With more than 97% of people beginning their search for a local business online, search engine optimization, SEO for short, continues to be one of the most effective forms of marketing available today. But as useful as SEO is, it’s also one of the most complex and technical marketing tactics available - which means confusion, and a missed opportunity for many business owners. So in this video I’m going to break down a few of the most valuable, and easiest to implement SEO tactics – so you can start benefitting from a business boost that only high search engine rankings can provide. My History With SEO
There’s no doubt about it, SEO has been the largest driver of my digital marketing agency Siren Consulting Firm’s traffic and business over the last 5 years. In fact, I can attribute roughly 60% of all revenue to business gained directly by a client searching for something online, clicking my agency site, and then choosing to do business with us.
TITLE: Earnings Disclaimer: My boutique marketing consulting business (adamerhart.com) comes mostly from referrals followed by content marketing and paid traffic. Different business models mean different traffic sources.
I’ve worked personally with dozens of companies, spoken with hundreds more, and studied many, many more than that, and have come to the conclusion that choosing NOT to pursue an SEO strategy should be a very rare exception, and never a rule. Put bluntly, SEO works. It brings in traffic and it brings in revenue. Both key ingredients to building profitable and sustainable businesses. So here’s how to do it.
Optimize For The User Experience
Search engine algorithms, which are the complicated math equations behind why certain websites appear higher than others, are notorious for changing. It seems like there was a time not so long ago when not a day went by without some breaking news about a Panda or Penguin update being overhauled and unleashed on the world. As a quick side note, Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird are part of Google’s algorithm. Cute little animals designed to DESTROY bad SEO tactics and the companies that use them. Anyways, staying ahead of these ferocious little animals means staying current and relevant on the latest SEO news and development, and right now the focus is on user experience. Keyword Placement
Next up is keyword placement. One of the ways search engines decide what websites are going to appear for certain search terms is keywords. Specifically the type, number, and placement of these keywords on your website. There’s a bit of a balance between ensuring adequate coverage of your most valuable terms, known as proper keyword density, and not overdoing it, known as keyword stuffing, that makes SEO an exciting and challenging field to work in, but in general there are a few key places you want to make sure are accurately reflecting the word you’re trying to rank for. These include things like URL’s, Titles, Body Copy, Page Descriptions and proper image tagging like labelling image titles, descriptions, and ALT tags. Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI’s)
The next step is to strike the perfect balance between making sure you’re using the right keywords for your business while still respecting the user experience and not keyword stuffing. And one way to do this is with Latent Semantic Indexing. Search Engine Journal describes Latent Semantic Indexing, LSI for short as “a mathematical method used to determine the relationship between terms and concepts in content.” Basically, LSI’s are fancy talk for synonyms, or similar words. Make It Shareable
Once all of the above is done and running smoothly it’s time to step outside. Outside of your website that is. That’s because as great as you say your website and company are – search engines want a little more proof. And they get this proof through links. Specifically, the quality and number of links that are pointing back to your website. And a great long term strategy to safely and ethically acquire high quality links is through an SEO focused content marketing strategy. SEO Content Marketing Strategy
The basics of an SEO content marketing strategy are really quite simple. Create good content, put it on your website, and then build links to it. But like all things, the devil’s in the details, so here are a few methods to ensure you’re creating shareable, also known as linkable, content, and then a few suggestions for how to get those links. Top Shareable Content
