In the world of digital advertising, understanding SEO is essential. SEO combines several elements that, if used properly, are designed to improve your place on search engine results pages.
The goal of this section is to provide you with a foundational understanding of what SEO is, how it works, and its importance in the modern digital landscape.
As you read the comprehensive guide, it will introduce new strategies and techniques to improve your success with these foundational pieces of SEO knowledge.
This section focuses on providing an overview of search engine optimization. SEO is more than a series of tags or keywords; while those play a part, SEO is about ensuring positive user experiences and traffic flow to your business’s website.
Search engines use search engine algorithms to filter popular, relevant information and deliver it on search engine results pages.
Effective SEO can boost organic traffic and increase your reach and brand awareness.
Improving engagement and digital presence are more important than ever, as digital advertising becomes the initially preferred advertisement space for most consumers and business buyers.
As internet searches continue to boom, so do search engine algorithms. SEO has evolved to include a mix of data, content, technical, and marketing expertise, making its space diverse.
Businesses with a solid SEO strategy are likely to stand out in search results. As algorithms continue to evolve, outdated elements of SEO will become less useful and may even have adverse effects.
A business relying purely on outdated SEO elements will garner less organic traffic and may confuse online browsers.
As the guide changes and evolves through time, we recommend that you adapt your strategies regularly to maintain an effective digital presence and strategy. A proactive approach to these best practices will influence your success.
1.1. What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) What is SEO? At its core, SEO focuses on increasing the visibility of websites on search engine results pages.
Websites that rank highly in search results are likely to be visited by a higher number of users, increasing the likelihood of generating more business.
But what specifically does “increasing visibility” mean? What exactly does SEO do? The short answer is that a range of strategies and techniques are used to ensure that websites are easy for search engines to “understand” — in other words,
they are straightforward, comply with search engine guidelines, and provide “clues” that inform search engines about the content of website pages.
There are, however, a number of sub-strategies that can be employed, focusing variously on the creation and effective management of a website’s content, structure, HTML, etc. It’s important to closely examine why all of this is necessary:
The more a website is visible in search results, the more visitors it receives. Generally, if a website is ranked at the top of the first page of results, it will be viewed by a considerably higher number of people.
If a website is found on the third page of results (beyond the top 20 entries), the traffic that it receives will be limited to a small percentage, if any.
SEO can also be considered a framework because the whole process has a number of rules, several stages, and a set of controls that a webmaster can use to deliver their own website to the attention of search engines.
What is also important here is the fact that these rules and guidelines are created for the enduring relationship between search engines and website owners.
In this context, the purpose of SEO is twofold: (1) to understand the search engine algorithms that are responsible for website performance, and in light of that understanding (2) the ability to optimize a website.
There are multiple “types” of SEO, but most practitioners categorize the concept as falling within three categories: Technical, On-page, and Off-page.
Why is SEO important for businesses?
SEO is the secret ingredient to driving organic traffic to a website. In a competitive e-commerce environment, being able to reach out directly to a market that has already shown an interest in your products or services can play an important role in increasing conversion rates.
The more information you can give a search engine about your website and its offerings, the better the chances the search engine will show your site in search results.
As such, businesses are increasingly competing to attain top rankings in search engine results pages to attract more visitors and customers. A successful SEO plan can give a company the online visibility it needs to pull in leads.
A vast majority of all online experiences start with search engines, with the majority of leads coming from organic search results. SEO is such a powerful tool that approximately 70% of marketers would rather invest in it than ads.
But businesses that are unconvinced of the benefits of SEO are making a mistake. If companies refuse to invest in the SEO that will bring customers to them, they risk falling behind.
This is why having a successful, low-cost marketing strategy plays an important part in growing your business, and that’s where search engine optimization comes in.
That’s why seeing SEO as an expense is short-sighted, and it needs to be part of your company’s overall business plan to succeed and will continue to bring results as time progresses.
Key Components of SEO
SEO is made up of several different components, and learning these fundamental structures and facets of SEO is crucial to search engine optimization and website best practices.
