Search Engine Optimization is a strategy that maximizes the organic traffic driven to your business by search engines.
The goal is to convince the search engine that you offer the best solution for what searchers are looking for.
SEO works through a combination of techniques that range from speeding up your website to the actual words used on your website, blogs, business profiles etc.
But a solid SEO strategy goes beyond your website. It includes security, location, customer reviews, other sites linking to yours, the topics of your blog posts etc.
Your online presence (website, blog, reviews, business profiles etc.) must show the search engines that you are the solution to what the searcher is looking for.
The 5 main types of SEO:
- Local SEO: Optimize online assets for specific areas.
- On-site SEO: Optimize a website to use search phrases on the page and in the underlying HTML tags.
- Off-site SEO: When other sites link to or mention your site.
- Technical SEO: Your website should offer a good user experience, be mobile-friendly, ensure the search engines know about your site, be secure etc.
- Content SEO: Create relevant, helpful, and quality content that’s focused on what your target audience is searching for.
Once fully implemented, a solid SEO strategy can take one month to start increasing a webpage’s rank. And three to four months before the SEO machine is driving more free online organic traffic to a business.
Keywords are phrases searchers enter into search engines when looking for information.
Knowing what people are entering, plus knowing which keywords have a high volume and low competition informs businesses on what content to create.
Where an online search occurs impacts a website’s rank.
A search done from home may show a different list for a search done 3 miles away.
Geogrids are a great tool to see how a business ranks for a keyword for searches done from different areas.
- Targeting highly competitive keywords
- Keyword Stuffing
- Buying backlinks
- Not matching page content with search intent
- Thinking SEO is one-and-done
- Forgetting about mobile users
- Not submitting sitemap to Google Search Console
Read our blog 7 SEO Practices to Avoid
The short answer is “yes” you can do it yourself.
But do you have the time to run your business and also optimize your website, write blog posts, update online profiles etc.?
Plus continue to monitor the progress of your SEO strategy, and adjust as needed?
How much is your time worth? Because updating and monitoring your online presence is time consuming.
You can probably manage your own business insurance, but you probably use an insurance agent because they’re keeping up with the latest rules and regulations and know how to get you the best coverage and price.
The same is true for digital marketing agencies.
Schedule your strategy call so we can perform a free assessment of the current state of your online presence.