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15 Critical questions to Ask When Outsourcing SEO

With thousands, if not millions of websites competing for people’s attention, one could say that the internet is practically a world of information waiting to be tapped. And, we’re referring to just one topic here. Do a quick search of say, “iPhone” on search engines like Google and Bing, and you could be staring at that computer or mobile phone screen for hours on end just sifting through each search result.

This is the reason why many companies employ search engine optimization or SEO to try and get to the top of the search engine results food chain. The better the search results, the more chances you’ll have of getting noticed by web users who tend to have short attention spans.

Let’s face it: managing your website’s SEO can be a pretty demanding task, especially if you’re not an SEO guru yourself. This is why a diverse number of SEO agencies and solution providers have cropped up over the past few years. But how do you separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say? Choosing the right people to do the job can spell the difference between staying on top or sinking to the bottom of search engines.

Questions to Ask When Outsourcing SEO

To achieve success in SEO outsourcing, asking the right questions is a must. Consider the following questions when screening possible candidates for SEO solutions:

1. Are specific results guaranteed?

Any SEO company that tells you it can guarantee that your website reaches a top-ranking spot or say it has a special “connection” a search engine is either deceiving your or are into black hat techniques.

While legitimate agencies will tell you that they’re confident with what they can do to help achieve your business goals based on their past work, others that promise they can give you a specific ranking or traffic level is all smoke and mirrors. It would be prudent to stay away.

What you should look for is an SEO company that could work with you in forecasting general scenarios based on your budget, creating strategies in line with your business goals, and edging out the competition.

2. How long will it take to expect results?

This is possibly the most revealing question you could ask. As an instant disqualifier, dismiss any companies that promise to give you “immediate” results or tell you that your website will be at the top spot of search engine results pages (SERPs) in just a couple of weeks. This means the SEO techniques they’re using aren’t sustainable or perhaps they don’t know what they’re doing. Or worse, they’re not being upfront about how SEO works.

The barebones truth is that SEO takes time. It may seem that a potential company is using delaying tactics when someone there tells you it may take three to six months to start getting results, but in fact this is going to help you understand that SEO doesn’t involve any sort of wand-waving that magically delivers a favorable outcome. There are metrics at work that need to be influenced to improve your SERP ranking.

Keep in mind that different niches come with varying levels of competition. There are some cases where it only takes a few months to see results, while others take some more time to reach some degree of success.

This is where the metrics come in. There will be deliverables, such as the content that needs to be published, links that should be built, and so on. But if you’re not getting anything like this in your monthly reports, chances are the SEO company working on it isn’t doing it right.

When things take a downturn, don’t fret. There are times when traffic may be bad at first before they get better. A good SEO company would know how to make the necessary adjustments in the strategy it employs before the trend is reversed.

But if you do experience a drop in traffic, this shouldn’t be a cause for concern if it doesn’t persist for months before it’s reversed. What you want to keep your eye on is incremental growth in conversions and not just traffic as a whole. Take a close look at SEO-specific metrics such as year over year sales numbers, backlinks, rankings, and qualified leads.

3. How do you measure your SEO success?

Of course, being ranked number 1 is one thing. But translating this into sales is another story altogether. You need to know how your potential partner agency will measure success in its SEO dealings. Will they measure this via traffic, actual sales, or other types of conversions? Or will they combine all this into real results, showing all aspects and metrics of the search funnel? Conversely, stay away from SEO agencies that can’t give you accurate measurements of what they’re doing. 

4. Is your content SEO friendly and relevant?

There’s no question that SEO is highly dependent on quality content to be successful. We live in a content-driven society. As mentioned above, the internet is filled with sites that are vying for one’s attention, so content that can easily be found is a big plus. It’s not just about keywords and the like. Content, such as blogs and texts, should be able to integrate these keywords and search terms in a way that is both reader and search engine friendly. If the potential SEO partner has a team of content creators and copywriters that are experts in building optimized content, that’s a definite bonus!

