What is SEO?

You may be wondering what does the acronym SEO mean. Turns out, those three letters stand for search engine optimization. While that phrase sounds nice, what does it actually mean? What is search engine optimization?

Search engine optimization or SEO for short is the process of using concentrated strategies and methods in order to obtain a high ranking page placement on search engines in order to enhance traffic to a website. This kind of direction of traffic to sites through search engines is called organic traffic, whereas typing the url of the website you want to go to directly in is direct traffic.

All too often the first thing people do when they have a problem is Google it, and sometimes the winner of who gets the business is simply the first person to come up as a search result. Since so many people use search engines then, optimizing search engines or optimizing your rank on these platforms is critical for businesses.

However, how do people affect their rank on search engines? The website Search Engine Land provides a great video explaining SEO in even more detail and also goes into the different factors that affect your page rank. The creative way they highlight these factors is in their “Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors, as can be seen below.

This table simply highlights the many different factors these search engine algorithms take into consideration when determining page rank. The overarching categories of factors are content, architecture, HTML, trust, links, personal, and social. From there, these categories look at all different types of things from speed of service and answers and quality of content to number of links and the trust associated with the website.

Controlling all of these variables may seem like an immense tasks. However, by increasing your rank in search engines, you can directly increase business with zero to small amounts of money spent. The goal should be to start with enhancing one or two of these aspects, and when you finish, simply move on to two more.

For more information about SEO, see our informative infographic on the new versus the old SEO that explains why SEO is so important.

How To Show Up At The Top Of Search Results

Everyone wants their business to show up on the top of Google’s search results, but this is not an easy task. You can have the best product, the cheapest price, and the greatest Facebook ads, but none of these things will get you on the top of the search results page. If you’re seeing your competitors at the top of your Google search results page, you may need to take a look at these tips.

Unfortunately, this is not a one-click solution. Google uses an algorithm that takes over 200 factors into account to determine your site’s search rankings. Although we can’t go through all 200 factors, we can give you a few of the most important that may help bump your search rankings up.

Keywords

The first step in making sure your site is seen is choosing the best keywords. Keywords are the words a user enters in the search box when looking for a specific product or business. You must ensure your keywords match what customers are searching for. You can use Google Analytics to help determine which keywords perform best for your business.

Content

Just as important as the keywords used to get to your site are the words that are on your site. Search engines are smart, and they can distinguish sites that are relevant from those that are not. You need to ensure you have enough information to sufficiently cover your topic, but not so much that it becomes cluttered. Each topic on your site should add value to users and should have its own separate page. If your content is not relevant or valuable, your website may have a high bounce rate. The bounce rate is the number of visitors to your website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. Google will see this and will penalize your website for a high bounce rate. Be sure to keep your content relevant and up to date in order to avoid this.

Navigation

Navigation refers to the way visitors move from page to page on your website and also to the links directing visitors to your website.  Your website should be structured in a manner that is easy for search engines to follow. The search engines must index you site to pull relevant content, and tools such as Java can be hard for them to read. We recommend structuring your website using HTML or CSS.  You also want to ensure you have links from other websites that lead back to your site. This shows Google that your website is relevant because other sites are referencing it.

If you’ve optimized all of the above tips and are still having trouble getting your site to show up on the first page of Google, there could be another factor that you can’t control affecting your search rankings. For example, age of a website will directly impact many other factors that Google considers. If your website is fairly new versus a competitor’s website that has been around for years, your website will be lagging in links, content, and traffic numbers. You cannot necessarily control this, but it is something that will develop with age.

We hope these tips have given you a good idea of how to troubleshoot why your search rankings may not be as high as you’d like. If you need further assistance, please contact us today.

The Secret To Get To The TOP Of Google’s Results

In this blog, we will teach you how to get to the top of Google’s results using paid search advertising, which can help your business gain more exposure, more leads, and more conversions.

SEM stands for search engine marketing, which is where you purchase ads from search engines such as Google to gain more website traffic. The most popular paid search advertising method is Google AdWords, which allows you to bid on certain keywords so your ads will show up at the top of certain searches. Google AdWords is effective because it allows you to target your ads, control your costs, measure your success, and manage your campaigns.

Your ads can show on two of Google’s networks, the Search Network or the Display Network. The search network means your ads will show up on the search page, while the display network allows your ads to show on Google’s partner websites. You can put your ads on the Search Network only, the Display Network only, or a combination of both.