SEO, generally, is the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic and user engagement through improving brand visibility in organic search results of a search engine.
Fundamentally, SEO can be understood by dissecting it into three categories: keyword research, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization.
In studying and then practicing each of these SEO facets, we can help push a website to the top of search results and dramatically increase revenue.
The fundamental principle of SEO is understanding what potential users are searching for, otherwise known as ‘keywords.’
A wide range of search behavior and user intent can be found surrounding the vast history of searches, such as the exact keywords people use, as well as how many individuals use specific keywords to uncover information.
This is helpful in establishing the demand for a keyword, as well as the relative relationship between keywords, users, and search engines, where they submitted those search terms.
Once you build an ideal list of keywords, this can lead to targeted content creation, higher rankings in search engine results pages, and more results for your brand.
On-Page Optimization: This tactic concentrates on internal elements that can be changed or manipulated within a website. On-page optimization’s goal is to help inform search engine robots whether or not the correct site or landing page has been ranked.
Components of on-page optimization can include the title tags, meta descriptions, body content, and URL structure of pages.
Sometimes, the quality of content alone can increase rankings, such as for blog-related search terms, which tend to be more informational or news-related in search query intent. Off-Page Optimization:
Broadly speaking, your authority for a website is built on external, third-party signals such as backlinks from other websites and social signals from other users.
If someone is writing a blog related to personal popular beliefs or social issues, linking to a site from their blog can help its search visibility, though the way in which search engines use social signals for high ranking is still subject to lively debate.
Search engines use various measurements to rank pages, such as relevance, quality of content, and user behavior, in order to develop the updated gradings.
2.1. Keyword Research and Analysis
In practice, the first step of any SEO-related project is keyword research and analysis. In other words, you simply cannot ignore it.
Knowing what people type when searching for a specific product or service gives you power and helps you spot opportunities. Start your SEO journey by understanding what your potential customers are actually searching for.
Improving your website traffic and keyword rankings starts with good quality teamwork, proper planning, and keyword research.
A list of generic keyword ideas related to your products or services gives SEO practitioners an estimate of keyword activity and competitiveness.
This can help them prioritize their target market, improve the quality of visitors to their website, and increase revenue and conversions.
Here are a few tips to help you put together your list of keywords: Brainstorm a list of keywords associated with your products or services. Use research tools to generate further lists of keywords.
This helps you find popular and trending keywords associated with the products or services you provide. Categorize generic terms based on different products or services to generate wider lists of keywords.
Long-tail keywords are normally 2 to 4 keyword phrases, for example, “purchase women’s shoes in Toronto.”
They account for the majority of web searches, meaning that if you are not targeting them as part of your paid search or SEO efforts, you’re missing out. Users who search for specific products or services using long-tail keywords are, in general, more likely to buy.
On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization refers to all internal factors of a webpage that influence its ranking in search results.
The most basic technique of on-page optimization is precisely molding your website’s pages to the expectations of the search engine and its users.
This includes aspects such as the title of a page, logical URL, meta descriptions, and H tags, often the most important texts on a webpage because search engines assign value to them.
On the user-facing end of on-page optimization is a key focus for today’s SEO strategies: crafting informative, well-written, and most importantly, high-quality content.
High-quality content is synonymous with relevant content. Analyze what people are searching for, and then address those questions better than any of your competitors.
When we speak of on-page variables, title tags are the most important. Title tags are the second link in search results composed of anchor text and title copied and defined on the page.
Ideally, the title tag will define the content of the page for both the user, justifying why the page has been presented in a search result, as well as the search engines.
Your content might natively express which page a viewer has landed on, but the title tag should encourage the search engine to agree.
What follows is the title tag being emphasized through logical URL, which refers to the users’ request and is simply navigable.
Do not omit meta descriptions or H tags, as each has the potential to enhance a webpage’s chances of being clicked or read, and being crawled and indexed.
Incorporate relevant internal links systematically throughout your content. Mobile responsiveness on the website is a massive factor in your site ranking on search engines.
