SEO

SEO Basics: Getting Started

70-80% of searchers ignore paid ads and focus on organic results. What does it mean for marketers?

If your website organically displays as a result at the top of Google searches for important keywords, people are likelier to purchase from or donate to your company or organization. People value organic search results. Investing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can dramatically improve leads, brand awareness, and higher ROI.

Do you want to generate more leads, improve brand awareness, and boost brand validation? Those three goals and more can be accomplished by applying two elements of SEO — on-site and off-site optimization.

On-site SEO

The first element happens on and within your site. Evaluate existing elements of your values and mission to understand your SEO goals.

Evaluate Mission

Take a look at your mission statement and identify the most important elements. Consider what values are key to your business, and what products and services are most important to your company or organization. Once you have identified key products, services, and values, you can move on to the next step.

Incorporate Keywords

Consolidate your most important products, service, and values into relevant keywords people might search for. Sprinkle the keywords across your site in order to make your site searchable for relevant terms. With targeted, strategic keywords applied site wide, your site is now optimized.

Offsite SEO

The second element of SEO happens away from the website. It takes just as much work as, if not more work than, on-site optimization.

Linkbuilding

Create a strategy based around on-site content. Your strategy should be aiming at building a network of links to your website from reputable websites. Seek syndication or citations from other websites. The links from reputable websites to yours builds your rankings, drives site traffic, and shows google that your site is trustworthy.

Social Media

Social media is more helpful for reputation than for rankings. Social media is useful for posting links to your own content and getting other people to click, share, and engage. The hype and buzz created by Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn can help drive more people to your site, increasing reputation and reach.

However, social media does not add to the authority of your site. It provides valuable traffic

Directories

Listing your company or organization in as many directories as possible improves both national and local SEO. This can be especially helpful if you’re a small local business. However, national groups can also stand to benefit fro this. It helps people in the area locate your business easily if it shows up fast and first.

Strategizing and implementing SEO on-site and off-site is well worth the investment of time and resources. Small improvements can make a big difference. And give us a call if you’re interested in site diagnostics or a consultation!

Sources
1. Imforza

By Esther Grace Ehrenman, Digital Editor and Strategist

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