5. Which search terms will you focus on?

Getting these right, along with determining how these jive with the site and the company and its products is even better. Remember that there is no hard formula for this one. It’s a matter of testing and research to see which keywords/phrases work best for your site and your business. This might take time, but eventually, you’ll have a much better idea of what search terms are actually generating revenue for your business and which ones just contribute vanity metrics. An SEO partner that does this gets added brownie points.

6. How will you integrate SEO with marketing campaigns?

Keep in mind that SEO is just one aspect of the overall marketing thrust. A good Search Engine Optimization partner must be able to mix and match all campaign activities with SEO efforts as though they ‘re crafted from one tree, so to speak. A PR campaign, for instance, for a new product must have the same keywords and search terms as SEO activities. Or at least relate to them in a way that readers and viewers can easily spot the family resemblance. Furthermore, paid search efforts should also be tightly aligned with your SEO campaign, so your future SEO partner should also be flexible and holistic with their keyword targeting strategies.

7. What will you do to maintain our SEO presence once we’ve set things up?

It’s a lot of work to create a site that is SEO friendly, write copy, create content, and build links during the first few weeks. That’s called the setting up phase so naturally, getting it off the ground with all this activity is a given. But once the dust settles and you wind down to a daily/weekly routine, you need to know what your SEO partner will be doing to earn that monthly retainer. Will they still be producing SEO-worthy copy and content? Will they continue to build links that will drive traffic to your site and your store? It’s things like these that you need to figure out. Again, this could spell the difference between long-term SEO success and lingering at the bottom.

8. How will you get quality links that will drive traffic to our site?

This is admittedly what makes a good SEO partner—the ability to get and place quality links that will drive authority for their clients’ websites. Building quality links that are relevant to your brand’s products and services is critical. It’s not easy but it can be done. Ask for a few samples of their past work. Even better, try to see what kinds of results these links brought while you’re at it (using an SEO tool like SEMRush or Ahrefs). This way, you can get an idea of what they can for your site. 

9. What’s your success story?

Yes, it’s all about how successful a partner was in increasing website and sales traffic for a client. Don’t be shy to ask about who their past clients were, what they did for them, and how successful they were in their Search Engine Optimization efforts. A partner that is proud of what they’ve done and has something to show for it would clearly be the right one.

Important Technical Questions

Another approach could involve asking questions that encompass services, technical matters, and how well a partner knows your industry, among others. The questions for these can go something like:

10. Will you be performing services that complement your SEO efforts?

As mentioned earlier, it isn’t all about doing Search Engine Optimization nowadays. Complementing these with Marketing and Public Relations activities would be much better and may drive more people to your site and store. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to meet the team who will be doing the SEO and other activities as well. This way, you’ll actually get to know the faces behind all this. And ask about how many times you’ll be meeting each month, how many hours they intend to put in per month, and the like. In the end, it’s about knowing who will handle your SEO activities, what they’ve got lined up, and how they intend to go about these.

11. Will your SEO activities involve making technical changes?

It must be made clear from the onset if technical changes will be made to your website. The last thing you want is to find your site non-existent all because the SEO partner agency made a few “adjustments” in the name of increased results. A good rule of thumb is to plan out all the technical adjustments that need to be made so that everything is clear from the get-go.

12. What do you know about our industry?

Being a good SEO partner, just like anything in life, means doing your homework in order to get it right. This is what you should be looking for in your SEO partner—one who understands your industry and can make the most of this knowledge to drive home results. We’re not saying that partner be an expert in the field. That’s your job. But knowing enough to get to best results in the search engine and sales charts is key. Nothing is worse than a partner who is merely “winging it” as they go.

13. Will you be needing our team members on a regular basis?

Needless to say, this is a given. The more important question is: how often will they be needed by the SEO partner. This must be determined from the start in order for the right members to manage their time and availability each month. This way, a steady and uninterrupted workflow can ensue. Plenty of resources can go to waste when work stops all because of a miscommunication.

14. Are you in any way, connected to our competitors?

In plain and simple terms, do you have a conflict of interest? Not only does this personify the saying No Man Can Serve Two Masters. It likewise opens up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities, chief among these is espionage. Sure, that may be quite extreme but there has to be some amount of ethical behavior here. One must choose which company they wish to work with. 

