Search engine optimization (SEO) is a principle that employs various tactics intended to attract search engines to a website. The more often a search engine visits and crawls a website, the more familiar it becomes with the content it contains. Over time, search engines use the data collected through crawling to index website pages. When a user types a search query into a browser for a topic or the answer to a question, the search engine provides website suggestions to best match the query. SEO aids in website ranking because higher ranking sites appear more often in search results than those with a lower ranking.
How To Help Your Company Website
Website owners have lists of SEO tactics to use to help their websites get noticed by search engines. The following are some of the best ones well worth using immediately. Keep in mind that it may take weeks or months to see any major change, but there will be positive change.
Tactic #1 – Building BacklinksView Post
Backlinks are simply links that originate from other websites that end at yours. Backlinks are considered one of the cornerstones of a good SEO strategy. What makes backlinks so valuable is that they send natural referral traffic to other sites. The sites receiving this unique traffic are viewed by search engines as being credible and reputable sources of information. Two of the easiest ways to build backlinks are through guest posting on other websites within your niche, and through internal backlinking within your own website. Both improve ranking.
Tactic #2 – Keyword Research
This is another cornerstone of SEO. Without keywords, SEO would not exist. However, you can’t just use any keywords. To find the best ones for your niche, you have to conduct some keyword research. There are many tools online you can use for free to help with this. Don’t forget to include alternate keywords and long-tail keywords. A keyword is a word that best identifies something and is understood by search engines. For example, if you are a dentist, the word “dentist” is a keyword. Others may include “dentistry,” “teeth cleaning” and so on.
Tactic #3 – Watch Competitors
If your niche is dominated by a website of a competitor, you can still improve your positioning. All you have to do is give their website a close look. Then try to determine the following: how do they format content (is there a pattern?)? What’s the content’s word count? Are images or videos contained in the content? How many? What sources are used? The more you can learn about what your competitors are doing online to outrank you, the more you can implement the same ideas on your site to take back some of their footholds and improve your website rankings.
Tactic #4 – Make Use of Journalism
Newspapers and other forms of journalism continue to cut through all the advertising and other clickbait scams that tend to clog up internet space. Getting some press support for your website helps SEO efforts considerably. All you have to do is create a press release about an event or moment worth sharing that involves your business or brand. Then distribute it to various publications. Start with smaller, niche publications within your industry and work up from there. It will be worth the work you put into it.
Tactic #5 – Cornerstone Content
There is content, and there is cornerstone content. The latter is a set of articles that include the most vital presentation of your business or brand, and the top keywords relevant to your company. Cornerstone content stands out from other content because it’s well-researched, well-written, authoritative, and long. Normally anywhere between 1,500 and 2,500 words. You use cornerstone content as the foundation of all other content – there should be a connection between them. Plus, cornerstone content gives you great places to backlink to on your site.
Tactic #6 – Outsource
Let’s face it, keeping up on all the SEO chores you need to take care of daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly to keep your website noticed by search engines can easily turn into a full-time job. This can be problematic if your full-time job is running the business your website is promoting. Some of the tasks you find hard to consistently complete with good quality can easily be farmed out. For example, there are countless freelance platforms featuring talented people who can write content, test pages, or use other SEO tactics at affordable prices.
Tactic #7 – Snag Leads
As reported by Marina Turea of Digital Authority Partners,when you rank high in searches, you bring more traffic to your site. But what are you going to do with all of that fresh, new traffic? You could use an online form builder tool to stop some of that traffic long enough to fill out a contact form so you will be able to construct a mailing list. Without leads, you have no conversions. With leads, you have something to convert. Remember, when leads convert, they are now customers. It all starts by harnessing that traffic flow and finding out who these visitors are.
Final Thoughts
SEO is more than a strategy to get your website noticed by search engines. It is the tool that can ultimately help your business grow. However, you have to know how to use it effectively to see any significant benefit. By focusing on giving visitors to your website the information they need to make informed decisions about your product or service, you will see the popularity of your website increase. SEO helps you to outrank the competition, and stand out from all other businesses in your niche – local or regional. It gives you an advantage that traditional means of marketing cannot. It brings traffic to your business 24/7, expanding your exposure and increasing your revenues. SEO can make your business.
