The World Wide Web has allowed people all over the world to get information, about virtually anything, all within a matter of seconds! Whether you’re on an old-fashioned desktop computer, a laptop, your phone, or tablet, you can look up anything and get results--FAST! Just open your browser to Google or Yahoo, or whatever browser you’re using, and type something in. Looking for a shopping mall nearby or hotel? What about food or hot attractions? Type it in. After you click the search magnifying glass or hit enter, you will find pages and pages of things that relate to your inquiry. The numerous results will load, allowing you to scroll down different websites that will direct you to a blog, Wikipedia, YouTube video, newspaper article, or other website. Whatever comes up may or maybe be what you’re looking for, but they will most likely be relevant, in some way or manner depending, on what (words or phrases) you searched for. The words that you input in your search query will determine what comes up in your search results feed, but only the highest ranked options will be at the top.
Though search engines widely benefit consumers or users, it isn’t just them that heavily rely on search engines and their ability to screen out and pull up the most relevant information. Whoever has information to share also depends on search engines to attract consumers to their site. If you have a blog, article, YouTube video, or information that you want to share, you will greatly desire for a vast amount of people to see your content. If not, why would you publish it? You would have instead kept it hidden. All websites want to be viewed and heavily populated. That is why, if you own a business or have a website, it’s important for you to know about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, and how it works.
SEO is a marketing component that allows your website to be found, or visible, based on keywords or phrases people search for. So, if your site contains content, information, products, or other services, you will want to know how SEO works because it can help your website gain more traffic and improve your site rankings. The higher a site is ranked, the more prominent it will be displayed on a search result page and the more visitors the site will have. However, this can be a rather confusing concept to understand because of its complexities. You may be wondering, “So how do you get higher rankings?”
Well, we’ve already explored some of the basics, but let’s quickly review. People use search engines to find topics, information, people, or things. They could be looking for a Mediterranean restaurant, a used car, a reasonably priced TV, a wedding photographer, a doula, or the nearest Urgent Care. Whatever it is, people have been trained to “Google” it. They use search engines to help them find what they need, sort through the wealth of information, and to get the best results. Most people will click on the first few results, and few people actually click on pages after the first page, that is why the competition is so aggressive and fierce to get the number one spot.
If you want your business or website to be found, you have to utilize the SEO marketing features and tactics to operate your site according to the way SEO works. If your site has very little traffic or visitors, it’s likely that your site isn’t visible or well known to search engines. SEO can help you gain more visitors, engagement, and give your more exposure. For businesses, the more visitors you have, the more sales you make, and more sales mean more revenue. Website visibility can ensure the success of any growing business. Seeing your business name first on a search result page is profitable marketing, not to mention a free and desirable result of SEO.
Let me explain more. The first thing that needs to happen when a search engine gathers data for a search query is to sort through all the loads of stuff and pull up the most relevant sources. The two things that help a search engine determine whether or not your site is useful for the consumer is based on how relevant and popular the site is. A search engine determines your site’s usefulness by keywords and other factors. Additionally, the more popular or the more times a page is visited tells search engines that the content is valuable and reliable. Search engines detect the popularity and relevance of a site by algorithms or mathematical formulas, which give out ranking signals.
Sounds easy enough, right? Not exactly. It takes times for your site because it is competing with all the other hundreds of sites offering similar products, services, or content. SEO requires patience, and cannot be done overnight. In reality, for these algorithms or formulas to shift, change and find your site, it can take between 3-6 months (or longer), that is if you remove all barriers and hindrances from preventing your page from being found. It’s important to understand the market of your industry, along with researching and reviewing the analytics that pertain to your specific content. Thus, determining why your page is not being seen is a vital part in fixing and resolving your SEO problems.
Further, search engines are always updating their algorithms. This is why it takes time to move up in ranking. Your site has to be distinguishable to Google and other search engines, which means your web page is being compared to other websites offering similar data, news, or advice. This also requires time. We must improve your ranking, which will then cause your site to climb to the top of the page. You know it, and I know it. People want their information fast and will typically not search several pages to find what they’re looking for. If your page ranks high, it will climb its way to the top, to be displayed on the first page results of a search query. Being visible, or at the top of the result list will create the most traffic for your website.