While page layout strategically remains responsive, if your website tends to attract mobile viewers more, consider them the home target for your design.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-page optimization is significant as Google sees other sites linking back to yours as a vote of trust. Put another way, each time someone links back to your website, they’re essentially saying, “I believe this site offers valuable information.”
The more links you get from other websites, the more newfound respect goes for search engine rankings. But it’s not just about the number of backlinks; the quality of the backlink also plays an important role.
A backlink is just a hyperlink from one web page to another; for example, an internal link is a backlink, but when we talk about building backlinks, we’re usually referring to links that come from another website.
If another website links to a page on your website, that’s a backlink. If your blog gets a link from a top-linked website, search engines consider your blog a reliable off-page authority.
While creating high-quality content is a crucial part of getting other websites to link back to your website, they often need to be convinced to do so.
So, how do you go about making connections? Content promotion and guest blogging outreach are two ways to go about it. Many businesses leverage guest blogging to obtain backlinks.
This involves contacting bloggers and requesting a chance to write for them in exchange for a backlink to your own website. Because these links are difficult to earn and even harder to gain now, they are considered very valuable.
About advancing content, linkers are individuals who have the capability to link to good research.
Create useful and interesting content on any platform—whether an article, infographic, etc.—and then email these connections to inform them about the content and the points you think they’ll find useful. Social media and SEO are like yin and yang.
While social shares don’t affect search engine rankings directly, there are approaches in which they can increase your ranking indirectly.
Choosing the Right SEO Company
Choosing the right SEO company is essential. An authentic and above-board SEO firm will guide your ROI, scale up your visibility, and help you either establish or maintain your online reputation.
By contrast, the wrong SEO company might sabotage your business and jeopardize the online visibility you’ve worked hard to build.
This guide surveys key concerns to help determine if a firm is a good fit for your organization and to signal a likely negative fit.
These objectives help expose a qualified firm that can bring your small business to the next level and avoid the unsafe and greedy SEO companies that can’t provide you with the results your website needs.
When looking for the right SEO firm, it is essential to look for proof of a potential firm’s work and expertise in action.
As you get to know a company, you may ask them for success stories and testimonials to help you understand their SEO history and how that relates to their ability to work with various industries and goals.
Experience and a proven track record of success are important to establishing trust. A good SEO company should additionally keep up-to-date with popular trends and best practices in SEO to make sure their clients remain competitive.
Your long-term plan should always be to rank for key phrases in the search results that are relevant to your operations, products, and company; pushing traffic to those results requires ranking well in search results, and reputable firms are prepared to work toward that goal.
Factors to Consider in Selecting an SEO Company
When you choose an SEO company, you want to make sure they have experience in the industry.
Do they understand your pain points? Have they worked with other companies similar to yours? Ask for examples of the leads and traffic generated by past clients to ensure they truly accommodate businesses similar to your own.
The scope of SEO is vast, and you should ensure your preferred agency has expertise in multiple areas. Look for an SEO service offering technical optimization, content strategy, backlinking, on-page optimization, and analytics.
This ensures a more holistic approach that accounts for all ranking signals, including the user experience. Instead of choosing an SEO company that specializes in a couple of services, identify an agency that is well-versed in all aspects.
Most will offer case studies and examples of past results to prove their worth. Another factor to consider when choosing an SEO provider is pricing transparency.
Shady SEO firms can use pricing deceivingly to woo potential clients, only to reveal a host of hidden fees once the work begins. Ensure your SEO provider is transparent about their costs in full to eliminate unwelcome surprises.
Additionally, take a close look at client testimonials. Not only is this a form of social proof, but it will also demonstrate that the company in question has been successful in the past.
If the company refuses to showcase this form of evidence, this could be a red flag not to hire. Finally, think about your desired company’s culture and communication style.
You should feel comfortable alongside your provider, and if their communication style clashes with your own, this may spell trouble going forward.
Everyone thrives in a working environment that tailors to their personality, and this is no different when it comes to SEO.
Questions to Ask Potential SEO Service Providers
If they guarantee that in a particular amount of time they can accomplish the #1 spot on the SERP, run away.
