Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is defined as the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or “organic” search results.
To simplify a bit; if you are a kite maker who specializes in the sale of “butterfly kites”, it would be optimal for your website to rank highly in the search engine results pages for the key-term “butterfly kites”. Thereby increasing your brand’s visibility to those seeking “butterfly kites” as well as driving relevant web visits and very likely conversions.
There is an important distinction to be made however between between “organic search” and “local search”. Local search happens when you search for a service or product that is available from a local businesses in your area. A good example of this would be a search for “oil burner repair”. This type of search will very likely trigger special highlighted search results from businesses who offer “oil burner repair” in your immediate vicinity.
This type of search result will offer a more detailed listing with a phone number, local address, a map box and is also likely to include links to reviews and ratings from customers in your local area.
If you are a local business, it is tantamount to your online success that your website ranks prominently in the “local search” results. It is also very important to point out that “local search” and “organic search” are essentially two very distinct types of SEO with similar characteristics, but requiring different strategies. The common denominator for all Search Engine Optimizing is “relevancy”.
You want to present your relevant, high converting content, combined with the “social proof” of positive customer reviews from sites like Google+ and Yelp to drive search engine authority and conversion.
Here are a few links you may find helpful:
Starter Guide for Search Engine Optimization
SEOMOZ’s Beginers Guide to SEO
Google’s General Guidelines for SEO
Google+ for Business
We offer a variety of solutions that we can custom tailor to suit your specific goals and budget. Let us put together a custom SEO plan for your business! Call today for a free analysis and consultation. We offer general SEO services as well as Local Search Engine Optimization and Video SEO. Results are Satisfaction Guaranteed.
Every Search Engine Optimization strategy addresses these primary components:
Keyword Discovery: We perform very thorough research to determine what are the absolute best keywords for your website to rank for. This is critical, as keyword ranking must be relevant to your website and must drive customers to your site who are ready willing able to purchase your products and services.
Content: We specialize in content marketing and the production of high quality and unique content. We will work with you hand in hand to create, categorize and optimize high value content for your website. We do it all, from helping you write and publish targeted relevant content to developing strategies for a successful content marketing program. Original content is truly the only way to become an “authority” in the eyes of the search engines. We also manage corporate “influencer outreach” and “guest blogging” programs.
Image and Video SEO: We are experts in the organic optimization and syndication of video and images. Don’t allow your high value content to languish. Websites offering unique video content tend to outrank those websites that do not. “A video result is 53 times more likely to produce a first page ranking on Google than using traditional SEO techniques” (Forrester Research). Let us optimize your original video and photographic content to ensure that it finds it’s intended audience and gets the exposure it deserves.
Online Survey: We will thoroughly survey any preexisting search results and web content for your business and help you get rid of any low quality pages or content that might be dragging you down in the search engines. This includes finding any duplicated content or scraped pages that might be hanging around out there. Nothing will drag your website down faster in the search engines than duplicate or scraped content.
Social Media Syndication: We will help you set up your website so you can easily and efficiently syndicate content to your various social media profiles and pages. We will also integrate social buttons to encourage your visitors to “like”, “pin”, “digg” and “tweet” your high-value content. This is critical to success in today’s optimization environment.
Website Analysis: Your website will never rank well without expert analysis. Search engines take several metrics into consideration when scoring your site. This includes key metrics such as bounce rate, average visit duration, pages per visit and other factors to determine relevancy and user engagement. There is no way to improve user experience and keyword relevancy without deep analysis.
Best Practices: Google has newer, stricter parameters for how your website must be structured. This includes things such as page interlinking, anchor text variation, keyword density, and tagging. In today’s SEO environment it is very easy to over optimize your website and make it much harder to attain significant rank.
Backlinking Strategies: This is a complex subject and requires a very experienced SEO. Low quality links and links from “bad neighborhoods” can get your site de-indexed. A sudden growth spurt in links can be deemed “unnatural” by the search engines and get you de-indexed. Paid links, links from irrelevant sites, link farming, link bombing, x-rumer blasts, blog spamming and comment spamming can get you de-indexed. The only thing that works are natural, high-quality, links from relevant websites that build over time. Anything else, can get your site de-indexed.
In today’s SEO environment the rules are constantly changing. You need a professional, white hat, content based SEO strategy if you have any hopes of achieving rank.