What a Complete Search Engine Optimization Strategy Looks Like

17 Mar What a Complete Search Engine Optimization Strategy Looks Like

Search engine optimization is undoubtedly one of the most widespread and effective tactics to increase web presence. When users type queries into search engines, 75% of them never go past the first page of results; that means getting your business higher in the rankings will lead to much higher traffic and (if you’ve optimized your website for conversion) more leads. But search engine optimization is also a somewhat confusing topic for people who haven’t been following the evolution of the SEO industry for the past several years. There are essentially two ways of thinking about SEO, and neither one is complete without the other. Here’s what you should consider as you’re choosing search engine optimization services:

The Optimized/Non-Optimized Binary

In the early days of SEO, optimization was thought of primarily as an event; your website was non-optimized until you hired someone to optimize it. Although thinking in these binary terms is a bit behind the times, it’s a good reminder that on-page factors still affect search rankings, and those little technical matters — title tags, meta descriptions, anchor text, etc. — cannot be neglected.

Ideally, this kind of on-page SEO should occur when a site is first created (that’s one of the many reasons it’s worth hiring a professional web design company). But if your business has an existing website and you’re not getting the results you want, it’s very likely an SEO firm can get you an initial rankings boost by fixing up a few things on your website.

Using Content Marketing for SEO

SEO has moved far beyond technical manipulations, however, and into the realm of content marketing. That means SEO should be thought of as a consistent, ongoing marketing channel your business should invest in just as it might invest in billboards or radio ads. The good news is that content marketing costs about 62% less than traditional marketing channels while generating three times as many leads — that’s a great return on investment.

Why does content creation help SEO? On the simplest level, creating unique content allows for the incorporation of keywords that signal to the search engines that your page is relevant to certain searches (just remember that proper,natural incorporation of those keywords is the goal). Search engines also rank websites that have more pages and more frequently updated pages higher in the results, meaning that the regular updates facilitated by a blog, for example, fuel SEO. Companies that update their blogs more than 15 times a month get five times as much traffic. And finally, if you’re creating high-quality and useful content, you can earn backlinks as your content is shared across the web, another key ranking factor.

Do you agree that search engine optimization is one of the most effective marketing channels available to businesses? Discuss why or why not in the comments.