Search Engine Optimization Basics
Some business owners are familiar with SEO basics, but many misunderstand how and where SEO should be applied. Certainly, any business website should be strategically optimized to be found in the search results, but that’s just a beginning.
Even if outsourcing your SEO to us, it's important to have a solid understanding of best SEO practices. That's why, when we provide SEO service we also explain the basics, so our clients have a general understanding of the strategies we put in place to help achieve the desired results.
First Steps
Optimization Success
It starts with a fast, sleek, SEO ready business website. Your site should look good to visitors, be easy to navigate and include dynamic, fast loading pages. It should be pleasing to search engines and humans alike. We’re not just talking about loading up a good SEO plugin and thinking the job is done! Each page or post should provide interesting content, focus on one keyword and contain great on page SEO. Done right, identifying and mapping the right keywords is a time consuming process, but this is basic search optimization and should never be skipped.
Website Structure
Creating a well organized site structure right from the start will go a long ways in helping to avoid duplicate content in the future. This is especially true if your site is built on WordPress. You might be surprised at the number of websites we discover to contain loads of unecessary duplicate content. To the untrained eye, duplicate content can happen without even knowing it, often hurting your SEO as opposed to helping.
Local Business
Local SEO Needed
If your business serves the local community you'll want your website to be coded with special, structured data. You’ll also want to set up profiles in dozens of local listing directories. Chances are, your business is already included in these listings, but often the listings are incorrect or missing information.
Off Site Local SEO
Most directories allow you to sign up and take at least some control of what is being displayed. Ues, we at Four Chord provide this specialized local SEO service Again, always include a link back to your website.
Your Website is Your Hub
Social Media
Using your website as the hub, it's best to create or edit each of the major social network pages. Even though it's usually a nofollow type link, it's still advisable to include a link back to your website.
Take advantage of whatever profile set up options are allowed and be sure display your brand consistently across all networks. At the very least, your business social pages should appear on Facebook & Twitter. We almost always recommend Instagram and LinkedIn as well. It’s important that each profile be written with SEO in mind but it should sound natural and flow nicely for your followers. There’s more, but these are the basics.
Of course, we offer social media services enabling our clients to remain focused on their business, while we maintain their social networks.
Advice
Getting Started
Setting up your website and social pages take time. If done with search engine optimization basics in mind it will require planning and strategy. If hiring a firm to do some or all of this work, be sure to do the research necessary and choose wisely. Most offer a free one time consultation and this is a good opportunity for the consultant and the client to determine if they would be a good fit.
There are many self proclaimed SEO experts out there but be very carefull if you are approached. We’ve all received those spam notifications trying to talk us into using their magic formula’s and achieve almost instant success. Just remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
There are plenty of experienced, dedicated and qualified SEO consultants available so be sure to talk to trusted associates for referrals. When working with a qualified SEO consultant, trust is built up over time. It’s definitely a team work type of approach and requires cooperation from both sides to achieve success.
Get Results
Next Steps
The goal is to provide optimized web pages and content to help your business be found online. This is an achievable goal but it takes planning, hard work and time. We can help maximize the results and shorten this process, but each client partner must do their part as well.
We have been providing SEO services for years and we know we can help you too. Let's see if we're a good fit for each other. It costs nothing for a free consultation
If you prefer, we also offer PPC services to achieve fast results. However, some creative PPC can be used to quickly test keywords, reducing the time needed to achieve the optimum organic search results. Typically, a healthy mix of basic search engine optimization coupled with a dose of paid ads will achieve both immediate and long term results.