Because search engines are not human, they need assistance in determining whether a site has valuable information for the consumer or not. That is why key phrases or words are so important. Search engines depend on words to retrieve information for their users, by crawling and indexing pages. Instead of sorting through the billions of pages, a web crawler or spider bot, strategically and systematically pulls information from storehouses that already house those popular search results. These are favored sites that are indexed, and saved on hand for quick accessibility. That is how search data can be compiled so quickly, because they don’t have the time to go through every single possibility. Therefore, the unpopular content gets pushed to the back and rarely ever gets seen.
For example, if you’re selling food, you would want the word “food” to be found by search engines and their crawling technique. However, if you serve Mexican food, you’d want to specify that. If your main dish is tacos, then you’d obviously want taco listed on your site. The best way to get your page in higher ranking is to have those words in the titles and content. Being that tacos is a common word, you should make your words or phrases more specific. You may offer vegan tacos of gluten free tacos. The more specific your words are, the better chance you have of standing out in the competition because less results that come up for an inquiry means fewer competition.
However, it is important to not overuse keyword or phrases, but only use them in a strategic and intelligent fashion. It is only best to use keywords two or three times, depending on how much content you have. You want people to come to your site because of what you have to offer, not based on how many times you can use a word. Repeating words can cause search engines to believe your content is strictly spam. If you’re like the majority of users, site owners, or myself, then you hate spam. Repeating words will indicate to crawlers that you are a spammer. Furthermore, it is important not to copy information from other sites because duplicate content causes pages to be ranked low. Search engines see this and rank the site low, pushing it to the back of the list. This is why it is ever so important that your page, wording, and content be original and unique. These are all things I can help with, and specialize in.
To optimize your website, I would consider a number of things. Firstly, you may need to revise your content, or simply add more of it. As I already mentioned, the more unique the content, the better, and more content means more words for Google to see and target. Another way to increase your page’s popularity is with links. The more people click on your link, the more visitors land on your page, and the more popular it becomes. Links tell search engines that your page is reputable, safe, and trustworthy. There are a number of link building strategies, which is crucial to the success of your website. This is why it may be in your best interest to get in contact with an SEO professional, such as myself, to take care of all of your SEO needs.
Other things to consider is your web page design. Is your page intuitive, friendly, and easy-to-use? User experience is just as vital in having and maintaining a webpage. Users don’t have the time to try and figure out where the information is. They want it readily available. No one wants to visually filter out or sort through a mess of content, so they will more than likely leave your site if it is full of clutter. It is also important to make it mobile friendly, as the vast majority of people are on the go and using their phones or tablets to get information. Likewise, your site should be easy to navigate, meaning, users use the least amount of time to get where they want to go. The amount of time you’ve had your domain and website should also be taken into consideration, and even the how long someone stays on your site is factored in where you will rank.
You may be able to learn more about SEO yourself. If you do, you’d surely be part of the millions of people who have already read up on or researched SEO. You can try gaining more visitors and improve your sites ranking by more advertising or marketing strategies. You can also take tips or suggestions from this site, or other sites. People have also taken classes on SEO and watched videos. All of which can be tiring and time consuming. Or, you can contact someone who already has the knowledge, skills, and expertise, such as myself.
As you can see, SEO can be tricky if you aren’t familiar with all the complexities, not to mention competition. Those you are in your competing circle are also aware of SEO and doing what they can to boost their ranking as well. SEO takes time, but it is also an ongoing process. As soon as you stop working on it, a competitor will take the #1 spot. All of these details can be overwhelming or discouraging, but they don’t have to be. I’d be happy to provide my SEO services and web page design competence to save you a great deal of time, by doing what I enjoy most.
Honestly, SEO guidelines are always being reinvented, changing, and developing; so, if you are serious about improving your ranking, please get a hold of me. I am up for the challenge! I may not be able to improve your ranking overnight, or get you to the top of the list in a week (I doubt anyone can do that), but I work with many local businesses and deliver the best SEO practices and quality site management. Remember that SEO require patience, but be assured that I will do the job right. Some of the ways you can reach me is via email, chat, or phone.