To do this, they would have to understand your company, utilize keyword research tools, and review your competitors. At the very least, SEO experts would look into a keyword’s competitiveness and search trends.
A competent SEO consultant should be able to track the links they’re building for you, broken or otherwise. The answers here should be more insightful than “We construct good-quality links, so no need to worry.”
It’s also the right time to rally the black-hat SEO communities and demonstrate how white-hat linking is done with good communication. A lot of these SEO providers don’t fully explain their job as they should.
At the moment, search engine algorithms are constantly evolving, and the set of practices that works one year might not work the following. Don’t hesitate to inquire about strategies and methodologies.
Find out what experts know about the latest algorithm updates and how they respond.
The timeline for achieving results might differ based on search engine optimization goals, competitiveness, expertise, and more. Consider those that can show they approach the business process in a transparent manner.
How do you gauge SEO if you aren’t familiar with the technology? This can be your chance to familiarize yourself with many of the analytics tools and technologies employed in your marketing.
Here you get the chance to tell if they hear about your favored marketing efforts. If you are already in the SEO business, present your current analytics or user-friendly dashboard and enjoy your consultant’s response.
SEO plans might be biased based on a pay-per-click sort of approach, offering speed or enhancements at a much lower rate. Since SEO is very time-consuming, you might need to pay extra for these kinds of services.
There is no reason why a firm shouldn’t disclose their contract terms. If they get too poetic about it, it’s time to ask, “What precisely did you say?” SEO charges differ, contingent on service quality and price.
Be outspoken about how you’d like to receive updates and set time frames for these communications. Don’t be hesitant to question why modifications are necessary and how they will aid the SEO method.
If a request for a little more money or a little extra time is returned, the consultant takes the money and runs. See what they will answer before issuing an ultimatum that lets them walk.
Our goal here is to create a strategy instead of simply taking money quickly. As is shown, search engine optimization is a very involved process, one that is highly beneficial.
To simplify decision-making, we have set up a potent search engine marketing toolbox for partner websites. Choose to work with us, and your site will get tested via our arsenal of technological tools. We are interested in taking part with engineering workflow groups globally.
Evaluating SEO Services
At regular intervals, it’s vital to appraise the services you receive from an SEO professional or agency. They should provide you with straightforward data on how effective their efforts have been.
If a service is worth the time or financial investment, then it should produce results that can be measured.
If an SEO professional can’t show you their progress, then that is a key reason to expect that their tactics are offering an unsatisfactory return on investment. In short, the following are some of the bottom-line metrics you should be looking at:
• Are you seeing growth in organic traffic?
• How has the bounce rate changed?
• Is the number of conversions and conversion rates climbing?
• Are ranking placements moving up?
• Are there more authority backlinks being built?
The production of regular reports tracking some or all of these criteria can let you know if an SEO professional is doing a good job.
Should things not be up to your standards, then those numbers can also provide you a segment of your strategy that you need to put under the microscope.
Ongoing adjustments can improve performance and optimize for the key performance indicators you feel are most important to your business’s success.
Below is a rundown of typical activities in different kinds of SEO packages. It is the perfect general guide to evaluation, regardless of the specific service or package you’ve opted for or are considering.
The items mentioned should help you evaluate if the services you are interested in will target the areas where you need the most support.
Knowing the efficacy of these components can offer some understanding and guidance for this analysis. In many cases, the components of these lists are going to be a very small share of an overall marketing package.
Our experience has been that we can offer the best service by taking a holistic approach, with creative, tech support, and online advertising services that bolster each other.
• Ongoing keyword research
• Page creation and revision with an emphasis on readability and quality and the intent behind keywords as well as word parsimony
• Optimizing page metadata
• Internal linking
• Site structure analysis and improvements
• AMP implementation and other speed improvement techniques
• Technical audits
• Review of analytics looking for click-lite keywords that could be creating cannibalization, pages that may be outdated, and other user engagement issues and trends
• Competitor research
• Consultation and quarterly strategy review
• Development of local language city or service pages
Metrics to Measure SEO Success
There is a lot that SEO encompasses, and it can be difficult to know if you are actively improving the results that you are getting.
