious to visitors of your website what it is that you want them to do.
  2. Track your success via conversion URL’s in Google Analytics so that you know what percentage of visitors are converting.
  3. Tweak your call-to-action in such a way that leads to increased conversion rates.

How Long Does It Take?

If you buy into our definition of SEO (that it is the process of proving to search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and others that you are an authority in your niche and that you are worthy of that search engine’s trust), then SEO should never stop! Authority and trust are not finite. Neither is the limit to the success you can have with SEO.

With that said, we ask our clients to give us 12 months to show them the full range of our capabilities. Does that mean it takes 12 months to see success? No! It just means that it takes that long to show you the full range of success when it comes to:

  • keyword rankings (visibility)
  • traffic (specifically from organic search results)
  • leads

Are There Any Guarantees?

NO! There are no guarantees when it comes to SEO, unfortunately. That is because we are not Google. We have no say over the contents of Google’s algorithms. Does that mean we are powerless when it comes to your success online? Of course not. In fact, we believe we offer world-class SEO services. Beware of any SEO provider or SEO company that promises anything. In fact, we encourage you to run away if that ever happens to you.

How Do I Get Started?

Slowly. Cautiously. Choosing the right SEO provider for your business needs to be a slow, methodical process. SEO is not a commodity. The range of skills in a room full of SEO providers is shockingly vast. Ask a lot of questions. If you don’t understand the answers, find someone else to work with. Like we said before, SEO is not rocket science. If you can’t understand what your SEO provider is telling you – and they can’t explain themselves when you ask questions – you have found the wrong SEO provider for you. That might be the only guarantee we can make with confidence when it comes to SEO.

Contact Us Today

Click here to obtain a no-obligation quote request. We will contact you for an initial free consultation. If you don’t like what you hear, keep looking. If you do, we’ll meet with you in-person to “go deep” about what we think SEO success looks like for you.

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