As a marketer our main objective is to position our product or service as the best option to solve a specific need or problem for a consumer. In other words, we want to be the first brand a customer thinks of after they realize they have a problem that our product solves. Getting to that point isn’t easy, it requires building credibility, establishing yourself as a leader in the industry, being visible and accessible, and providing consistent experiences. Luckily, using the inbound methodology in tandem with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will guide you towards achieving all those important goals towards becoming the number one brand in consumers’ minds.
Search engine optimization is defined as the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. With the majority of people turning to search engines like Google to solve these problems, without a presence on these search engines your business will be extremely hard to find, and likely will not reach the eyes and ears of the customers who you are looking to help. This is where search engine optimization plays a major role in making your brand discoverable.
Search engines like Google crawl the internet for content, and will display what they think are the most relevant results based on the search query an individual enters. The brands that appear on the first page of the results are the most successful. Google has their own algorithm for ranking where pages appear in the results which is not available for public consumption, however, marketers and educators have been able to figure out what content Google seems to like. By following these tips and guidelines, marketers will have a much higher chance of reaching their target audience through search engines.
To make your website format and content optimized for search engines to pick up, you must have an understanding of how search engines view your website. Unlike the way we view websites, with images, videos, and other creative elements, search engines only see the text content. Keeping in mind how search engines rank websites, you want to make sure that all your navigation and links are text, not images. Also ensure that none of the links on your website as broken or lead to nothing, as this will also hurt your ranking. Website URLs should also be as short and as relevant to your keyword as possible because search engines will discount URLs that are long and complex. Content that is duplicated and put on multiple pages within one website is also discouraged, and search engines may penalize you by not showing certain pages at all. Lastly, a sitemap can be helpful for getting your website crawled and index faster. This is simply a file that lists all the URLs on your website that you want to be crawled, and will prevent the search engine from crawling pages you don’t want them to (policy pages, legal). Although the formatting of your webpage is important to achieving the best results, content is still king and will largely determine the success of your website’s ranking.
When anyone types a search query on Google they are looking for content that will help them. In order to make sure your matching your content with the people who need it and are searching for it, you need to understand what types of keywords and phrases your target audience is using. Google will use a combination of the search query an individual enters and the relevancy of your content to that query to determine where in the results your page will be displayed.
Once you have nailed down what keyword you are using to match your content to the target audience, you want to make sure you use these best practices to optimize your chances of ranking high. Be sure to include the keyword in the following:
- Post Title
- URL (Be sure to exclude any stop words)
- H1 Tag
- The first 100 words of content (It will reassure Google that it is in fact the topic)
- Meta-title and meta-descriptions tags
- Image file names or alt text (Google will only see these when scanning images)
You also want to include semantic keywords, or similar keywords to the ones your audience use in order to help search engines understand what to rank your content in. The longer your content is, the more likely you will be ranked (assuming your content is relevant, meaning you simply have more exhaustive relevant content than others).
As previously stated, the content on your website is of paramount importance and is the largest factor in determining your ranking, however, there are also additional factors that play a role. One of these important additional factors are links. External links are placing links in your content to other reputable sources, which in turn will bring credibility to your website. Internal links are links that lead to other pages within your website, and can help with ranking in two ways: first it allows the search engines to crawl and find other pages on your site, and secondly they create semantic relations between pages, helping to determine what queries your content is relevant too. Backlinks are used by search engines to determine authority. Backlinks are links on other websites that lead to pages on your website. Search engines assume that if many websites provide links to a single website, that single website must have strong authority and is a credible resource.
The quality of backlinks does matter. If Google suspects you have created backlink profiles with the sole purpose of boosting your authority, it will penalize you. Make sure that your backlinks are coming from credible websites that are relevant and legitimate.
SEO is an extremely valuable tool that is also very cost effective. It can provide you with incredible growth if used correctly, and can also result in your website being removed completely if used incorrectly. This is called Black Hat SEO. Black Hat SEO uses tactics that are not permitted by search engines with hopes of finding ways to trick the search engines into ranking you highly. It is considered a bad strategy for business growth in both the long term and short term, and should not be considered as a real strategy.
A lot of people use Google (and other search engines) to solve their problems, discover solutions, and access content. Chances are, whoever your target audience is, they will use Google too, and you want to make sure that your brand is in a position to provide relevant information, guidance, and most importantly a solution. The moment that an individual realizes they can benefit from your services should be the moment that you introduce yourself to the individual.
SEO Resources and Training
This guide is a good starting point to build a foundation upon SEO. However, there are many resources out there available to help you practice and learn SEO.
Here are a few resources to check out:
Content Optimization 