That is why companies often value having established metrics to make sure their SEO is meeting goals. Like with any metric, having just one that is tried and tested is just not enough.
You need to have benchmarks to evaluate your progress and determine the best path forward. In order to bring meaning to what the metrics indicate, evaluation should be done within digestible information from the data you have collected.
Organic Traffic: Increases in organic traffic indicate successful SEO optimization. However, make sure the quality of traffic is as you measured; if the bounce rate and conversion rates are not the KPIs.
Bounce Rate: This is the percentage of visitors to your website that leave after only viewing one page. This is often seen as the quality of the page’s content or its relevancy to the searched term.
Every single industry has different bounce rates. Note: A high bounce rate does not always indicate poor traffic quality, so take that into consideration.
Average Session Duration: It is simply the average amount of time people spend on your website. A higher or lower session duration could show the quality of the content or the page rank.
Conversion Rate: If you need your audience to engage with your website in a meaningful way, then ensuring that the conversion rate aligns with your requirements and KPIs is important.
Keyword Rankings: Place a stopwatch on this to ensure that even while increasing other metrics, your keyword rankings are also following suit.
Common SEO Service Packages and Pricing Models
SEO service offerings can run the gamut, but most often you will see one or more of the following packages: Standard This basic package is almost always centered around you choosing a set number of keywords for the web optimization company to work on.
Most often, the service provider will also insist on limited rights to make changes to the website.
They will begin the package by conducting keyword analyses and deciding on which phrases the website should be optimized around.
The fee they charge is usually one-time and dependent on which keywords you choose for optimization.
Enterprise This package will normally include the basics such as keyword analyses and on-page optimization, but extremely competitive markets will necessitate backlink development, which is also included in the package.
The fee for corporate packages can go up to thousands of dollars. It is a well-documented fact that the most popular search engines place a large amount of weight on the number and quality of backlinks that are used when deciding what websites display at the head.
It can be difficult to get the necessary data on other websites to build high-quality links for a particular keyword. In order to have an impact, the process, methodology, and experience are all needed.
In this package, these aspects are included in the flat price. Standard, enterprise, or consulting packages are unfeasible for certain clients. It is vital to break apart the fee agreement with such clients.
The flat price may be amended at any moment. Regardless of the result, the client will continue to pay the business. It is not a good idea to participate in flat-fee transactions because Google remembers everything.
If a business is successful, it should be in Google’s best interests. The finest SEO agency has put forth great effort. Every commendable SEO company will invest a great deal of time and effort advocating for position.
Algorithm adjustments and client changes are contributed to the contract. The project’s plan will be adjusted in line with the newest model. Safety is also an integral part of a service plan.
It is essential to ensure all activities are conducted in a risk-free manner. To prevent hackers from assaulting, additional protection procedures should be in effect. Regular and random inspections are required to ensure the integrity of the system.
Advanced SEO Strategies
As search learning, data processing, and AI continue evolving, the landscape for search engines is constantly changing.
This means that to keep a competitive edge, businesses need to go beyond the traditional SEO practices of technical and on-page practices.
This section will help you learn some of these advanced SEO strategies, which will add a more local emphasis on important areas such as mobile optimization and local keyword research.
Focusing your website on local perks is a great advantage in optimizing your website, ensuring you at least have some search visibility.
Local SEO is important for businesses that are located within a certain geographical area and looking to connect with local customers, but the truth is just about every local business can benefit from some level of local optimization.
If you’re hoping to reach people in your community, then a sound local SEO strategy will do much of the heavy lifting for you.
This guide is all about helping you deploy your resources as effectively as possible, so we’re only going to include the advanced, industry-leading tips and strategies that we’ve found to be truly influential for businesses.
We won’t take up your time with basic pointers that are either obvious or unhelpful.
This means that, by the time you get to this section, you need to be ready to improve your website’s local search performance with some advanced local SEO tactics. Hopefully, the anticipation has started to build, so let’s get right into it!
Local SEO Techniques
This section examines local SEO techniques imperative for businesses catering to local customers. It offers effective strategies to help businesses stand out in local searches and attract potential customers from their region.
