SEO Fundamentals That Move The Needle
Digital marketing has become essential for nearly all businesses, no matter what size or industry. The term digital marketing takes on many meanings, but the end goal is always increased online visibility. Many marketers would agree that without getting the fundamentals right, all else is for nil. Outlined below are some fundamental SEO practices that move the needle regardless of where you are in your SEO journey.
Start With An Online Visibility Audit
Lets, assume you already have a website. A good place to start your digital marketing journey is with an online visibility audit? An online visibility audit is a service that digital marketing companies offer to help their clients identify and analyze issues with online visibility. An audit will uncover how your company’s website performs and if there are any issues that need to be addressed. The audit will also reveal what people are saying about your products or services, how they’re responding to your marketing campaigns, and the effectiveness of your ads. It’s important to occasionally get an outside opinion of how your business is really doing online. Online visibility audits are usually performed with tools that show how well your website performs against competitors or the number of website visitors your business, brand or entity gets on a monthly basis for targeted keywords. If this is something you haven’t done in a while then it’s definitely time for an audit. An audit will also show you how high up in the rankings you are (higher rankings = more traffic), what eye-catching keywords to use in posts, and other insights that make your website better and more visible to your targeted audience.
Every Good Campaign Starts With Keyword Research
Keyword research involves the process of finding relevant yet profitable keywords for a particular topic. A keyword can be defined as a word or phrase that represents your product, service, company, industry, etc. Keywords are typed into a search engine in order to determine content related to it e.g. “personal injury attorney”. Identification of your keywords can help you understand what people are searching for when they visit your site. This also helps with finding areas of opportunity for content that you might not have been considered before. Keywords are an important part of how search engines work. Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo use keywords to find websites with the most relevant content for searchers. Selecting the right keywords for your website is an important first step in the digital marketing process.
Web Design is Digital Marketing
Web design may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about digital marketing, but the reality is that it is the foundation of any company’s presence on the web. In fact, 71% of online consumers have left a website due to poor user experience (UX). This means that if your site doesn’t provide visitors with a good experience, you are losing out on potential customers who were just one click away from becoming a customer. So, to begin with, it’s important to get a good design for your site. The right choice of keywords, site architecture and performance will all play a part in the overall success of any digital marketing campaign. However, this is just the start of what can be done to get more online visibility and traffic to your site. There are a lot of other task that must be done to get your site to rank better and appear for more search queries. Here’s a look at some of the best ways to improve your site’s online visibility. Let’s first talk about…
On-Page Search Engine Optimization
Most people who have been doing digital marketing for a long time will tell you that the most important factor of on-page SEO is about content. It is vital to use your keywords where they are relevant and pertinent, so the search engines will know what the true intent and purpose of your pages. This means emphasizing your main keywords at least 2-3 times per 250 words. on-page SEO is a term used by marketers to describe the various ways they can increase the chances of their page rank on Google SERPs (search engine ranking pages). On-page SEO is one of the most important factors in determining your rankings. On-page SEO focuses on 4 major categories: URL structure, content, internal links, and image optimization.
Technical Search Engine Optimization
So what is technical SEO? To put it simply, it’s the process of making sure your website works well within a browser and your pages are search engine friendly. It includes everything from finding the source of an error, to optimizing images, to ensuring that a website is compliant with guidelines from Google. The ultimate goal of this is to make your site easier for Google and other search engines to read or crawl. For example, when you enter a search term, your search engine will scan your site and determine how well it performs vs others offering similar content. Technical SEO can be complicated and time-consuming and it often goes unnoticed by many small business owners.
Website Speed Optimization
Website speed is a ranking factor recognized by the digital marketing community. Not only is it important for rankings, but it also affects what visitors think about your website. If people are having trouble loading your site, they will assume that you are not taking care of it or that it is unsafe to visit. It also impacts how quickly people can interact with your pages; the faster the site loads, the easier it is for them to find information on your website. There are many ways to improve website speed like optimizing images and text, minimizing redirects, and reducing load time. Website speed optimization is another area that many website owners often overlook. Regular speed test should be conducted on Google Pagespeed Insights or GTMETRIX to ensure optimal performance.
Off-Page Search Engine Optimization
Off-page SEO is a process that includes the optimization of a website in order to increase its rank in search engine results. Off-page SEO can be defined as actions taken to improve the rank of a website, from other sites on the web. Off-page SEO helps build reputation and visibility outside of your site. Establishing a good off-page SEO strategy can create traffic to your site, and improves the quality of the visitors to your site.
NAP Information
NAP stands for name, address, phone number. Simply put, NAP is an entity’s business information that is typically used for contact purposes. However, NAP is also important for digital marketing. Companies that display their NAP information may seem more legitimate and trustworthy to not only consumers, but search engines as well. Ensuring that this information is accurate across the internet is a crucial step in the digital marketing process.
Directory Citations
Directory citations refer to the process of being listed in a online directory. Citation websites allow a company to appear on their own search engine that can be found by potential customers. An example of this would be Yelp. Directory listings will almost always include the NAP (Name, Address & Phone Number) information of your business. Many will allow a description and a link back to your business via your URL. The beauty of that directory listings is that they are low hanging fruit for backlinks. While not overly powerful they do provide SEO value.
Revisiting these fundamentals can oftentimes shift the tide for many marketers. Ensuring that the fundamental SEO practices are in place will only benefit ongoing marketing efforts.
