In today’s world, the Internet has the power to make or break your business. By investing in digital marketing strategies, you can skyrocket your business by gaining new clients, keeping the old ones, and maintaining a great reputation. One of those strategies is SEO.
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What Is SEO? How Does It Work?
SEO Then & Now
The Most Important Aspects of SEO
Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Should I Be Doing SEO For My Business? Why?
How To Choose an SEO Agency
Key Takeaways
What is SEO? How Does It Work?
How It Works
Search Engine Optimization starts with you, the business owner. A smart business owner knows that marketing is one of the key ingredients to a successful business.
There are over 286 million Internet users in the United States alone. This accounts for over 88.5% of the total population in the U.S. (source). The bulk of these users search the web using engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Optimizing your companies presence on these platforms is essential to the success of any digital marketing campaign.
This is SEO!
When you conduct a search of an industry on these platforms, you will see several things:
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is used by businesses and marketing agencies to maximize the visibility of websites on search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. The higher the ranking of your website, the more visitors you’ll get. The more visitors you’ll get, the more your business will grow. Cool, right?
If you’ve never heard of SEO before and have no idea how to begin, don’t worry! This article will go through every detail you need to know before starting. Not everyone was born understanding how the World Wide Web works so sit back, relax, and get ready to learn.
- Three or four advertised websites (posted on the top and/or bottom of the search results page)
- A small local pack (listings of companies in your area)
- Organic results (the section where you want to rank highly!)
SEO is the process of optimizing organic search results, or results that cannot be purchased. Google, and other top search engine platforms implement complex algorithms and conduct in-depth analyses of webpages to rank the websites that contribute the greatest amount of relevant content.
Are you interested in learning more about paid advertisement on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing?
Check out our Pay Per-Click (PPC) advertising services here!
SEO Then & Now
The History of SEO
- 1990 – World’s first search engine (Archie, short for “archive”) created by Alan Emtage (McGill University
- Initially could only file lists of public FTP servers, later accessible from the World Wide Web
- 1993 – Excite starts sorting results based on keywords within content
- 1994 – Yahoo! jumps on board
- Marketers manipulate search engines to gain high rankings (Black Hat SEO)
- 1997 – Google joins in and begins to implement the “rules and regulations of the Internet”
(White Hat SEO) - 2003-2005 – Google regulates search results even more, local SEO is born (e.g. maps,
business hours, mobile results, etc.) - 2006-2009 – Google Suggest (2008) launches – displayed search options based on historical data of the user
- 2010-2012 – Google enforces stricter regulations for companies using SEO (check out this article on how JCPenney was caught “link scheming”)
- Google’s Knowledge Graph emerged – A panel that appeared at the top of a search results page with immediate results
- Improved local SEO = new advertising opportunities for small businesses
- Popularity of social media increased, Google+ was born (helped boost content visibility)
- 2013-present – Mobile presence is very important, internet demands personalization and quality content
Content
When it comes to SEO, quality is key.
When you begin to write content on your website, you must be sure to write content that is understandable to the reader. It is important to keep paragraphs short, so that your reader doesn’t get bored and leave the page. That said, it is also important to include enough detail so that you can convey your message clearly and fully.
If you have quality content throughout your website, you will gain credibility with the reader and search engines alike. Search engines crawl webpages for keywords and process complex algorithms designed to measure readability among other factors which affect the ranking of the website.
Keywords
Keywords are the most important element of SEO, and provide the foundation to a successful SEO campaign. Every business website needs to include relevant keywords throughout the websites content and links.
Before we dive further into keywords it is important to have a full understanding of keyword research. When writing awesome content, you need to include keywords within the writing. The best way to uncover which keywords best relate to your company is to use a keyword search tool.
Once you have established a list of related keywords for your company website, you must interlace these keywords into the content of your website. If you’ve already written content before researching, go back and revise! It’ll be worth it, trust us. Make sure to place the keywords throughout your content naturally, so that it doesn’t sound repetitive.
