The URL is the unit of currency on the internet. Every keyword is a competition and every webpage is a competitor.[1] Quite the epiphany, right?
SEO (search engine optimization) isn’t just about sprinkling keywords everywhere. While that can be important, good strategy dives deeper. Here are the benefits of SEO for your business:
- Higher rankings: Google will show your website further up in search results
- Better web traffic: When you’re on the first page of Google, people are more likely to click
- More leads: As long as there are ways to contact or convert, your site can be a lead magnet
Search engines like Google constantly discover, evaluate and catalogue billions of content pieces. The algorithm does this by crawling and indexing those content pieces, and then ordering each one by how well it matches what someone types into the search box. This is called ranking. Ideally, your company’s webpages would show up (rank) on the first page of Google for every single keyword, keyphrase or query related to your products or services. While this isn’t always realistic, we can figure out different ways to invite people to your website. And it all starts with SEO.
SEO Craves Links
If URLs are the currency of the internet, your website needs internal page URLs that have a fighting chance of appearing on page one of Google. In his MarketingProfs SEO course, Andy Crestodina puts it this way: “Google is like the mean girl from high school. You can get her to like you, but you have to get everyone else to like you first.” Two ways to do that are to link internal pages to other pages as I’ve done here and use PR to get other websites to link to yours (we can help you with that). The more links you have from other credible websites, the more credible it makes your website. It’s like authority on steroids. And it’s critical for SEO.
Five Winning SEO Strategies
Google doesn’t rank websites. It ranks webpages. It takes a high-level view of organic search, web traffic, and analytics to understand just how nuanced SEO can be. Here are some strategies to get you on the right track:
- Get your technical ducks in a row: Can a search engine easily explore your website? Does your site adapt for mobile users? If you have a WordPress site, do you have the best SEO plugins?
- Review your benchmark metrics. Use Moz.com to measure current SEO, calculate domain authority, figure out which keyphrases lead to your site and compare to competitors.
- Look at your website with fresh eyes. SEO efforts mean nothing if your website doesn’t provide the information searchers need. Make sure your content is useful and relevant.
- Get more media mentions. Credible external links are absolute treasures when it comes to SEO. The more media coverage (and subsequent links to your site), the higher you’ll rank.
- Invest in SEO. SEO is an ongoing process that evolves over time. You must execute and test different tools, content and data. One of the best resources for this is a PR and marketing agency well versed in SEO, like C3PR.We’ll take care of all the tech and tactics – and help with #4 above too.
If the thought of handing off SEO makes you breathe a sigh of relief, email mar@c3pr.com. We’ve got you covered.
[1] Source: Andy Crestodina, MarketingProfs contributor and Orbit Media CMO
