SEO Strategies for Building a Website Google Loves to Rank

What is SEO?

SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is all about tweaking your website to climb up the search engine rankings. It’s been around since the late nineties, but it’s a field that’s always changing. That means you’ve got to keep learning and adapting to stay on top of your game.

There are two flavors of SEO: white hat and black hat. White hat SEO follows the rules set by search engines like Google, while black hat SEO tries to game the system with sneaky shortcuts. But beware: if you get caught using black hat tactics, your site could get penalized. So, it’s best to play by the rules.

When it comes to SEO, content is king. Google loves fresh, relevant content, so keep those articles and blog posts coming. But be warned, SEO can get pricey, especially in competitive fields like law. Getting into the top search results for your target keywords can cost a pretty penny.

Behind the Scenes of the Google Algorithm

Google holds a dominant position in the search engine landscape, with two primary objectives: profitability and ensuring a positive user experience.

The Google algorithm assesses numerous factors to deliver optimal search results for any given keyword. While the algorithm remains somewhat enigmatic and subject to frequent changes, certain principles hold true. Google favors websites that consistently publish fresh, pertinent content, load swiftly (within three seconds), address user inquiries effectively, provide a secure browsing environment, and offer a user-friendly, responsive design.

Content serves as the cornerstone of an effective SEO strategy. In addition to content, various technical aspects of a website, such as security measures, loading speed, domain age, broken links, and duplicate content, significantly influence SEO performance.

Achieving higher rankings and driving web traffic necessitates a website with relevant content and a seamless technical infrastructure.

The Three Main Components of SEO

When it comes to ranking websites, Google considers three key factors:

1. Relevancy: This pertains to how well a website addresses the queries users are searching for. Does the content on the page directly relate to the user’s search term? Simply trying to match keywords without providing valuable answers won’t cut it.
2. Popularity: This aspect examines the number of links pointing back to the website. Are reputable and influential sites linking back to it? We’re talking about sites with significant followings or industry authority, not just small-scale blogs.
3. Integrity: This encompasses the technical aspects of a website, such as page speed, accessibility, and mobile responsiveness. Is the website quick to load and free from technical glitches? If not, it’s time to address these issues.

Outstanding websites incorporate all three elements, ensuring they provide relevant content, attract authoritative backlinks, and maintain strong technical performance. Google prioritizes websites that offer informative content and provide a positive user experience.

Creating the Blueprint for Your Overall Web Strategy

SEO strategies often fail for various reasons, but the most common pitfall is a lack of planning. Success in SEO hinges on crafting a personalized strategy blueprint before diving into website development.

Start by establishing pillar pages centered around broad topics, then create cluster pages that explore specific sub-topics. Internal linking between these pages is crucial for building authority and coherence.

For companies, it’s essential to prioritize topics relevant to their audience’s needs. What questions are potential customers asking? What information is crucial for them?

Additionally, studying competitors’ strategies and dissecting the approaches of top-ranking sites for desired keywords can offer valuable insights.

Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Screaming Frog are invaluable resources for conducting competitor analysis and fine-tuning SEO strategies.

Your Digital Marketing Team

When a company decides to implement an SEO strategy, they have the option to handle it internally or enlist the services of an agency. For most firms, outsourcing to an agency makes financial sense rather than managing digital marketing functions in-house (which can be quite costly).

Agencies offer a range of services essential for an effective SEO and digital marketing strategy. These include technical SEO, web development, copywriting, graphic design, link building, paid media, public relations, analytics, and social media management.

It’s crucial for companies to ask the right questions when considering potential agency partners and to have a clear understanding of what they require to hold the agency accountable for results.

Key Questions to Ask:

• “Why do your services come at such a low price?”
• “What roles will be included in the team working on our project?”
• “Can we speak with a current or former client to gauge their experience?”
• “Do you have a dedicated graphic designer and technical SEO expert?”
• “Is there a content team available? Can you provide examples of their work?”

A proficient SEO team comprises individuals skilled in content creation, technical SEO management, and continuous result monitoring to offer valuable recommendations for improvement.

Tools to Help You Measure Success

Google serves as a potent tool for gauging the success of an SEO strategy. Within the Google suite, you’ll find resources to identify technical website issues, detect duplicate or plagiarized content, and spot opportunities for enhancing link building efforts.

Some useful commands within Google:

• site:yourdomain.com -inurl:https
• site:yourdomain.com intitle:your keyword
• cache:yourdomain.com
• Searching for “potentially stolen content from your website” followed by site:yourdomain.com
• Combining “[your keyword]” with phrases like “write for us,” “guest post,” “write for me,” or “become a contributor” can reveal relevant opportunities.