15. Can we get out of the agreement without much complication?

Before signing that contract, make sure that you can easily terminate the agreement if you’re not happy. Nothing is worse than being stuck with a partner that you’re not happy with or one that doesn’t produce the desired results. Not only is this a waste of money but of time and energy as well. All this can be addressed when building out your SEO contract. Make sure to include legal details, contingencies for when things don’t go as planned, and of course, comprehensive cancellation terms.

Key Takeaway

In the end, get to know your Search Engine Optimization partner before signing on the dotted line. Get to know their success stories as well as their weaknesses. Get to know the team you could be working with, and understand what they can do to help you and your business make it big in today’s information-filled landscape—both in the virtual and physical world.

Looking for a reliable SEO partner? Contact us today to learn more about how we can help grow your brand!

The Essential SEO Checklist for New Websites

Finding yourself running a business right smack in the middle of the digital age means it’s a must to have your own website. This allows you to have a wider reach by giving you new channels to market your product or service. A website also helps you stay relevant in your industry and deliver top-notch customer experience while giving the competition a run for their money through effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.

This may all sound simple, but while having a website could help you reap a ton of benefits, you must first go through a laundry list of items to complete before going live. Similar to building a skyscraper, you should first draw the necessary plans before starting to break ground, allowing you to cover all bases prior to running the show.

The whole point of building a website is to establish an online presence, which is crucial if you’re trying to market a modern brand. Many companies have already been taking advantage of this for years. However, you can’t just have a skilled web designer to create one for you and have a developer to make it work. The key is to lay a good foundation by going through an SEO checklist, so you don’t get lost in the mix.

Why Is SEO Important for New Websites?

SEO has been around since the early days of the internet. Up to this day, search engines are doing their job to crawl and rank websites so they can deliver all the right information that you’re looking for. Consumers are heavily reliant on search engines to help them find everything from the best places to eat near you to recommended B2B software providers.

Optimizing your website for search engines regardless of what you offer makes it easier to reach your target audience. It’s a surefire way to attract them to your site through keywords that are relevant to what you offer. Your strategy will determine how you’ll rank on search engine results pages (SERPs), giving you more brand visibility and driving quality traffic. Here are important reasons why SEO is needed for your new website:

1. It helps build your brand

While branding may often be considered as a more traditional approach, SEO is firmly classified into the digital marketing category. Despite their differences, the two involve similar steps, and the key to understanding how to build your brand is by considering both what you offer and what others say about it.

2. It draws more traffic

The primary goal of SEO is to improve your site’s rankings in SERPs. However, it goes beyond this since the purpose of gaining high rankings is to attract more traffic, which would ideally convert into leads and eventually customers.

3. You don’t have to pay for ad space

One of the best benefits you can get from SEO is not having to pay for ad space. Unlike traditional ad campaigns, you don’t have to determine a location where you want your brand to appear and pay the company that owns that media channel for placement. SEO happens “organically.”

4. It helps your target audience find your website

SEO can help your business appear in front of your target audience while they’re actively searching for information about the product or service you’re offering. And if you take a moment to think about how common it is for consumers to use search engines to look for information about products and services, this is a massive opportunity.

A convincing  of consumers use search engines if they first want to learn more about a new business, its product, or service, with 41% using them when they’ve made the decision to make a purchase.

5. It establishes and increases both your credibility and authority

When SEO is combined with content marketing, you have the opportunity to create informative and valuable content, which can build trust and credibility with your potential customers during the research phase.

6. It can let you stay ahead of the competition

Not only does your site rank well on SERPs when you optimize, you can also steal search share from your competitors, enabling you to dominate the market.

Consider these stats: the first result on any given SERP gets an average of 20.5 percent of the clicks, and it goes down from there. The second result gets 13.32 percent and the third 13.14 percent. So, as you move up in ranking, you’ll get a higher percentage of clicks for your target keywords while the competition will be earning less.

7. It enhances user experience

Google’s single goal as a search engine is to deliver the best possible results to its users. This has resulted in many algorithm updates that are focused on making sure they point their them to the right direction, which are sites that not only provide relevant content, but also a fantastic user experience.

