“Have Website, need traffic” … this is certainly a common need but where to start? Close to 70% of all Internet traffic is “delivered” by search engines (primarily Google, plus Bing, Yahoo and a host of lessor competitors). Search Engine Optimization (SEO)’s surface appeal is obviousnbsp;… if your site appears in the appropriate high results position, many search engine users will see it and the resultant clicks to your site are free. The “if” above is a big if. A Google test, as an example, for “lasik surgery” returns 12,600,000 organic search results. A search engine user is going to normally look at no more than the first two or three results pages (most will look at only the first page). To have substantial value, your site needs to appear, ideally, in the first 10 results (on the first page) and, at a minimum, in the first 30 results (within the first three pages). As you see, this is a sizable challenge given that over a million pages are often “competing” for the top positions and only 10 to 30 are going to be successful.
Google (and the lesser search engines) all have an unpublished formulas for determining which Website ranks first, second, third, … down to last. These formulas are more closely guarded, proprietary information … more secret than Colonel Sanders’ eleven secret herbs and spices or the ingredients in Coca-Cola.
There are literally thousands of firms offering SEO services. Most profess to know “how Google works” though none obviously do or they would be successful beyond belief. The vast majority of these firms are incompetent, ineffective or outright frauds. With that said, the challenge is not hopeless!
Honest and Affordable SEO Services!
Being completely transparent, you should first consider if SEO is the best path forward for you … there are other traffic building alternatives. At a minimum, I can point you in the direction of building an SEO optimized site without undertaking a formal SEO activity.
The pluses of SEO:
- Clicks are free.
- Some searchers regard organic search results as more important than sponsored (PPC) results.
The minuses of SEO:
- The clicks aren’t, of course, free when SEO time, effort and consulting costs are taken into consideration.
- It typically takes months from the commencement of your SEO activities to see tangible results.
- Optimization efforts are directed at only one or a few search terms (ie: may not be ideal if you offer a broad range of products or services.
- There’s no true guarantee of success.
- Your efforts are ongoing. Even if you achieve suitable positioning, Google (and the other search engines) change their formulas multiple times per year often requiring an at least a partial revamping of your SEO efforts.
Recommended Path Forward
I greatly prefer, and suggest you consider, mounting your SEO efforts on a WordPress driven site. If your site is not built on WordPress, weigh this migration first. There are many good reasons to do this (click here). From an SEO perspective, the motivating factors include:
Google and the lessor search engines have an affinity for WordPress sites: they index your entire site without issue, re-index it frequently and seem, in my observations, to rate WordPress sites higher than comparable non-WordPress sites.
There are scores of excellent SEO tools available as free or inexpensive WordPress plug-ins. WordPress powers 22.5% of the world’s Websites so it makes sense that the best tools are available here. I’m a better SEO consultant because of these superb add-ons often unavailable elsewhere.
Other available WordPress “feed syndication” plug-ins can add fresh new relevant content from news and other sites to your Website every few minutes. This “no effort” content addition can substantial expand the search phrases that will now link to your site’s content.
Yet other WordPress plug-ins can automatically notify key third-party sites each time you add selected content to your Website. The resultant links back to your site improve your search engine positioning (more on this later).
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There are three SEO sub-sets that potentially come into play based on your needs and budget. I’ve discussed each below.
On-Site SEO
The one and only SEO related item over which you have complete control is what’s on your Website … your site content. Because of this, SEO efforts here are typically productive and less expensive. I’ll work with you to insure:
- Your site content is appropriate to your selected keyword phrases.
- Your relevant “meta” (hidden page header content) is optimized. Note: “Meta” keywords are no longer considered by Google or any other major search engine (beware of any SEO firm who proposes to do anything with them … they’re incompetent)!
- Your important keywords are contained in your page “headline” tags and higher (versus lower) on the page.
- Your “keyword density” is appropriately optimized (using keywords too frequently is considered “keyword spamming” and reduces your page’s search engine results page positioning).
- Your images contain your keywords, as appropriate, in captions, alt tags and title tags.
- Your site’s home page content is optimized for your primary SEO objectives.
Link Building SEO
While I mentioned that the search engines’ algorithms are highly classified, what is known is that links to your site (called “in-bound links” or “backlinks”) are highly effective at increasing your SEO positioning if they come from the right sites.
By the right sites I mean sites with a worthwhile Google “page rank”. Google assigns every Website a page rank of 0 to 10. A link from a 0 page rank site is worth little or nothing. The rest of the page rank scale is logarithmic meaning a link from a page rank 2 site is worth 10 times more than a link from a page rank 1 site, a page rank 3 site link is worth 1000 times more and so forth.
Page links of value cannot be acquired by automated means. Another note: Beware of SEO firms who rely on any type of automated link builders … these are not effective and claims to the contrary are dishonest!
Because good link building is labor intensive, I typically work with clients to:
- Train local high school or college students to perform this function.
- Outsource this to India or other low labor cost countries.
Local SEO
If your service or trade area is not nationwide, I take additional steps to be sure your content is “geo-targeted”, as appropriate, by:
- State
- Cities, towns and suburbs
- Counties
- Zip codes
- Area nicknames
Do it Right … Don’t Get Your Website Penalized or Banned!
Google (and the other search engines) have strict content rules and guidelines. They call SEO techniques that violate these “blackhat SEO” and will penalize offender’s search results page positioning or even ban these sites from their search index all together. Examples of blackhat tactics include “cloaking”, “keyword stuffing” and hidden content.
Perhaps you read about J.C. Penney last January. They were paying an SEO firm $2,000,000 a month. Dispite this hefty compensation, their firm was employing blackhat tactics which, when discovered, caused Google to move Penny’s search results positioning backwards many pages for a six month period. BMW suffered a similar fate when their blackhat SEO efforts were discovered.
If global firms like these can be caught “cheating”, the obvious message is … do it right … perform your SEO within guidelines (use “whitehat” techniques)! I take meticulous care to do this.
I look forward to the opportunity of working with you to meet your SEO goals.
I collaborate effectively with clients all over the world using telephone, Email and live screen sharing ... ask for a reference list. You can contact me right now at 505.750.4728 or PatRiley@DigitalPersonalities.com!
