Search Engine Optimization

Improving the traffic to your site involves a form of search engine optimization. Whether you're looking for a higher number of visitors or higher quality visitors, SEO is an ongoing, and ever-changing practice that varies site to site. Don't mistake SEO for a simple task like turning on a light switch, there is no easy answer that will get you to the top.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is the process by which a web page or website is optimized through a series of tasks using an analytic approach to ultimately improve it's ranking in the search engines.

Layman's terms: SEO is a job used to get your site more visitors, and better visitors.

Why does my website need to be optimized?

Think of your website as a house you're trying to sell. Why take the time to clean, paint, and remodel right before you're going to move?! Simple...any realtor would tell you that most potential buyers can not visualize your home as their own if it's ugly, cluttered, and full of flaws. Now, think of SEO as that list of tasks you plan on doing in order to "stage" your home for a potential sale. Making these changes creates a greater potential for your site to show up higher in search engine rankings, and more importantly increases the likelihood a user will click on it.

So what's included?

While the list of actions taken to improve your site's ranking is pretty extensive, it can basically be broken down into two main categories:

• On-page Optimization — actions done ON your site based on what search engines are looking for
• Off-page Optimization — actions done OFF your site based on how search engines rank sites

Confused? Don't worry, it's actually simpler than you think.

All sports have a set of rules for scoring. In basketball, you put the ball in the hoop. In golf, you put the ball in the hole. In soccer, you put the ball in the goal. Generally speaking, the individual or team with the better score in the end is the winner.

With SEO, a better score = a better opportunity to rank higher in the search engines (aka win the game).

This is where On-page Optimization and Off-page Optimization come into play. The actions you take to optimize your site affect your site's score or rank in a positive way. At the same time, not completing actions or taking the wrong approach can affect your site's score in a negative way.

How can my website rank higher?

As stated earlier, the list of actions that can be taken to optimize your site is pretty extensive. In most cases, what holds true today may not hold true next year, month, or sometimes week. However, the set of basic SEO factors below will almost always apply:

Quality Content (On-page Optimization)
Is your content well written, and meant for the user? — Today's search engines are smart enough to highlight high quality content and sniff out low quality content (or spam). Carefully crafted, engaging content with a sprinkle of keywords is typically how users find your site based on the search engine rankings.

Keyword Relevance and Research (On-page Optimization)
Are the keywords you're wanting to rank for relevant to the user? — The days of jamming your pages with "relevant" keywords and hoping for a high ranking are long gone. The keywords you'd like to rank for, and the keywords that users search for can sometimes be completely different. It's important to take the time to understand the difference.

Page Titles (On-page Optimization)
Are the titles of your pages relevant to the content within? — When performing a Google search, title tags are the links (blue headlines) you see in the search results. Simply put, if you want to rank for a specific keyword or phrase like, "web design", that keyword or phrase should be in your title tag.

Accessibility (On-page Optimization)
Can search engines find your site and read ("crawl") it's contents? — Search engines crawl your site to access and verify it's contents. Depending on your site's structure, this could potentially be a problem. Take for instance websites that use Flash, while they may be visually pretty, in most cases search engines literally can not crawl their contents.

Quality Links (Off-page Optimization)
Are the external links to your site from trusted and quality sources? — Just like a reccomendation from a friends versus a stranger, search engines take into account the source (or in this case, link) of the recommendation. If the links pointing to your site are high quality, it's assummed your content must be the same.

Link Text (Off-page Optimization)
Are the external links to your site using relevant wording? — If the wording in the links pointing to your site use keywords like: web design, website design, and webpage design...it can be assummed that your website is about "designing websites".

Link Authority and Trust (Off-page Optimization)
Is your content worth sharing and trustworthy? — Search engines take into account the user when it comes to content that's worthy of pageviews. If a page on your site, or an article in your blog is often emailed or shared on social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines assume it has great value.

User Location (Off-page Optimization)
What city or area is the user located in? — Searching for a term, especially those related to a type of business, product, or service, often display local results. The location of the user is becoming more and more important as search engines put an emphasis on targeted local search.

So what's next?

The content above only scrapes the surface. The world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is quite massive and ever changing. Whether you've had experience with SEO in the past or are a complete newbie, we're here to help. Contact us about SEO, follow us as we continue the conversation online, or signup for our newsletter for more information delivered direct to your inbox.