At J.O., we de-bunk the trepidation surrounding the term Search Engine Optimization and help you understand how it is crucial, intrinsic, and beneficial to the success of your online communication and digital marketing success. We believe that SEO is an essential part of brand awareness and the marketing mix. As a marketing agency, we want to help generate traffic to our clients’ websites in an interesting and unique way & SEO helps us accomplish this.
Search Engine Optimization, most known as SEO, helps a website appear closer to the top of the page when someone searches for something that a website wants to be found for. It builds the credibility and authority of an organization’s website. SEO is when the internet’s algorithm judges the popularity, expertise, and reliability of a company’s online content. More specifically, SEO guides a website’s unpaid traffic, making it an art that requires both strategic and tactical application. SEO should be used to prolong a higher ranking and increase a conversion rate. There are two ways an organization can strengthen their SEO relevancy and thus build visitors faith within its organization: On-Site and Off-Site SEO.
On-Page SEO Ranking Best Practices
Focused Keywords Are Essential to Proper Content Indexing
Your company should bolster its SEO by using relevant keywords to bring traffic to your website. Companies that utilize strategic keywords within their website are listed higher on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). When a web user searches specific words or phrases within Google or Bing, your website could be overlooked if it does not maximize the keywords used within your site. Thus, ensure keywords relating to your product or service are concise, simple and used to help the searcher find what they are looking for.
For example, one way to test if your website’s keywords are successful is to look up relevant keywords or phrases in a search engine and review whether your company’s content shows up on the results page. This is called organic search. How does your site rank? Are you on the first page of the SERP? If you aren’t on the first page, you need to either change the words within your website or use relevant words that coincide with your craft. Websites that show up on Page 2 and beyond have a significantly lower chance of being seen by users.
But, how do you know what keywords to use? To figure this out, you need to anticipate the user’s search intent. Being cognizant of what your reader is looking for and what words they may enter to search for it will help you decide what type of content to post on your website. There are four general categories of search intent: Navigational, Informational, Transactional, and Commercial. For example, an informational search intent means Google will promote blogs, articles, and resources that help its reader find information to answer their question. It is also important to be cautious about keyword stuffing & you do not want to be inserting so many keywords into your text that your writing does not make sense!
You should also utilize Content Optimization tools to ensure you use the correct keywords and aren’t playing a guessing game with which words to insert. Online marketing tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, Clearscope, Moz, and SearchAtlas are reputable and can help boost keyword ranking.
Now that you understand how to use keywords, there are three primary keywords that are crucial for SEO success: Head, Body, and Long-Tail Keywords.
First and foremost, there is the Head keyword. A Head Keyword, or head term, is a keyword that is popular and one that drives high search volume. Due to its popularity, they are very competitive for ranking among websites. Head keywords are usually short and concise phrases that have the potential to encompass a variety of websites. For example, the keyword “Nike” will have a wider volume of search results than the phrase “Nike Air Force sneakers”.
In contrast, the Long-Tail keyword is not as concise as the Head Keywords and works in an opposite fashion. These keywords are longer in length, about four-word phrases, and are more concise in what they are searching for; thus, these longer keywords are used by visitors who are closer to the point-of-purchase of a product or service. These keywords capture a lower volume of visitors but are used by individuals who are more likely to become customers— a positive conversion rate. Overall, Long-Tail keywords are advantageous for websites with niche or specific audiences.
Lastly, there is the Body keyword. These keywords usually consist of two to three keyword phrases that generate a reasonable amount of traffic. The Body Keyword sits in the middle between competitive Head keywords and selective Long-Tail keywords.
Meta Data Helps Connect Your Content To Search Intent
Meta data is the communique’ between a company’s site and the search engine. In simple terms, meta data provides information about the data that makes up the website. To be specific, meta data is NOT the content of the data, like an image or body of text, but the technological description of the data. Simply put, meta data is the bones of the website. Thus, it is important to write optimized meta tags, so the search engine understands your content and the users easily understand what your website is about even before they click.
Additionally, HTML is the standard technological language used to display a web browser. So, on the internet, HTML helps define the webpages. Thus, HTML works together with meta data. Identifying certain hierarchies, headers, and files help the search engine improve rankings. But it should be noted that some search engines are hesitant to incorporate meta data into their ranking factors due to what they believe is meta data’s unethical exploitation to improve ranking for SEO.
Headline Descriptions and Hierarchies help Orient Your Readers
How you articulate your Titles, Headers, and Main Body text can have a great impact on the SEO relevancy as well. Be conscientious when using your website’s HTML code and ensure your text is accurately placed in H1 and H2 tags, etc
Technical Best Practices
URL Structure helps Clarify Your Content Relevance
It may seem like a simple thing, but your URL makes the biggest difference with SEO. The words utilized within the URL have a great impact on the calculation of your website’s relevance. Thus, ensure the product or service you produce is aptly described in the URL.
Relevant Images and Keyword-Rich Captions Provide Visual Richness
It is important for images displayed on your website to have alt text that describes the image in a concise manner. If your image is unable to load due to slow connectivity, and does not have descriptive alt text, it will undermine your website’s SEO and endanger its position on the SERP. For example, if you are a clothing company and have an image of a new dress, title the alt text ‚New Annalise Dress‚; do not leave an impersonalized alt text like this: ‘image0009374623.jpeg’. Personalizing the alt text gives it more reliability within the search engine software.
Off-Site SEO Demonstrated Third Party Validation For Your Content
Equally important to your web content’s success is Off-Site SEO. Whereas the first method takes a more intimate approach to the website’s content and design, Off-Site SEO prioritizes external methods such as links and content marketing.
Backlinks Demonstrate the Value of Your Content
Search Engines reward websites that have relationships with other websites through embedded links and mentions back to your website’s content. Similarly, internal hyperlinks within your website’s content signifies to the search engines and your readers that you are covering the subject with depth and breadth that can answer related questions about the subject. It is important to incorporate links into your text from credible and authoritative sources. Point your readers to high quality resources by linking your posts to trending products and other bloggers’ posts that they might enjoy. Additionally, you should make sure your anchor text is relevant to your content and the link’s destination page.
Content Marketing is Meant to Connect with Your Target Audience
SEO works together with content marketing, generating traffic in a relevant and attractive manner. You cannot have SEO without content marketing; SEO is the technical function of boosting website position and content marketing creates a connection with the consumer. Content marketing focuses on engaging with a target audience. Content marketing’s #1 goal is to appeal to its target audience and convert them into customers. A good way to utilize content marketing is to optimize content that is relevant to through popular, high-volume searches. Content marketing is differentiated from traditional marketing in one prime aspect: its element of consumer appeal. The consumer gets to listen, watch, or engage with the content in some way that transcends a traditional advertising objective.
This marketing strategy allows organizations to increase their brand’s awareness, build trust, generate leads, and develop meaningful relationship that break the barrier between parties.
Words Of Caution For Long Term SEO Success Efforts
SEO is not a one–time endeavor. To increase and maintain a company’s relevancy, keywords and online engagement must be an ongoing commitment to best practices. An efficient method to finding an online audience is a consistent publishing schedule of regular blogs or podcasts. Blogs are useful to help a website stay current and be noticed by search engine software. Additionally, you do not want outdated information on your website. It is crucial to update old posts and ensure the topics align with current trends.
SEO Is Critical To PR Because It Connects The Reader To Your Content
SEO is an integral feature for the success and prosperity of ANY company, whether it be a clothing company or an industrial enterprise. Every organization benefits from high organic relevancy and should put in the effort to improve their website’s pertinence and credibility.
Cheers,
Claire Papac
J.O. Agency Intern
