Enjoy this week’s guest post by Carolyn Josephs!
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic as well as exposure to your brand through non-paid ads. This is known as organic search engine results as opposed to paid search results.
Before I get into SEO, I want you to understand that it can take a while to see results. Many people believe they can do it themselves and spend less money by doing so. While it’s true SEO is not rocket science, consider the value of your time and if this is something you can delegate.
Despite what people think, SEO is as much as about people as it is about search engines. It’s about understanding what a person is searching for online. Are they looking for answers? What words are they using? What type of content do they consume? It’s what we call the search intent. So, if knowing your audience’s intent is one side of the SEO coin, then delivering it in a way that search engines, often referred to as SERPS, can find and understand is the other.
Search engines “crawl” through literally billions of pieces of content and evaluate thousands of factors to determine which content is most likely to answer your question. They do this by discovering and cataloging all available content on the Internet by crawling and indexing and then ordering this content by how well it matches the query in a process we refer to as ranking, which is another animal all together. The results are called search engine results pages, often referred to as SERPs. Some examples of SERPs are featured snippets (or answer boxes), People Also Ask boxes, image carousels, etc. New SERP features continue to emerge, driven largely by what people are seeking.
While paid advertising, social media, and other online platforms can generate traffic to websites, most online traffic is driven by search engines. Of all US searches, only ~2.8% of people click on paid advertisements. In fact, SEO has ~20X more traffic opportunity than PPC (pay per click) on both mobile and desktop. SEO is also one of the only online marketing channels that, when set up correctly, can continue to pay dividends over time. If you provide a solid piece of content that deserves to rank for the right keywords, your traffic can snowball over time, however advertising needs continuous funding to send traffic to your site. Search engines are getting smarter, but they still need our help.
White Hat vs Black Hat SEO
“White hat SEO” refers to SEO techniques, best practices, and strategies that abide by search engine rules, its primary focus to provide more value to people.
“Black hat SEO” refers to techniques and strategies that attempt to spam/fool search engines. While black hat SEO can work, it puts websites at tremendous risk of being penalized and/or de-indexed (removed from search results) and has ethical implications.
Penalized websites have bankrupted businesses. It’s just another reason to be very careful when choosing an SEO expert or agency.
Optimizing your site will help deliver better information to search engines so that your content can be properly indexed and displayed within search results.
How Do I Know Which Search Results Are “organic”?
Organic search results used to be easy to spot. The ads were clearly labeled as such, and the remaining results typically took the form of “10 blue links” listed below them. But search has changed so much, how do I recognize organic results today? Well, today, search engine results pages are filled with both more advertising and more dynamic organic results formats (called “SERP features”) than ever seen before.
For example, if you search for “Denver weather,” you’ll see a weather forecast for the city of Denver directly in the SERP instead of a link to a site that might have that forecast. And, if you search for “pizza Denver,” you’ll see a “local pack” result made up of Denver pizza places. Convenient, right? The Local Pack is a SERP feature that appears on the first page of results for any search query with a local intent. It features a map of business locations along with listing for 3 businesses relevant to a specific search.
It’s important to remember that search engines make money from advertising. Their goal is to better solve searcher’s queries (within SERPs), to keep searchers coming back, and to keep them on the SERPs longer.
Some SERP features on Google are organic and can be influenced by SEO. These include featured snippets (a promoted organic result that displays an answer inside a box) and related questions (a.k.a. “People Also Ask” boxes).
It’s worth noting that there are many other search features that, even though they aren’t paid advertising, can’t typically be influenced by SEO. These features often have data acquired from proprietary data sources, such as Wikipedia, WebMD, and IMDb.
Local SEO
It’s important to know that, like all politics are local, so is SEO. Local SEO is the practice of optimizing your website for a specific local area. If you have a local business, like a shop, restaurant, or agency, you want your web pages to rank for certain search queries performed by a local audience. Optimizing the website of your local business is about making sure people can find you online and offline.
How Does Local SEO Work?
Local search is powerful for small businesses: 46% of all Google searches are looking for local information, which means if your business isn’t optimized for local search, you could be missing out on potential customers who are ready to shop in your area. In short, local SEO is critical if you want your business to stay relevant.
Here are some “local SEO” tips that can help you. Having a Google My Business listing is critical to success with Local SEO.
- Optimize for Google My Business.
- Engage on social media and add posts to Google My Business.
- Ensure your name, address, and phone number are consistent online.
- Optimize online directories and citations.
- Perform a local SEO audit.
- Improve your internal linking structure.
- Optimize URL, title tags, headers, meta description, and content.
- Add location pages to your website.
- Create local content.
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly.
- Get inbound links with relevance and authority.
- Participate in your local community.
What’s the difference with SEO in general?
Local SEO is kind of a sub-discipline of SEO. While SEO focuses on getting higher rankings for your website’s pages for searches without a local component, local SEO aims for higher rankings in specific areas, such as towns or regions. Just by the query, Google can understand to some degree whether a searcher is looking for a local “solution” for his problem. These search queries are particularly interesting for small businesses, as they mostly provide services or products for a local audience. If you want to rank for these local searches, a local SEO strategy, which is more focused on local ranking factors, is worth investing in.
Near me is no longer just about finding a specific place. It’s now about finding a specific thing, in a specific area, and in a specific period.
People using mobiles to search around a place are getting more specific with their search intent. According to Google, “near me” mobile searches that contain a variant of “can I buy” or “to buy” have grown over 500% over the last two years. These include things like “where can I buy stamps near me,” “places to buy scrubs near me,” or “where to buy vinyl records near me.” For those of us who remember vinyl records or just records.
There was also a 200+% growth in card-dealer related searches “near me” as well as a 600+% growth in mobile searched for dress-related “near me”. How often do you look for products or services “near me”?
There is so much more to SEO than I can fit in this one blog. If you are interested in additional information on SEO or are confused by all the information out there, I would be happy to chat with you.
Email: carolyn@cjdesignandconsulting.com or call her @ 917-334-6385
Carolyn Josephs is the owner of CJ Design & Consulting, a marketing agency in the Hudson Valley, NY area that specializes in Website (Re)Design, Email Marketing, Social Media, Content Marketing, Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn Advertising & SEO. We can do it for you or show you how to do it. Our clients tell us we get awesome RESULTS!
What makes us different is that working with us is a partnership. You are the expert on your business. We are the expert in marketing. We have over 30 years experience in graphic design and photography. What that means to you is that you give us your project and we handle everything, taking the worry and frustration out of your hands.
Whether you are an entrepreneur starting out, a small-medium sized business, a non-profit organization looking to create or expand your marketing efforts or a larger business looking to outsource your marketing to save money, we can customize a plan for you. In addition, we have strategic partnerships with other small businesses. You will be delighted with our service.
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