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Breaking Down The Basics Of SEO!

Breaking Down The Basics Of SEO!

Why do many modern day businesses allocate nearly half of their marketing budget to SEO? A very specialized marketing skill set + time consuming work – SEO strategy is not only linked to web traffic but your business as a whole, bleeding over into reputation management (maps profiles, 3rd party business profiles, social media profiles, etc). Robust SEO leads to long-term success!

If you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past 30 years and don’t know (which is okay, btw. We’re jealous of your under-rock-hiding skills) – SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO increases visibility to end users who are searching for related items or services on search engines like Google (mostly), DuckDuckGo (here and there), or Bing (rarely). In the simplest of descriptions, the better your SEO, the more likely you are to appear front and center to your target audience on organic search results (the results tucked right up under the block of ads).

This is Chess, Not Checkers

We always tell clients that SEO is a lot like Chess (a ton of strategic moves) vs Checkers (fast, simple moves). There are a ton of small strategic factors that go into “good” SEO. Don’t just read this blog post and think those are the only things to keep in mind.

High Level Nerdy Stuff

Search engines create indexes from the web with algorithms and analysis of pages, to ensure users are able to locate precisely what they are searching for efficiently. This is where things like keywords and content quality come into play. And just in case you are wondering what keywords are, they are basic phrases or commonly searched terms in your industry. In order to effectively optimize your website for the purpose of reaching the end user, you will need to inject your website with these items. Doing so will also help your overall ranking on search engines as well, so instead of appearing on page ten of a search on Google, you may just score the number one spot if done right!

User Experience Matters

If/when someone does find your website, their user experience is very important and must be kept in mind! Remember your audience has a lot of options out there and you need to hold their attention! Don’t just keyword stuff your site to get ranked, then have people weeding through gibberish once they get to your site – which leads us to our next topic…

Nevermind What Nike Told You – Don’t Do It

!Warning! Do not just regurgitate a bunch of keywords into a pile on your page (referred to ask keyword stuffing). Rather, sprinkle in your keywords in a more organic/natural manner. We like to tell people to be “over descriptive” rather than keyword stuff. Ideally, you want your content to still make sense when people actually find your page/site. You don’t want them to struggle to make sense of your copy because you decided to force feed them your favorite keywords all at once.

Slow Page Load Speeds Kill

Slow page load speeds kill SEO, kill conversions, and kill your visitors’ will to live. The faster the better – in general, under 3 seconds to full load is okay, but getting under 2 seconds is a better goal.

Do Mobile Devices Really Matter?

Stop it. You know the answer to that question. If you don’t, then you probably should hand over the keys to your business and slowly walk away. With more users than ever on mobile, you need your site performing well on mobile – and ideally getting on the right side of Google’s mobile first search results. It depends on your industry, but many of our clients see 60-75% of their overall traffic coming from mobile. Even our lowest ratios tend to be 50% mobile, 50% desktop/laptop. Act/code accordingly.

You Get What You Pay For

We understand budgets and do not judge anyone on their decisions when trying to save money – but don’t be surprised when you get what you pay for. That guy on fiverr for $15 does not know what he’s doing (usually) and the overseas contractor that will get you “#1 in search results in 30 days” for $300 is not being honest (or is doing sketchy stuff that could get you blacklisted later). Make sure to consult a professional (you thought you’d get out of this without a reminder to call us?)

#getWIDSIX

Make it easy on yourself and get some WIDSIX in your life. Want to learn more about all the other fun stuff that goes into SEO to propel your business? Connect with us today! We’d be happy to audit your site and give you some solutions.