Search Engine Optimization or SEO is fundamental and essential, and everyone in your company should be aware of what SEO can do for your site. SEO is the term that covers all the methods used to ensure the visibility of your website content is found on search engine results pages or SERPs.
The purpose of SEO is to create a seamless user experience and to communicate to search engines your intentions. When you build a website or have a site built, you need to please your visitors, customers, Google, Bing, and other search engines. You need SEO to help your web presence be profitable. Profitability is where SEO companies in Utah come into play.
In an Introduction to a SEO class at SES New York Carolyn Shelby, Director of SEO, Chicago Tribune, stressed the important of basic SEO, “Skipping the basics and spending all your time and money on social and ‘fancy stuff’ is the same as skipping brushing your teeth and showering, but buying white strips and wearing expensive cologne.” In other words, SEO is fundamental.
What are search engines looking for?
When a search engine spiders crawl through your website, they are looking for:
- Relevancy. Your site must answer a direct question in reasonable but straightforward terms.
- Content. Content needs to be quality. Searchmetricswrites that ranking factors indicate that Google and other content sites want longer-form content that points to what a visitor wants. No longer is it just keyword-based searches.
- Performance. Search engines are looking for how quickly your webpages load.
- Internal linking. Sites need to have the ability to help push traffic around a website by linking topics and pages to other pages. Internal linking means higher trust signals for Google. Internal linking improves ranking for keywords, helps Google index your site, and provides your users with further options.
- User experience. Users want simplicity and the best user experience they can find. An easily navigable and searchable site with relevant internal linking and related contents can provide your users with ease in navigation and relevancy.
- Authority. Authority means a website is a site that is trusted by its users, it’s industry and provides a vote of confidence. Authority used to be substantiated by having links to other sites on your site. But, not so much in today’s SEO world.
- Schema markup. Search results can be made more attractive by adding Schema markup to the HTML of your pages. Schema, found at Schema.org, is a collection of different HTML tags that can be added to a Web page. Tags with HTML creates an improved description that appears in search results (commonly known as rich snippets). Schema.org is the result of collaboration among top tier search engines, including Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex dating back to 2011.
- Properly tagged images. When you upload images to your content, add descriptions. Google doesn’t see images, but it does read text.
- Local SEO. Register with Google My Businessto ensure that your information is accurate and up-to-date. Search engine results often come up based on location. Location can be significant to those businesses that need to catch the attention of a searcher at the right moment. For example, searching on a mobile device for the location of a business.
- Duplicated content. Beware of having two identical pieces of content on your site or unknowingly on another site. Google will only index one site. Watch out for scraper sites who steal your content and republish it as their own.
Know your Business Model
Focus on what your primary goal is. Determine what you want your website to do. Write down the basics of your business:
- What defines a conversion? Is it a sale?
- Are you emphasizing what people want?
- What are your goals?
- Are you aware of what your assets and liabilities could cost you?
Keyword Strategies
SEO is essential on your site, but it should also extend to your off-site platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, and offline marketing. Be consistent with your keywords phrases to train your users to find you when they search the Internet.
Domain Name
Another good strategy is developing a good domain name. Use sub-directory root domains like me.co/great instead of subdomains that are written as great.me.com. An SEO company in Utah knows what domains are relevant and will help you develop a domain name that is searchable. Having keywords in your domain may improve your overall SEO efforts.
Other Devices
Don’t only optimize the desktop experience but also focus on mobile and tablet optimization as well. If you create rich media content like video, you will have an easier time getting rankings. Web crawlers like video. Optimize your non-text content so that search engines can see it. If you use Flash or PDFs, read up on the latest and best practices, so search engines can crawl through the content and give your site credit for the video. Contact an SEO company in Utah who knows how to maximize video.
Meta-Data and Tags
Don’t forget your metadata. The content on your site should have title tags and meta descriptions. Search engines ignore meta keywords, but if you use them, make sure they point to a specific page and are formatted correctly. Meta descriptions should be unique and speak to one page. Duplicate meta description repeated from page to page will not help your SEO campaign.
Keep your title tags unique. Use your title tag almost as a 4-8-word ad. Do you best to entice the reader so they will click on your site and read more?
When you are developing your content and website, keep SEO in the forefront of your mind. Follow best practices. Hire an SEO company in Utah to help you with your site and your SEO marketing. If you forget and skip the basics of SEO, you will have a site that is a marketing mess, and you will be prevented from maximizing revenue opportunities.
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