With Search Network marketing, your ads will be given a quality score and ad rank. The quality score estimates how effective your ads will be based on the expected clickthrough rate (CTR), ad relevance, and landing page experience. Ad rank determines the order in which your ad shows up on the page.

Because Google AdWords is paid search advertising, you will obviously have to pay for your ads. You have three options for payment on Google AdWords, cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), and cost-per-acquisition (CPA). Cost-per-click (CPC) focuses on clicks on your ads and drive traffic to your website. Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) focuses on impressions — the number of times your ad shows — and increases awareness of your brand. This is used on Display Network campaigns only. Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) focuses on conversions — which is when people take a specific action on your website after clicking one of your ads.

Choosing the appropriate keywords is a big part of creating your Google AdWords campaign. When choosing your keywords, it is important to think like a customer, align your keywords with your goals, and reviewing which search terms work best. Exhaustive keyword research and bid optimization designed for high click-through rates at a lower cost-per-inquiry is necessary for a successful Google AdWords campaign.

Once you have created your AdWords campaign, you can measure your success with several tools. Segments allow you to split your data into rows based on the information that matters to you most, such as periods of time, click type, or device. The list below shows you a few of your options if you want to measure your ad’s success based on segments.

    • Click type: See which clicks resulted in visits to your website
    • Device: Compare performance across devices
    • Top vs. Other: Find out where your ad appeared on Google’s search results pages and search partners’ pages
    • Time: Isolate changes in your performance using the time segment options

You can also measure the success of your campaign by utilizing the top movers report, which lets you see which campaigns have the biggest changes (increases or decreases) in clicks, costs, and conversions, and shows you some possible causes for those changes. The paid and organic report lets you can see how often pages from your website are showing in Google search results, and which queries triggered those results to show on the search results page. Another report, auction insights, compares your performance with other advertisers who are participating in the same auctions that you are.

Overall, paid search advertising can help your business get more exposure and generate more leads. If you need additional help, please let us become part of your team and we’ll use our proven approach to provide you with success.

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Website

Most business owners know that in today’s age a website is a must in order to drive traffic to your business. But do you know if you are using your website to its full potential? In today’s blog, we will help you learn how to get the most out of your website.

There are several important aspects to having a successful website. We strongly recommend having a call to action prominently displayed at the top of your home page. A good example of this would be to display your company’s phone number so customers can easily contact you. You should also include any social media links to your company’s Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube page.

Another recommendation is to have a quick contact form where customers can digitally get in touch directly from the home page. Depending on your type of business, a live chat that pops up when customers enter the site may be helpful. We recommend this for any business that customers may have a lot of questions about (attorneys, designers, etc.). Professional photography and a modern, clean design will make your website look professional and credible. We suggest adding candid photography to show the real aspects of your business. A few other things to keep in mind are to ensure that your site is mobile-friendly, has a quick load time, includes your contact information in the footer, and always lead visitors toward conversation.

In addition to the design aspects of your website, the content is also important. You want to have very detailed content on each page. The more keywords, the better! We recommend having about 1,500 words per page. Having a blog will also help you add more content. One blog post per week should suffice in adding more content and creating credibility. In addition to a blog, adding testimonials to the home page and throughout the website can help with the credibility of your business. Your reviews on various review sites (Yelp, Facebook, Google+) are important, and you should feature the best ones on your website.

Now that you know what elements your website needs to contain, we need to go over how people can find your site. Unfortunately, there’s no secret formula to ensure Google will put your site at the top of people’s searches, but there are various factors that you can control to help. The first important aspect of a searchable website is keywords, which are the search terms people use to find your website. After all, what good is a killer website if no one can find it?

Keywords can range from very general to very specific. General terms get a large volume of searches, but may not be exactly who you are trying to target. Specific keywords get less traffic, but it is more likely that these people will find your website helpful. External links will also help your website make it to the top of Google. This is where a blog comes in handy. Linking your blog posts each week to your Facebook will immensely increase your number of external links. You may also want to consider increasing the number of pages on your website. This gives Google more content to sift through. Having a separate page for each service you offer is a quick way to boost your page count, but make sure each page is filled with quality information.

Last but not least, work on getting more reviews! We know this can be daunting for fear of negative reviews, but try to have exceptional customer service to outweigh the negative reviews with the positive ones. Sites with higher and more reviews typically end up at the top of Google’s list.

Utilize these tips to get the most out of your website. If you would like us to analyze your existing website and give you specific suggestions, please contact us today!