SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is something that I think people either know absolutely nothing about or have way too much (often times conflicting) knowledge about.
This one’s for all ya’ll who fall into the former category.
Let’s get our SEO hands dirty
Essentially, SEO is influencing the position of a website in the search rankings (usually, but not necessarily, for google). Often this means taking some website and making it show up higher in the search results (or “SERPs”) when someone searches specific terms (or “keywords”).
People and businesses generally want this to occur, since higher search rankings mean higher visibility and almost always more clicks.
Different types of SEO
I don’t want to get too technical here, but there are some different categories of SEO that someone can help you with.
On-page SEO
This is the one that most people think about. Essentially, it’s content. What is your article about, and what words do you use to express it? If you want to rank for when someone searches “best dogwalkers in Texas” and you don’t use the word “dogwalkers” anywhere in the article, there’s a significantly lower chance that you’re going to rank (i.e. be positioned well in the rankings). There’s much more to it than this, but let’s just say it’s content for now.
Off-page SEO
This one is underappreciated by the uninitiated, it’s all the stuff that is not on or part of your website that influences your ranking position. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on who you ask, this is a HUGE element of ranking.
So what is this stuff? Backlinks, first and foremost. Which websites link to your site, how do they link to your site, and how big is their site? If Microsoft links to you, you’re going to show up a lot higher in the SERPs than if your aunt’s daytime soap opera blog that is hacked and now offering free viagra links to you, or if nobody at all links to you.
This gets complicated, as the various methods of obtaining these links, essentially PR and outreach campaigns, are an entire field unto themselves.
Technical SEO
The least fun and generally important only if you are trying to assemble your website with a hammer, technical SEO is stuff in the backend, page loading times and site architecture.
If it’s decent to good, you probably won’t see much of a result from improving this, but if it’s bad, it’ll tank you. So if you’re getting nowhere fast for a long time in ranking and don’t have a strong idea of what you’re doing, hire somebody :o) to check it out.
Benefits of SEO
You probably should book some sort of consultation if you want specific information for your business, but just imagine all the things that could happen if you were the first result in Google for ANY term someone searched.
Assuming you wanted to be found for this term, you’d reap the benefits of increased visibility and traffic (i.e. people visiting your site), increased trust and conversation rates (i.e. sales or whatever you want people to do), and a situation that’s generally conducive to the growth of a business.
If you didn’t want to be found for this term, that’s an entirely different field of SEO, negative SEO, and then you’re in a pretty pickle indeed, and should contact someone who can deal with this.
Myths of SEO
So you want to hire SOMEONE to take care of this service? Great. But you have to come into it with the right attitude. Be aware of the following.
It’s not a one-time thing
More and more people are becoming aware of SEO and its importance, and it’s a dynamic process. Everyone can hire an SEO agency, and if they’re willing to put more money into it, assuming the person knows what they’re doing, they’re going to get better results. And if they keep doing this, they’re going to keep getting these results.
This should be a general and recurring part of your budget, anyone who sells you otherwise is either just doing a diagnostic or scamming you.
nothing is certain
Google doesn’t publish how they rank sites, so all of this work is based on best guesses from years and years of tests. Their ranking method can change.
You can increase your likelihood of going up in the rankings, but again, you can’t control how much work your competitors are doing in the same way. If you put money into SEO and simultaneously the 10 sites above you do the same, you’re going to improve your ranking signals to Google, but so will they. If they’re putting more money into it, you’ll fall even further behind. Getting faster for a race will only win it if none of your competitors also get faster.
only content matters
This is an incredibly popular sentiment, even inside the industry. And there’s some truth to it, good content has at least some effect on your ranking, and arguably it’s even more important for getting people to stay on your site, or be willing to do what you want them to do on your site.
But at the end of the day, if nobody links to you, nobody is going to be able to find that content. If you’re the first website in the world to write on the topic, maybe you’ll be fine, but otherwise, you’re going to get buried in the ceaseless flood of information that is the internet. Content can only get you so far, you need more, you need the off-page SEO, and likely you need some help.
Wrap-Up
There’s a lot more to this, of course, and possibly one day I’ll go into certain parts in more depth. But for now, you have an idea of the basics and if it seems like something you want to be in control of, take advantage of, then I may know someone who can get that party started.
