The goal of search engine optimization (SEO) is to increase traffic and conversions to your website.  Search engine optimization makes your website more relevant to the right people who are searching for the products or services you offer, and consequently more relevant to the search engines that index your site.  There are no search engine optimization secrets, only methodologies to rank your website for desired search keywords.  Search engine optimization is a long term process and only White Hat SEO techniques will win out in the end.  Check out our process for search engine ranking.

Keyword Analysis

Start by brainstorming keywords that are relevant to your business, once you have developed a list of industry terms, then look at your company from your customer’s perspective.  What keywords would your customer likely key in to search engines to find companies like you?  Write these down on paper. 

With a list is developed, we will submit the keywords to our keyword tools like Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery actual search engine query phrases and popularity.  We then scrub that list for any irrelevant terms and identify the top phrases you would like your website to rank for. 

Note: Key those phrases into search engines to determine the top 25 results for each of your desired keywords.  If a couple of companies keep coming up in your search results, then you know you are on the right track with your search engine optimization efforts.  Good search engine optimization will rank your website will for a many keywords, not just a couple.  Searchers do not necessarily think like you do, and typically type in 3-8 words in a search query.  We combine keywords to form long-tail queries to match your website to actual users’ behavior.

Keyword Implementation

On the web, content is king.  True search engine optimization is based on the content within your website.  With little content on your site, it will be difficult to optimize that content and rank well for any keywords on your list.  However, building content gives you the opportunity to integrate your secondary keywords that are relevant into your website to describe your primary keywords.  Consequently, content typically needs to be expanded as we begin to optimize your website. 

Your title tag will include only your top keywords.  Those keywords then will also be placed within the body of your content, supported by secondary keywords.  Each page within a site should have approximately 250 words for proper keyword density, and even more for information-focused audiences.  We also implement XML Sitemaps to enable easy search engine indexing.

With keywords properly embedded into the content, we will submit your website to search engines for indexing.  This process can take anywhere from days to weeks to see results, so if you have a regularly updated site, we will submit your site to search engines on a scheduled basis.

Link Building

Link building is a method that allows you to choose possible sites that are relevant to your offering and would be good supporting information to your website.  For instance, if you offer Red Wing Shoes, then you can find another website that sells Carhartt work apparel.  It is important to optimize your website for keywords before soliciting for links from other websites, as they will want to know what they are receiving from linking to you. 

Linking to other sites gives your website more search engine credibility.  If you rank to a lot of quality, trusted websites that are relevant to the words embedded in your website, search engine spiders see those links as reinforcement to rank your website higher in the search engine results for the keywords you are indexed for.  For example, if I sell organic coffee mugs made from mud in Africa, and Starbucks thinks my coffee mugs are great and accepts my link request, then I have gained search engine popularity by associating with a trusted website for coffee related keywords.

Measure and Refine

Search engine optimization is a continuous process to gain sustainable page ranking for competitive search terms.  With each step, we measure the results and refine the strategies implemented within your website.  Basic optimization will rank your site for localized phrases, but when your target is nationwide, it is a process that requires due diligence, intelligence and the strategies of an expert.  Many companies believe they can offer search engine optimization because they have read about it on the web.  However, an amateur SEO company can actually hurt your website ranking if they don’t know what they are doing.  The saying holds true for search engine optimization, “you will be hurt for your lack of knowledge.”