What is SEO?
Search engine optimization involves updates, optimizations, and strategy to rank at the top of search engines (such as Google).
SEO can seem like this elusive and secretive beast; but let’s review what really goes on behind the curtain.
Types of SEO
While SEO is usually individualized to a person’s budget, time, and industry; there are typically three (sometimes four) types of SEO.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the foundation of all SEO services.
Your website is crawled and indexed by Google and other search engines, but what is found and what is shown to others can vary based on the health of your website. During a crawl, search engines will find and identify parts of your site. They will then index portions of your site if they meet certain criteria. You won’t want all parts of your site to be indexed, (do you really want someone googling you and finding your privacy policy instead of your services?), but there are strategies to ensure the right portions of your site are indexed AND able to rank on Google.
The technical SEO audit is step one for ensuring what you want to be found can be found.
A tech audit will traditionally look for issues with all sorts of things, including:
- Slow loading pages
- Missing or Duplicate H1
- Missing or Title Tag too Long/Short
- Orphan Pages
- Missing Meta Descriptions
- Canonical Tags
- Duplicate Content
- Missing or Incorrect Alt Text on Images
- Inefficient link/folder structure
- Robots.txt file
- XML sitemap
And sometimes (depending on the service) they will also include:
- Interlinking Audit
- Google My Business Analysis
- Schema Suggestions/Audit
- NAP (Citations for name, address, phone number) across web
- Competitive Analysis
- Backlink Analysis
Technical SEO are long and thorough; so you can expect a full report when you get one. Your next steps are to implement the fixes and recommendations that come from your tech audit. An SEO specialist and/or web developer can help with this; depending on the team you’re working with during the audit and what your business has on staff.
On-page SEO
One page SEO involves a few of the things mentioned above. These will typically be evaluated in a tech audit as well; but they are also an ongoing part of your SEO strategy.
On page SEO refers to reviewing and optimizing elements of your website to ensure it can be found for the terms you would like to be found for. This involves keyword research and finding what exact terms your ideal customers are searching for then optimizing pages for different terms utilizing SEO best practices.
Every page should be optimized for a unique target keyword and potentially some secondary keywords as well. The headings, alt text, anchor text, and more will determine how well your page will rank for the keyword you are targeting.
Blogs are a key part of on-page SEO strategy. Each piece of content should follow your SEO content strategy and lead people farther down your client journey funnel.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO refers to actions taken outside of your website to help you rank higher on search engines.
Search engine algorithms are constantly changing, but building expertise, authority, and trust on your website and online is key. Having an off-page SEO strategy can help your website tremendously.
Backlink building is a type of SEO service that helps you to build links back to your website. What you don’t want to do is go out and pay for a ton of crap links. This is not a good idea and could hurt your site in the long run. What you do want are high quality, high authority sites linking back to you. When a website with a high domain authority links back to your website, you get equity passed from them to you. This signal tells Google that you are legit and boosts your domain authority in return.
Keep in mind that as you create solid content, some backlinks will come naturally. But, there are also strategies to outreach to high authority sites and grow your rankings for specific pages and keywords faster through backlink building.
Local SEO
This type of SEO is important for brick and mortar businesses or businesses that serve a specific location. You can create a local SEO strategy campaign for online businesses as well, but it’s definitely essential for those who have physical spaces.
A local SEO strategy often includes competition analysis, google my business and other directory updates, citation management, and even new landing pages for specific locations. Depending on the location of the searcher, search results will change so having localized optimization for your business is key to getting clients in the door.
Build Your SEO Strategy
Looking to build your SEO strategy? It seems like a lot, but I’m here to help.