Google Search Console and Google Analytics are indispensable for monitoring website progress and pinpointing technical enhancements.

Third-party tools also offer valuable assistance in keyword research, competitive analysis, technical site auditing, and backlink analysis. These include:

• Ahrefs: For backlink analysis, keyword research, competitive analysis, and rank tracking.
• Semrush: Conducts technical SEO audits, tracks rankings, analyzes competitor strategies, and suggests relevant keywords.
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Identifies broken links, audits redirects, analyzes page titles and metadata, detects duplicate content, and generates XML sitemaps.
• Copyscape: Checks for plagiarized content on your website and alerts you to stolen instances.
• Siteliner: Identifies internal duplicate content, broken links, and provides reports on page optimization.
• BrightLocal: Tracks local rankings, builds citations, offers local SEO reporting, and manages reputation and reviews.
• Podium: Manages online reviews, facilitates communication with customers, and provides competitive benchmarks.
• UserWay: Enables accessibility enhancements, reads text aloud, moderates offensive content, and reduces liability.

Choosing the right tools is crucial for designing and executing an effective SEO strategy. It’s essential to research and understand the functionalities of these tools thoroughly.

In the upcoming chapter, we’ll dive deeper into content strategy essentials to ensure your strategy is comprehensive and effective.

Content Strategy

As discussed earlier, content stands as a cornerstone in any SEO strategy. Content manifests in diverse forms, including written copy, infographics, and videos.

When devising their content strategy, companies should contemplate integrating the following components:

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Glossary of common industry terms
• Relevant codes or regulations pertinent to their industry or location
• Pages dedicated to various products or services
• An informative “About Us” section
• Profiles of team members or key personnel
• Contact details
• Updates on press releases, news, and upcoming events
• Information about community engagement or corporate social responsibility efforts
• Opportunities for career advancement or job openings
• Engaging social media posts
• A blog section (if updated regularly)

Defining a target audience or demographic aids in determining content focus areas, thereby shaping the content strategy.

To mitigate issues related to keyword cannibalization, it’s imperative to optimize individual pages for specific keywords and FAQs.

Content accumulates significance over time. Google’s algorithm places considerable emphasis on content. Without it, Google’s functionality would be severely limited. Therefore, companies should prioritize cultivating a robust online presence through consistent and high-quality content creation.

Increasing Your Website’s Popularity One Link at a Time

When it comes to enhancing a website’s popularity, links play a pivotal role. Companies rely on relevant backlinks to their websites for this purpose.

In the realm of links, quality surpasses quantity. Acquiring a few high-quality backlinks holds more value than obtaining numerous low-quality ones. In fact, an excess of backlinks from a single referring domain can be detrimental, as it’s crucial to have a diverse array of referring domains to establish site authority.

Companies can analyze the backlink profiles of their top-ranking competitors and strive to acquire similar high-quality backlinks. Sometimes, competitors may resort to negative SEO tactics to undermine a website’s ranking. In response, companies should actively monitor their backlink profiles and promptly disavow toxic links by submitting a disavow file.

Desirable links originate from trusted directories and reputable domains such as YouTube and LinkedIn. Some companies offer scholarships to secure backlinks from prestigious .edu websites, as Google assigns significant value to .edu domains.

Effective link-building strategies demand considerable time and consistent effort. To outperform competitors in search engine rankings, websites must secure as many or more backlinks from authoritative sites.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO involves the behind-the-scenes elements of a website that Google considers when determining its ranking.

Often, people assume that web developers take care of this aspect. However, technical SEO requires a different skill set. While companies don’t need to know every detail, they should understand what to focus on and which questions to ask to hold a technical SEO specialist accountable.

Key aspects to consider from a technical SEO perspective include:

• Crawl depth
• Cannibalizing pages
• Duplicate content
• Broken links
• Crawl errors
• Slow page speed
• Mobile accessibility
• URL structure

A thorough technical SEO strategy begins with a comprehensive site audit to identify errors and areas for improvement. Google Search Console proves invaluable for technical SEO as it identifies website issues and facilitates communication with Google.

Engaging a technical SEO specialist or a dedicated agency can ensure these aspects are managed effectively.

Getting Onto Google Maps

When individuals search for services online, Google uses location data to generate search results.

