SEO: Take Action & Stay Above Your Competition
by Erin Murray
Program Manager, Events & Marketing
If a potential customer is searching online for an electrician in their area – are you and your company appearing at the top of the search results? If not, you are likely losing business to your competition.
OR are you showing up in a Google search when potential employees are looking for a job in your area? Many of you may be exhausted by the term SEO (Search Engine Optimization), as you’ve been told time and time again just how important it is. But unlike many trendy marketing buzz words, SEO is here to stay, as search engines continue to be the basis that most people use to find the products and services that they need. Understanding the basics of SEO will help keep your business relevant and searchable, which will increase traffic to your website and lead to more business opportunities and career candidates. Here are some pointers to help get your SEO strategy moving in the right direction.
What is SEO?
In short, SEO is the general practice of improving your search engine ranking in order to get more visibility online; in turn, maximizing the number of visitors to your website. Your webpage is shown in the search results based on the relevancy of your website content when matched up to the keywords the user has typed into the search field. The search engine determines the “relevancy” of your website based on a serious of algorithms (…a much larger topic for another day). In order to optimize your site, commonly searched keywords and phrases should be incorporated into the different pages on your website, surrounded by impactful content with the end user in mind.
What Role do Keywords Play in SEO?
Years ago, you could take a page of your website, slap on 20 repeats of the word for which you want to rank on Google, and call it good. Today, similar practice may actually have negative effect. Google’s algorithms are now smart enough to weed out spam sites, and you definitely do not want to be in that category. While keywords are still important and necessary, they now say that “content is king” when it comes to SEO. Which brings me to my next point…
How Do I Develop the Right Content?
If there is a keyword phrase you really want your website to rank high in Google results, dedicate a page of your website to optimizing that phrase. Use that phrase in the header and in at least 2-3 subheadings on the page – maybe even more if you can get away with it and avoid overkill. Write the content as you instinctively would, and include the phrase a few times within the text. To take it a step further, use the phrase within the text on other pages of your website, and link the phrase back to the page in which you are trying to optimize.
What Other Factors Impact SEO?
Social Media and blogging are two more easy ways to supplement your SEO efforts and help increase your website relevance in search results. Your business should cultivate a strong social media presence and create a profile on all channels that are appropriate for your industry. Promoting your website content on Twitter, Facebook, etc. will help your business rise through the ranks of search engines. Blogging helps boost SEO by positioning your website as a direction or additional resource for users as they are reading your blog post. Basically, the more platforms in which you are able to use to direct people to pages on your website, the better off you will be in terms of optimizing specific pages.
Search engine optimization is a broad and complex topic. Having a website with optimized content in conjunction with your social media platforms is just the tip of the iceberg, but it’s where you will need to start if you are still getting familiar with the ins and outs of SEO. Continue to stay up to date with the latest search engine principals, and you will out-shine many other companies in your target area offering similar products and services.