Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is an essential piece of your online marketing. Simply put, SEO is what drives traffic to your website from free, organic, editorial, or natural search results in search engines. Done well, SEO will help your site show up higher in search results. And the higher your site ranks, the more people will see it. Websites with poorly implemented SEO, or without any SEO, stand the risk of being buried in search engine results and remaining virtually invisible online.
If SEO helps drive your online visibility, what drives SEO?
Search engines, like Google, Bing, and Yahoo, use algorithms based on words and phrases, titles, links, words within links, and a company’s reputation to determine where a site or specific pages within a site will rank in search results. While search engine algorithms are ever-changing and search engine optimization is always evolving, the underlying key principles remain the same. Further, there are a number of things, largely within your control that will improve your website SEO, including technical optimization, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization.
- Technical Optimization deals with your site’s infrastructure and various technical components (sitemaps, page speed, URL structure, navigation, etc.). A technically optimized website is more easily crawled and indexed by search engines, which is critical to higher page rankings in search results. Technical optimization also ensures your site loads quickly, is viewable on mobile devices, and enables a positive user and/or e-commerce
- On-Page Optimization is all about page content but is not just about keyword or key phrase density. On-page optimization also encompasses the technical aspects of content including meta description and title tags, as well as content structure and format (i.e. paragraphs, bullet lists, headings, text format), and links. Paying attention to these details, and continually updating with relevant keywords and phrases or even reformatting to meet current standards will go a long way towards improving your search engine rankings.
- Off-Page Optimization refers to all of the online activities done outside of your website, such as how often your site is mentioned and backlinks on other sites, how often your content is shared, or how often your company or products are mentioned. Off-page optimization is out of your control, however, there are things you can do that can make a difference. For example, social media campaigns that garner high engagement and post shares, as well as influencer marketing can boost your credibility and ranking.
In online marketing, having the best products or services, or having a beautiful website is only part of the recipe for success. Standing out online, which means showing up with high rankings in search engine results, requires a well-planned and implemented SEO strategy. This goes beyond throwing a few keywords into your content and adding links to your website in your social media spots. Those are important, but on their own won’t get you the results you need.
We’ll take a deeper dive into SEO strategy and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) in a future blog. In the meantime, if you need help with your SEO contact Fuze7 today. We’re SEO experts and we have a proven track record of increasing our client’s online visibility and website traffic through highly ranked websites. Learn more about our SEO Services here.
