Why SEO?

Websites have different goals. Ecommerce websites need their visitors to view and buy products. For offline businesses, the website could be a way of making the company profile known and displaying the portfolio of services. Websites could also be a means to generate leads by making users take a specific action such as making a call, filling out an online form, or signing up for a newsletter. Sometimes, brand building and publicity are the objectives of a website. Websites can also have short term goals like publicizing an event or popularizing a product. In both those cases, the focus would be on community building and the desired action would be getting more followers on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Whatever the ultimate objective, the common goal for all these websites is to get more traffic. Ranking high on search engines is one way to get that. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in. A website also has other sources of traffic such as social media platforms, link directories, and article bases. Fortunately, the back link profile of a website, when built right, can help with both the SERPs and with gaining traffic independent of search engines. Here, we take a closer look at some of the basic services an SEO company provides.

Keyword Targeting and Research

Keywords are search phrases and words that users type in the search box when they are trying to find something online. It is important to know what your target audience is searching for and weave those keywords into your website. This gives your site a better chance of showing up for relevant searches.

Targeting the right keywords is an important part of SEO. Not only does it impact your ranking with the search engines, it also has a huge impact on the conversion rate. Keyword research involves finding out keywords which have a higher potential to convert using specialized tools such as Google AdWords.

Long tail keywords

Long tail keywords hold the key to quality traffic, even though they make up for a comparatively smaller portion of search results. Generic keywords can be extremely competitive when it comes to ranking. It can be difficult to outrank some of the bigger and older players in the market. However, long tail keywords are comparatively easier to rank for.

Long tail keywords also help you judge user intent more effectively. For example, the keyword “playstation” is a highly searched keyword and has the potential for being a massive source of traffic with a high enough ranking on the SERPs. However, you need to keep in mind that someone searching for “playstation” could be looking for anything from specifications to articles to reviews about it. However, those searching for “best deals on playstation 4” are much more likely to be considering an actual purchase and therefore, have a much higher potential for conversion.

On Page Optimization

On page optimization is all about using targeted keywords in all the key areas of a website. These include the title of the page, meta tags such as the meta description, alt tags which are used to describe images, and even built into the URL of the page itself. The targeted keywords are most effective when used in the ranking order of decreasing importance.

Title tag is what shows up as the title of the page in the search results in the big blue font on top. Meta description is the snippet of information which shows up under the page title. Both of these should contain the important keywords in a decreasing order of importance. The URL of the page should be built in such a way that it is descriptive and easy to read as well as containing a phrase that can cover several variations on an important keyword phrase. For example, when you build the phrase “10 easy birthday cake recipes” into a URL, you are targeting, “easy birthday cake recipes”, “easy cake recipes”, “cake recipes”, as well as “birthday cake recipes.”

Why are alt tags important?

Search engines cannot identify or classify images and videos. This makes adding alt tag information very important. Descriptive alt text that makes use of correct keywords helps with rankings and also with the image searches, which could be another source of valuable traffic. If the video and audio content posted on a page is meant to be considered by the search engines, a transcript should be provided on the page so that it can be indexed.

Back links

Apart from keywords, search engines assess the popularity of a webpage based on the link backs they receive from other websites. The number of back links as well as its value can have significant impact on the ranking of a page. These links can be a good source of valuable traffic on their own. As such, link building is an important part of an SEO expert’s job.

Search engines are constantly evolving and changing their algorithms to avoid spamming and unethical practices that hinder the users’ search experience by boosting websites irrelevant to the search topic with help of keywords. Hence, all back links are assigned value by the search engines based on authority, trust, and spam. Having links on trusted websites like Wikipedia or CNN pointing back to your site can have a positive impact on your site’s rankings.

The relevance of the website which links back to your site also matters. For instance, if you are a hotel owner, a link from a travel review blog will have a much better impact than from that of a tech review website. If there are too many links on a page apart from yours, that could also diminish the importance of the link back. SEO experts are constantly looking for new sources of high value back links in order to improve the back link profile of their clients’ website.

Competitive Analysis

Since SEO is all about ranking, it is – by its very nature – very competitive. Add to that, the fact that the search engines are constantly making changes to their algorithm to provide their users a better search experience by increasing the relevance of results and by cutting down on spam. An SEO expert needs to constantly be on his or her toes to make sure that their clients’ website is still ranking well even after algorithm changes by search engines. They also have to constantly monitor activity of websites that have a similar profile and also those who are competing for similar keywords. This helps figure out which strategies are working for the competitor and which ones are not. Any weakness in a competing website’s back link profile can also be used as a reference point while formulating an SEO strategy that helps the client move further up in organic rankings.

Conclusion

These are some of the most regular activities that anyone providing SEO services will engage in on an everyday basis on behalf of their clients. Some other actions are also performed on a periodic basis to boost the website’s profile and to drive even more high value traffic to the client’s website. These include but are not limited to directory submissions, article submissions, social bookmarking, and landing page optimization. Often, paid campaigns are run through search engines or social media platforms to boost a site’s visibility initially and to drive traffic to the website. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set at the beginning of the SEO campaign are tracked and monitored on a regular basis to evaluate the effectiveness of campaign strategy.