SEO is a tactic that never ends. You can always build out content, add links to your website, and fix your technical issues, but how do you know how to focus your time? Our approach to SEO is very similar to other providers, with a few nuances. The three pillars of our SEO campaigns are content, technical SEO, and then link building. You want to have the words on the page you want to rank for, you want to make sure those words are formatted properly and easy to read by crawlers, and then your path to results is allocating links to your domain to improve trust with Google. Here is a deeper breakdown of each pillar, how they work together, and how they can impact your SEO overall.
Content for SEO
The words on your pages serve a purpose for both your users and crawlers alike. These are the physical words on each page found on your website. Without including the keywords you want to rank for, or target keywords, you do not stand much chance to rank for those keywords. We start by evaluating your services and brainstorm some ideas for target keywords. We then take that large list of brainstormed ideas and pare it down according to search volume. You would not want to optimize for something that is not searched. On the other hand, you do not want to pursue a target keyword that has a wealth of search volume but does not directly apply to your services. Take Firestarter SEO for example, we would not want to rank for a keyword like SEO information, or DIY SEO, since we are a provider. They may have search volume and generate traffic to your website, but if it does not convert, what’s the point? This is the essence of optimizing content for SEO. We want a backing of search volume, we want to make sure we are able to enter the space according to what the competition is doing, and we want laser focus on the intention with ranking keywords. Once your content is implemented, we then make sure search engines understand what is prioritized.
Technical SEO Strategy
Once your content is optimized it is time to make sure search engines and crawler bots can interact with that content properly. Here are the specific items to look to optimize on the page:
- Meta Title and Description
- HTML Tags (H1, H2s, p tags)
- Image alt text
- Interlinking
Your meta title and description do not usually display on your physical page, these are more built out for search engines to understand what is found on a page. Your meta titles and descriptions are the first pieces of content search engines discover on a page, so we make sure you have your target keyword implemented there. HTML tags are built out for uniformity across the web and give search engines an indication of the importance of elements. You should be sure to only have one H1 on the page, with the target keyword included, then you have much more freedom for subheadings and the use of long-tail keywords or synonyms, also known as LSI keywords. Once the page is structured so search engines can easily read it, we apply the deeper optimization items in image alt text and interlinking. Search engines cannot read images, so alt text gives you an opportunity to tell search engines what the image is about. Interlinking ensures each opportunity to link to another page on your site is capitalized upon.
Link Building for SEO
Once the two above items are executed and being monitored, it is time to start building links to your domain to establish trust with Google. If you have run through a proposal review with our sales guys, you probably have heard that “links are like votes of internet popularity”. Google was originally created for a scientific purpose to be able to link to other resources related to the study you are conducting. The algorithm has changed drastically over the years, but the core remains the same. The way to establish and keep rankings at the top of the first page is to build links to your domain. There is a little deeper strategy here that should be noted. You would not want a link from a website that is not relevant to your industry. As an SEO provider, we would not want to get a link from a bridal company unless we were sponsoring something we are doing. A link from something like Search Engine Journal would carry way more weight because it directly applies to what we do.
In summary, we take the words on your page and alter them to include your target keyword, we make sure crawlers can read it and understand what is most important, then we build your popularity through links from external websites coming into yours. Contact your SEO experts if you would like to dig a little deeper into how we could help you rank on Google.