Descriptive URLs/Links
Search engines also consider the quality of a website’s URLs. It is important to keep all links short and to the point (again, readability).
Here are some examples of descriptive URLs:
- https://mackmediagroup.com/search-engine-optimization/
- https://mackmediagroup.com/social-media-marketing/
- https://mackmediagroup.com/video-photography-production/
Notice how each link includes keywords for that specific page!
Whether you want to work on SEO yourself, or you want to hire a marketing agency to do the work, you will need to avoid some common SEO mistakes.
1. Using poorly written content
Regardless of how you generate the content of your webpage you must make sure the content is relevant, has proper spelling and grammar, and is readable.
2. Choosing the wrong keywords
Google and other search engines scan pages to look for certain keywords to link to their search results. In order to increase your website’s ranking for certain results, it’s important to include relevant keywords in your website’s content.
3. Quantity over quality
With SEO, quality is always more important than quantity. It’s important to focus on relevant information rather than relying on random keywords and links. It will prove beneficial to your websites ability to appeal to customers, as well as your SEO ranking.
4. Ignoring mobile/tablet versions of your website
This article isn’t only directed toward desktop websites. All of these tactics apply to mobile and tablet versions as well!
Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO
These are the two terms that you are going to be seeing most often when researching and working with SEO.
Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Black Hat
Users that engage in black hat SEO are users that are unethically manipulating search engines to gain a higher ranking. This would include, but is not limited to:
- Keyword stuffing
- Irrelevant keywords
- Content swapping
- Cloaking
Unfortunately, these users do not care about quality content, but only clicks and pageviews.
White Hat
Any digital marketing agency or business owner should engage in white hat SEO, which is the ethical way of gaining top rankings in search engines. This practice includes the following:
- Quality content
- Backlinking
Learn more about black and white hat SEO.
Should I Be Doing SEO For My Business? Why?
Yes Yes YES! If you’re putting time and money into your business, you’re going to want customers to keep the business alive! Let’s take a look at some facts:
- 4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to find local information (source)
- Around 95% of desktop users click on organic results as opposed to paid (source)
- 72% of marketers believe that relevant content creation is the most effective SEO tactic (source)
If you want higher visibility on search engines, you need to invest in Search Engine Optimization.
How To Choose An SEO Agency
Many business owners do not have the time to manage their website and start-up SEO, so they turn to a marketing agency. Here are the steps you need to take to choose the best agency for your business…
1. Research, Research, Research
The first step to finding the perfect SEO agency is to do your research. Come up with a list of what exactly you want: A one-time SEO audit? Ongoing SEO? Link Building? If you don’t know exactly what you want, you won’t be able to find the right agency. Then, start searching for agencies in your area that offer the services you want.
2. Meet in Person
After coming up with a list of potential agencies, schedule an in-person appointment. Then, you can talk with them in more detail about what services they offer, what their prices are, and ask to see examples of their work.
3. Weigh Your Options
Now it’s time to figure out which agency to pick. Here’s a list of questions you should be asking yourself to ensure you choose the right agency:
- Who is offering me the best price?
- Who is generating the best results?
- Who will communicate with me on a weekly/monthly basis?
- Which agencies have the best referrals/reviews?
- Are any of these agencies showing black hat/white hat practices?
Key SEO Takeaways
Hopefully, this article has given you some insight as to what exactly goes into search engine optimization, such as:
- Get to the top of organic listings
- Increase website traffic
- Keep users on your website
- Quality over quantity
- White hat vs. black hat seo tactics
SEO is vital for any company, especially in today digital marketing environment. Once your business begins to explore SEO, you can increase the visibility of your website, generate more clients, and increase your ROI.
What’s Next?
Now that you understand the basics of SEO, let us make it a reality! We’re passionate about helping our clients grow their businesses and we work with your schedule and budget. With Mack Media Group, we guarantee reasonable prices, monthly updates, and amazing results.
Call today to learn how we can help your business harness the power of SEO! 203-456-9854