This is why technical factors such as mobile-friendliness, site speed, and usability play much bigger roles in rankings than ever before.

8. Results are easy to measure

SEO allows you to measure virtually every aspect of your results using tools like Google Analytics and Ahrefs to monitor your traffic, conversions, referral sources, and other metrics that matter to your business. This way you can keep an eye on what’s working and what’s not.

SEO Checklist for New Websites

Now that you know how important SEO is in building a website, let’s go through the checklist, so you know what to address when you plan to launch:

The proliferation of mobile devices has led to people using them more often than desktop or laptop computers for browsing. For this reason, Google now indexes and ranks the mobile version of your website before the desktop.

In this regard, if your site delivers a similar experience both on desktop and mobile, this probably won’t have a big effect on your rankings. However, it’s important to note that if you have different content across your desktop and mobile versions, mobile-first indexing may cause you to rank lower in SERPs.

If you’re planning to benefit from this, you may want to make some changes on how to set up your website. Remember, mobile searches tend to lead to more purchases. In fact, around 76 percent of people who used their smartphone to perform a search visit the business within 24 hours, and 28 percent of those end with a purchase.

How fast your site loads is crucial for retaining visitors, since a high bounce rate will eventually make waste of all your SEO efforts. So, if you optimize your website’s speed, you’re already one step ahead of the competition.

The bad news is, more than 70 percent of the pages analyzed by Google during a study took seven seconds to load visual content above the fold. On average, most landing pages take 22 seconds to load fully, but more than 50 percent of mobile site visitors will leave if it takes more than three seconds to load completely.

To make things worse, as page load time increases to seven seconds, mobile site visitor bounce rate increases to a whopping 113 percent. You’ll have to consider the number of elements on a page, which not only increase loading times, but also affect your conversion rates.

Planning your site’s architecture can help you establish a flexible structure as you continue to build as you go. For most websites, having a pyramid composition is the way to go. It involves having your homepage at the top, with the next most important pages—those that are on your main menu— right below it. Underneath those, you can add subcategories and other pages that fall within them.

SEO and user experience will always be inextricably linked, which can be broken down into two parts: navigation and design. However, these two will only be mutually beneficial to your website launch if you get them in the proper order.

The key is to design your site’s navigation by keeping in mind what your customer wants from you first. The best way to approach this is to create content silos that address the needs of your customers and direct them to content or products that fill these needs. Once this is set up, you can start designing the pages by how they can easily navigate through your site.

When you’ve achieved fluid navigation, your next step would be to test your site for usability. But while usability testing can have a large scope, you should address a few vital aspects that include:

  • Readability
  • Functionality in various browsers
  • Mobile-friendliness
  • Intuitive UI

If you’ve managed to tick all these off, you’re on the right track. All you need do is refine these elements until launch day and just keep on making the necessary improvements as you go on.

While your initial keyword research can help you look at the bigger picture in terms of the language you plan to use in building your website, it’s also good practice to target a specific keyword or two for each page on your site. Also, to avoid competing against yourself, decide on unique keywords per page.

There are a number of tools that can help provide keyword suggestions and data about the amount of traffic and competition you can expect from them. Most require you to pay a subscription fee, but you can always use Google’s free Keyword Planner to get you started.

Once you have selected your keywords, you’ll want to optimize all of your content around them. Use them where it’s easy for both visitors and search engines to know what the page is all about. One of the best practices is to use one focus keyword per page. While it’s also okay to inject a few secondary keywords in your page, you would generally want to designate one official keyword per page or post.

Customize each page of your website’s URLs. It should be easy to remember, communicate the content on that page, and, if possible, contain your target keyword for that specific page.

Your site’s architecture should also be set up to help create a more optimized structure for your URLs, which provides your visitors with information regarding their positioning on the site. For instance, if one of your top-level categories is “bags” and a subcategory is “backpacks, your product page might be something like “www.yourwebsite.com/bags/backpacks/product”.

A title tag is a part of a website that Google looks at to learn what the page is all about, making it another good place to use your target keyword.

