Many small and large business owners have pondered, “what makes my competitor’s website rank on Google above my own?”. Regardless of the browser you use to complete your queries, there are structural rules that work behind the scenes to determine which content is shown at the expense of others when it comes to one website displaying more often than another. Long story short, when it comes to search engine optimization or SEO, quality and quantity are important for your website.
As a result, SEO is not an “either or game” when it comes to traffic. People and search engines should both be at the center of every piece of content on your website, when it comes to the overall user experience if you want to rank well in the SERPs (search engine results pages). In the end, delivering quality content people want in a way that search engines can index and deliver the information correctly and quickly are the key takeaways you should focus on.
Why is SEO Important, and Why Should My Business Invest in This Service Long-Term?
There is perhaps nothing more important than being certain you work with a white and not gray or black hat SEO specialist/agency. Unfortunately, there is truth to the idea that optimizing for robots can initially and in the short-term improve a website’s visibility. However, this is not a long-term strategy by any means and it can cost you future indexing of your website on Google when you are caught for violating best practices if you are not careful. This is why it is important that you inquire about the reputation and past clients of whatever agency or individual you work with, so you can confirm the outcome of the results of their services when it comes to managing your visibility and digital reputation online.
Some general tips for doing “good” SEO include making sure your pages, copy, visuals and navigation are all created with your human (and not robot) users in mind. Although it is important to structure content in a way search engines can make sense of, this does not condone practices such as keyword stuffing or linking to “spammy” domains or creating endless product pages just to have a larger website.
You should also be sure that you are providing the type of content your users want, which you can also gain additional insight about using your Google Analytics demographic, categories, and interest analyses. By targeting content like blogs, social media posts and landing pages all to central themes that matter to your audience, you can be sure to contribute positively to your online rankability.
On Page vs. Off Page SEO: You Guessed It, Both Are Important for the Long Haul
Business owners can sometimes get caught up in outbidding the competition for ranking on the front page of Google. Rather, a good strategy is being sure you are offering a unique voice and contributing valuable content to your industry segment. As long as you are doing this, in addition to the SEO best practices discussed here, there is no reason you shouldn’t score well when it comes to your organic search presence.
How to construct quality experiences off and on your web pages:
On page SEO: Simply put, on page refers to the experience a user has stemming from the structure, functionality, speed and content quality of the pages. You should be sure your content is “fresh”, which refers to being consistently updated or published through a long running feature such as a blog.
This is an easy way, for example, to contribute increasingly high quality information on your website in a way that enhances the experiences of current and potential users. You should also make sure image sizes and videos are optimized for quick loading, and that you have a mobile first mindset informing your website design.
One good way to provide useful content that is more likely to catch the eye of human and robot users alike, is to see which questions are being asked on Google surrounding your top product or service keywords. This way, you can schedule and plan content that is more likely to be what your users are already discussing online.
Off page SEO: On the other hand, off page SEO takes a little bit more than updated metadata and perfectly sized images. You can consider this a tentative measure of your ongoing virtual reputation and share of domain authority. The latter of these refers to the degree to which search engines like Google deem your website worthy of trust from users.
Trust can be boosted by linking to quality websites when and where it makes sense (for example, a local charity or non-profit your business partners with) and also through being mentioned by trusted authorities (think: .gov, .edu and industry expert blogs). Over time, you can grow your reputation alongside your improvements in overall ranking for your target keywords and audience.
With respect to domain authority score, anything over 30 is generally considered to be reputable. But in terms of beginning to teeter on the edge of industry expert, you want to be closer to 60 or 70.
Already Tried All Of The Above, and Still Having Trouble Seeing Your Website in the Search Engine Results Pages?
There is a reason that we do what we do. We believe in our SEO, SEM and Development services simply because we put our energy and passion into our business. If you are fed up with trying conventional or basic “do it yourself” fixes with little to no results, or struggling with your current SEO/SEM partner, Schweb can save the day.
Get in touch with our team, so we can come up with a solution that makes sense for you.