As the owner of a website, you’ve probably heard about the value of search engine optimization (SEO). But what exactly is involved, and what services will help move the needle?
This article outlines some of the most important SEO services available to help optimize your website, climb the search rankings, and earn more traffic and hopefully business!
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of discovering the most relevant search queries that users type into search engines when they’re searching for information or services. By identifying the best possible keywords and phrases, and using them correctly in your website content, you’ll have a better chance of climbing the rankings, earning clicks, and attracting relevant traffic.
Search volume is one of the top indicators that digital marketers look for when conducting keyword research which indicates the popularity of the keyword. However, popularity isn’t all there is to it. SEO specialists must consider the search intent, or what the user was aiming for with their search, along with the competition, and how many websites are targeting those keywords.
Keyword research is a foundational SEO service that should be used to inform your on-page SEO optimizations. Learn more about these SEO strategies below:
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to any improvements and updates made directly to the content of your website, in hopes of improving your Google position and making your content more relevant to users. This is the part of SEO that website owners can control with minimal know-how and expertise. However, making ill-advised changes can lead to keyword over-optimization. If you’re going to make changes to your website, content or otherwise, it’s always a good idea to consult or inform your web developer first.
On-page SEO consists of a wide range of elements that can affect many SEO signals, including headings, page titles, link text, URLs, and your primary page body content. You’ll also want to consider character length in your titles and descriptions which can be truncated by Google Search and reduce your intended meaning. At the root of it all is quality, helpful content that is optimized for search queries while being designed to help your visitors understand your website. As a website and business owner, your primary goal should be to publish relevant content to your audience. With high-quality content in place, you can then optimize for keywords as part of your on-page SEO strategy.
Keywords are a crucial part of on-page SEO, but they’re just one player on a team of dozens and dozens of ‘team members’. User experience is another important consideration, which has the powerful ability to boost conversion rates and time-on-page while improving accessibility.
Off-Page SEO
Unlike on-page SEO, which takes place on the physical website, off-page SEO activities are done outside of the website. The goal is to build trust and authority for your website by attempting to influence what happens off your website. But off-page SEO can be tricky. Since this aspect of SEO deals with factors off your website, it can be difficult to control and manage.
Backlinks are a good example of off-page SEO, which occur when another website creates a link on their website that directs users to your website. This is a very positive SEO indicator for search engines. But earning high-quality backlinks from reputable websites is not easy, and is often something earned over time along with a strong reputation.
However there are a couple off-page SEO tactics that are within your control. These days, social media presence can be a reliable help for off-page SEO and, depending on your market, can be a powerful tool for influencing trust, and authority, controlling brand conversation, and sending traffic back to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a strategy that involves making optimizations to a website with the goal of boosting rankings. This strategy is similar to on-page SEO but aims to influence search engines more so than users. There are a number of factors that go into technical SEO that most users wouldn’t recognize because most of it happens behind the scenes. Technical SEO is crucially important whether you can see it or not—think page speed!
Crawling and indexing are key focuses of technical SEO, which concerns search engines’ ability to not only find your website but ‘crawl it to determine what’s there and how it should be shown in search results. *Hint – Google Search Console is your friend, and you’re going to need a sitemap.
Page speed is another important element of technical SEO. Search engines don’t like slow websites or web pages, because neither do we! Slow websites can frustrate users, and with the help of a website developer, SEO marketers will spend time working on page speed issues like layout shift, largest contentful paint (LCP), and image optimization.
Another common issue that falls under technical SEO is broken links and images. These create a very poor website experience for users, which will always be a ranking factor. A technical SEO specialist will audit your website and manually update any broken, unresponsive, or redirected links that are causing issues on the site.
Mobile Device Optimization
Mobile phones have long surpassed computers as the most popular device for searching and website browsing. However, some website owners neglect the mobile experience and don’t treat it as such. This is a big red flag for search engines.
One of the cornerstones of an optimized mobile website is responsive design—a development method that adjusts content to fit any screen size. The goal should be for the website to look good and fit whichever screen size it occupies.
In order to fit smaller screen sizes and load pages quickly, SEO specialists also work to ensure the content itself is optimized for mobile phones. Large images and videos are a common culprit, which can be reduced in size to keep things moving quickly. They’ll also consider incorporating call-to-action (CTA) buttons in important spots along with non-text content that is more digestible on smaller screens.
Conversion Optimization
Conversion optimization aims to increase the number of key actions taken on a website. This action could be anything, but some of the more common actions are contact form submissions, add-to-cart events, purchases, and specific link clicks. The goal should be to maximize the number of conversions and search engines like Google love showing a website that converts well because it means that individuals are finding good value on the website.
Call-to-action (CTA) buttons are central to any conversion optimization strategy. The purpose of a button is to attract users’ attention and encourage them to take action (click). This button then links the user to another area of the site or spurs an action like ‘add to cart’.
When optimizing for conversions, one of the things to look for is CTA buttons that are visible without scrolling. This is especially important on mobile. It’s also a good idea to add buttons at the bottom of pages, plus throughout the content of larger pages. There should always be an action to take.
Local SEO
Local SEO is an important strategy for businesses with physical locations, which can help them rank higher in local search results. One of the more well-known examples of local search results is Google Maps, which displays a mini search results page along with a map dotted with locations.
No local SEO strategy is complete without an optimized Google Business Profile. A Google Business Profile (GBP) is a free listing that business owners can claim, which helps them appear in both Google Maps and organic search results. It’s crucial to not only update the GBP with accurate information but to make an effort to post updates, photos, and other useful information for customers, like hours, products/services, and other important and helpful information about your business.
Reviews are another important piece of the local SEO strategy, which appears in your Google Business Profile and Google Maps. Positive customer reviews also play a vital role, as both the quality and quantity of reviews impact local ranking. If you can, remind your customers to leave you a review. You can also generate a shareable Google review link for your website, social media, and email campaigns.
SEO Audit
All SEO services should begin with comprehensive SEO audit. This is the phase for forensic research and analysis, which can help uncover the SEO services that will best benefit your website. From there, digital marketing specialists will prioritize the tasks that will contribute to better rankings, more traffic, and increased conversions. Contact Caorda today to get started with an SEO Audit.