Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a way to increase not only the quantity but also the quality of visitors to your website.

SEO is often overlooked and undervalued by most small businesses, which can hinder online business presence and growth. SEO is all about making sure a webpage is on target with their content and delivering it in a fast and easy to understand format for visitors.

I diligently stay up-to-date on all the changes that can affect page rankings. How it all works, especially the technicalities of the algorithms is beyond most understanding, however, I have it figured out enough to get the pages I work with to rank on Google first page (local) organically, meaning no investment in Adwords.

My friends and clients have referred to me as their local SEO guru. I’m not normally a chatty person when I first meet someone but mention SEO and be prepared to hear all about it! I can get a bit wordy about everything, but I’m going to break things down for you in an easy to understand way.

There are many factors that play into the Google and Bing algorithms, which are starting to make their way into the Facebook algorithm as well.

Here are a few key SEO elements that websites absolutely need going into 2020 and beyond.

SSL Certificates – You can tell if a site is secure by the way the address appears in the search bar: if it says “https” you are good to go! An SSL Certificate shows that a site is secure and a visitor can securely browse and even submit their personal information, such as credit cards or drivers license number, and not have it floating out there in cyberspace. Google is making this a priority on sites for raking and those without it will get penalized for not securing their sites, thus making the site lose precious organic ranking.
Optimization & Responsiveness – From images to video and even the website themes, this is key to a great website as it helps the pages to load quickly. Example: if you are a photographer and have a vast amount of images on your page, you want them optimized, which serves them to visitors in a loosely compressed size instead of loading every image in at full size. If a page takes too long to load, chances are someone is going to bounce out of your site and go to your competition who has a faster page load time. Most themes available today are responsive meaning that they adapt whether a user is on a desktop, tablet, or mobile phone.
Pagespeed both desktop and especially mobile – Google’s latest algorithm change implemented their new “Mobile-first” ranking. This is where the optimization and responsiveness factors come into play. It doesn’t matter if the majority of your traffic is from a desktop, all websites are now being ranked according to their mobile responsiveness and speed.
Consistent and comprehensive keywords – This includes singular keywords and long-tail keywords, which are not only custom to the niche your business is in, but also the phrases people sometimes look for online. Long-tail keywords are becoming more prominent with devices that have voice-activated searches such as Siri, Cortana, and Alexa. It is not enough to initially tag your site and let it go. Consistent updating and comprehensive keyword searches are tantamount. I specialize in local SEO and have the right tools at my disposal to facilitate proper up-to-date and trending keywords.

These are just a few of the main factors that can either help or hinder your web presence.

It’s good to have someone experienced and knowledgeable handling this for your business while you handle your front end day-to-day and focus on growing your business.

Leave your Digital Media and Local SEO to Laura with Outside The Bock – I can do this and more for your website and help get more people through your front door!