What is it?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website for maximum visibility on search engines (primarily Google).
Historically, SEO tactics were focused around adding keywords so your website “ranks” for them on search engines, as well as building links to/from other websites.
SEO has since evolved into a more complex service capable of improving website visibility and offering a basis for understanding audience intent. There are entire companies dedicated to SEO. Below, you’ll find quick, easy-to-use SEO strategies for setting your local business website up for success.
Why is it important?
SEO can provide a foundation for understanding how your audiences reach you through search engines as well as provide ways your site can be optimized directly for search engines.
SEO offers best practices for site structure, content, and a variety of signals to keep your site at the top of relevant searches and, ideally, encourage visitors to click through your listings. However, it is important to note that SEO is a long-term activity.
Because of the complexity of search engines and the desire to prevent nonrelevant sites from outranking relevant ones, most SEO activities (especially content changes) may not be reflected or see tangible results until six to eight months after they’re launched. As a result, SEO should be understood as a larger part of your business’s online marketing mix and not the sole improvement tool for website traffic.
How do I start?
SEO can generally be broken down into two primary categories: nontechnical and technical.
Technical SEO
Search engines (Google in particular) want to offer website visitors the best user experience as possible.
As such, your site should be set up in such a way that both search engines and humans can easily (and quickly) crawl and understand that site’s content in an organized fashion. In essence, the goal of technical SEO is to prevent instances where your site might seem confusing or misleading.
Ranking Factors
One of the oldest aspects of both technical and nontechnical SEO is ranking factors. These factors are components of your website that can be adjusted to improve its listing position on a search results page.
While Google doesn’t always say which aspects of web development are direct ranking factors, they have given clues (and some direct comments) on how sites can succeed generally. In addition, many organizations have tested and compiled a variety of these factors that typically result in better site rankings. Backlinko is one of the largest, while OptinMonster and Search Engine Watch provide more concise lists.
Technical SEO Guides
Aside from ranking factors, many leading industry sites, such as Moz, have put together other great guides for handling technical SEO.
Google Search Console
A great resource for identifying and handling technical SEO issues on your website.
Google Page Speed Insights
Because page speed has become such a major factor for technical SEO, a number of tools have been developed to check your site, experience on mobile devices, and areas for improvement.
Nontechnical SEO
The saying “content is king” is still true in today’s SEO world. The more relevant your content is to an audience’s search intent, the more likely you will rank for those searches and (ideally) the more those searchers will click to your website.
When optimizing your website, we recommend focusing each page on a single topic, with supplementary content (copy, media, etc.) offered to give context to that single topic.
As you continue to add and adjust content on your website, we strongly recommend pairing it with a list of ranking factors to make sure it’s presented to Google and searches with best practices in mind. For most businesses, website pages tend to be focused around one of the following:
Products/Services
Your offerings to your customers, either on a single page if information per product/service is limited or on multiple pages if enough information can be built around each.
Value/Advantage
What you can offer your customers that is different from other competitors and why you stand out.
Addressing Pain Point
Content dedicated to solving a problem for your customers, whether they type that problem into search or they are generally assumed to have that problem.
Answer a Question
Content that provides a solution to a common industry question or question a visitor types into search. At times, this type of content development is fairly straightforward (e.g., add copy that answers the question) whereas other times it may require some assumptions (e.g., your brand name is searched and that user is looking for contact information. You would need to make sure your contact page is updated and maximized for search engine visibility).
Keyword Optimization Tools
When looking for new content/copy ideas, there are a variety of keyword tools available to see how you and your competition rank for certain keywords, as well as new keywords you can consider adding to your site. Depending on your budget, many of the leading industry tools, such as Moz, SEMRush, and SpyFu, can offer a scalable solution. Free options such as Keyword.io are available as well but with limited functionality compared to other platforms.
Local SEO
While we have highlighted local SEO in a previous article, it’s important to note its significance to nontechnical SEO and content development. Localizing your content by adding local copy or media to your site and taking advantage of local business listing sites can help your site rank locally.
For many businesses with incredible national competition, this may be one of the easiest ways to reach local customers.
Schema
For more advanced users or those working with a web developer, we recommend looking into implementing structured data/schema where relevant on your website. Structured data is yet another way to offer Google specific information about your website (e.g., business owner or operating hours) so it’s easier to find and place on search results pages.
Because of its complexity, we recommend working with a web developer to review Google’s documentation on structured data.
Search Engine Toolkit
• Google Search Console
• Google Page Speed Insights
• Documentation on Structured Data
• Starter Guide to SEO