It’s crucial for companies to claim their business on google.com/business and ensure that the NAP (name, address, and phone number) listed on Google matches the information displayed on their website.

Companies should add as much detail as possible in their Google Business Profile listing. This includes adding a description, photos, videos, address, website link, business category, contact information, questions and answers, hours, and social media profiles to provide Google with the necessary information to validate the business.

The Google Business Profile dashboard offers insights into potential clients’ behavior. Businesses can use this tool to manage their business account and learn strategies to enhance their rankings in search results and incoming phone calls.

It’s advisable for companies to enlist a Google Trusted Photographer to capture a 360-degree panoramic tour of their office. This content is valuable for the Google Business Profile, contributing to a trusted citation for the business and positively impacting the Google algorithm.

To enhance credibility for their business listing, companies should:

• Respond promptly to both positive and negative reviews within 48 hours.
• Avoid using virtual offices or P.O. boxes for their listing’s location.
• Pay attention to insights provided on the Google Business Profile dashboard.

For businesses with multiple physical office locations, it’s recommended to create separate GBP listings, tracking phone numbers, social media pages, and other association accounts/pages (such as the Better Business Bureau) for each location.

By incorporating numerous photos and videos with GPS location enabled, businesses can further enhance their online presence and attract potential clients.

The Importance of Photos and Videos in Your Strategy

As highlighted earlier, Google highly values photo and video content. Its algorithm utilizes AI technology to interpret and assign value to this content, making it essential for companies to incorporate photos and videos on their website.

Google links keywords with the images it processes. Companies can visit cloud.google.com/vision to ascertain which keywords Google associates with the photos they’re contemplating.

Moreover, it’s advisable for companies to strategically label the images and videos on their website with keywords they aim to rank for. Instead of generic names like ‘image_1’, opting for descriptive titles such as ‘rustic farmhouse decor ideas’ enhances content optimization, aiding Google in better comprehension.

Employing high-quality images and videos enhances user experience and drives traffic to a website. Companies can further retain user engagement by hosting videos on their own servers rather than platforms like YouTube, minimizing the chances of users navigating away from the site.

While producing quality video and photo content may incur expenses, it proves to be a worthwhile investment. Not only does it attract new backlinks and boost Google rankings, but it also generates leads that can potentially translate into signed contracts for a company.

Turning Web Traffic Into Cases

SEO represents a long-term investment that steers traffic towards a website. However, once visitors land on the site, how can companies enhance their chances of converting leads into tangible outcomes?

When individuals dial a company’s phone number listed on their site, it’s important for them to encounter a positive experience. A proficient intake team armed with tested scripts, crafted to treat potential clients with empathy while gathering pertinent information, plays a pivotal role in ensuring this.

Moreover, the website itself must deliver a favorable user experience. Accessibility holds significance: ensuring the site caters to individuals using screen readers, captions, or other accessibility tools is imperative for inclusive online interaction.

Companies, or their appointed agencies, should regularly test website content to optimize conversion rates. Conducting A/B tests on different webpage versions or specific content elements like call-to-action buttons or headlines enables firms to gauge user response and fine-tune their site for increased conversions, be it clicks, calls, sales, or other desired actions.

The overarching objective of SEO is to channel traffic that culminates in tangible outcomes. Hence, it’s imperative for companies to diligently enhance user experiences on their website and streamline the phone intake process, ultimately elevating their conversion rates.

Negative SEO

Negative SEO encompasses black hat SEO tactics and other malicious maneuvers aimed at undermining a company’s Google rankings. These actions could involve individuals attempting to manipulate SEO processes for their own gain or to harm their competitors.

Various methods can be employed in negative SEO attacks, including:

1. Spammy backlinks
2. Removal of legitimate backlinks
3. Exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated plugins
4. Creating clone websites
5. Posting fake reviews

These are just a few examples of how such attacks can occur. It’s imperative for companies to safeguard their rankings and fortify their websites against potential threats.

Google Search Console serves as a frontline defense against negative SEO, providing a means for website owners to receive alerts and address any identified issues communicated by Google.

Unfortunately, as technology progresses, instances of negative SEO are likely to become more prevalent. Therefore, it’s vital for companies to recognize the menace posed by negative SEO and take proactive measures to defend against it.

SEO Conclusion

Performed effectively, SEO stands as an investment in the triumph of a company – or any business reliant on its online visibility to secure leads and drive sales.

Though the initial outlay of hiring an agency might seem considerable, proficient SEO initiatives accrue value over time, delivering substantial returns on investment.