Local Visibility: Local SEO revolves around cultivating strong visibility in local searches. If a business overlooks local search, it is likely to consistently miss out on potential customers.
Thus, the best starting point is to invest time and resources into making oneself visible in local results.
Google My Business Profile: Creating and managing a Google My Business profile is a surefire way to boost local rankings.
It is easy, effective, and completely free. Once an account is set up and verified, business details appear in a number of Google products.
When performed in conjunction with other techniques, creating a Google My Business profile can have a powerful impact on one’s search visibility.
Manage Ratings and Reviews: Online ratings and reviews play a significant influence on local search rankings.
Inactivity in this sphere creates a negative impression, which in turn is likely to be reflected in search rankings.
Answering reviews is just as essential as acquiring them since it shows that a business values and listens to its customers. Regularly generating reviews from satisfied customers is an essential business task, and one that should command attention.
Local Keywords: Including local keywords in website content is synonymous with opening doors for local traffic.
Businesses should aim to include names of cities or regions where they operate within their most important pages, and also use them on specific landing pages.
Given that too much keyword frequency dilutes the quality of content, the use of overlapping keywords should usually be avoided.
Citations and NAP Consistency: Citations play a large part in forging local authority. An important Google My Business ranking factor, they describe the online references of any business’s name, address, and phone number.
Local businesses can easily accrue citations on online business directories that are specific to their locale.
Easy to establish, many individuals misunderstand that citations need to be earned, rather than built in a casual manner.
NAP consistency is another crucial ranking factor, with search engines regarding a mismatched NAP as a negative ranking factor.
After producing accurate, high-quality content for their website, it is wise for businesses to adopt a content marketing strategy.
Since the best results are achieved when local businesses connect with their local community, their marketing strategy should be fine-tuned to reflect this.
Using local assets like interviews of local figures, creating infographics based on local data, and providing news surrounding local events are effective ways for a business to appeal to its local audience.
Additionally, using localized strategies for online advertising also enables geographical targeting, as do strategies for outreach and obtaining backlinks.
Mobile SEO Best Practices
With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, the number of mobile-driven searches has exceeded desktop searches in many parts of the world.
Mobile and tablet devices generated 55% of global internet traffic and surpassed desktop traffic in 2020.
Early planning and effective execution of mobile SEO strategies are vital for business success, given the increasing number of mobile users.
Make users the focus of your mobile SEO strategies. Tailor your approach based on their behaviors.
Ensure the responsiveness of your website to adapt to any screen layout, and provide the same content across every device with a responsive web design.
Provide a customized layout for mobile users to enhance the user experience and ensure your website appears professional and functional with an adaptive content layout.
A/B test the best layout that works for your mobile users. Remember to cater to users with limited data traffic since mobile data could be slow; a web copy optimized for mobile users will attract them to stay and click a call to action.
Quick loading of mobile pages is crucial due to limited time, less attention span, and lack of patience of mobile users; optimizing your website content, images, and pages for faster load time is vital.
Use video as this type of content is becoming increasingly popular on mobile; optimize mobile web pages for voice search.
With voice search increasing in usage, make sure mobile web pages are optimized for voice search to attract this demographic.
The mobile SEO page should be targeted to mobile users based on the site pages visited by mobile users.
If mobile users frequently visit a specific landing page for the keywords they are looking for, optimize this web SEO content for mobile users.
Make sure your site SEO mobile load times are fast; 5 seconds is reasonable, with 1-2 seconds considered excellent.
Provide alt text and image titles for your images based on mobile keyword research. These titles can hold a prominent place in the search results for mobile users.
Implement schema to make your website mobile-user friendly. Ensure mobile user-friendliness by using UX-focused mobile design techniques.
Avoid flashy text or pop-ups, as they can cause hand fatigue and produce a bad experience.
Nearly 62% of searches were powered by Google Mobile, and 58% were conducted on the Safari web browser. However, mobile SEO strategies are also vital to override increasing pressure from Google to become mobile-first indexing.