Try to keep it short, since Google only displays 50-60 characters on SERPs, and even less of it will show up in the tab at the top of your browser. Avoid stuffing keywords here; using your primary keywords once should be enough.

Each image you upload on a webpage gives you an added opportunity for optimizing your page through your main keywords. You can customize the filename of every image as well as the alt text on the page to include the keyword you’re targeting.

When creating articles for publishing on your website, headings are a great tool to better organize your copy, making them easy to read and scannable for visitors. An added bonus is that your headings become another signal to Google regarding what your page is all about.

A good strategy is to include your target keywords in the headings, but only when it makes sense to do so. Forcing words may sound strange to your readers, so make sure their insertion is natural and justifiable.

When dealing with text optimization, you have to be careful and avoid keyword stuffing or risk being penalized by Google. However, as long as you use target keywords and their relevant synonyms in contexts where they make sense, it’s good practice to integrate them into your page’s text content.

Meta descriptions don’t have a direct influence on rankings, but they do play an important role in boosting your click-through rates from the search results. When people spot your web page in SERPs, they’ll see your meta description right below the page title, and any words that match their search will help draw their attention to it. Whatever you write here can make a case as to why your page is worth the click.

Just like writing text content, go for a relevant meta description for every page on your website. Try incorporating your keywords naturally and hopefully end up with bolded text on the SERP, and at the same time use the space to offer a short description of what’s valuable on the page to make people click through. Also, try to keep it short—around 50-160 characters to achieve optimal length for readability.

Internal linking is a way to signal Google what your page is all about through your anchor text or those words that are hyperlinked in your content. Google knows when this happens and takes these anchor texts as information about what’s on the page.

Internal links also show search engines how your web pages within your site are connected and how they drive keyword authority from one page to another. Ideally, you’d want your visitors to stick around and spend time on your site. Providing helpful internal links can help make this happen.

Before any of your web pages can show up on SERPs, Google has to crawl your website first. Typically, these crawlers will eventually make their way to your website over time regardless if you don’t do anything. However, you can speed things up by directly submitting your sitemap through Google’s Search Console. Once done, your website will have a stronger chance of improving its rank quality.

You’ll probably be able to tell how well your website is doing in SERPs based on the increased activity your business is having. But if you want a more accurate picture of what’s going on, Google Analytics is the tool you need. You can measure all the essential metrics of your website, so you’re up to speed on its performance and make any adjustments if necessary.

Cover All Your Bases

Getting your website prepped for SEO may appear to be a daunting task, but this checklist can prove to be invaluable in your efforts to make sure your website is ready to perform and rank high in SERPs. Just like planning the blueprints of a building, it’s vital to cover all bases, so you don’t end up having a difficult time figuring out where you’re having trouble when things go wrong.

Once everything’s in place and have all the SEO essentials, you’re ready for launch. Marketing your website from here on will be relatively easier, but remember, don’t stop making improvements. Keep creating the right content, refine your SEO strategies, and continue building your brand. Pretty soon, results will come and you’ll be able to reap all the wonderful benefits of your efforts.

Contact us today to learn how we can help grow your new website with the power of SEO!

6 Foolproof Strategies to Find Keywords for SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) experts eat keywords for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and munch on them in between snacks—metaphorically speaking, of course—for the simple reason that keywords are one of the main tools of the trade. When someone types words or phrases into a search box and the search engine returns relevant results, that’s keywords at work!

Keywords range from single, standalone words to more complex key phrases that you place in your copy to drive organic search traffic to your website.

Simply put, keywords are words that people use in their web search whenever they’re looking for information, images, ideas, products, or services. Since you’re into SEO, you’ll want to target these keywords, which is why you may also think of them as your target keywords.

Apart from this definition, keywords have other identifiable qualities that can help you better understand their nature and how you should use them to drive business success.

In the context of SEO, keywords serve as some sort of directional signs that point search engines like Google to your website. When your website contains keywords that match what users are looking for, it’s a signal for search engines to show your brand name in the search results. This makes your website visible and accessible to internet users.

You could also look at keywords as content markers. Statistics say that the number of websites has reached the billionth mark, and that there are billions more of individual web pages. Based on these numbers, you can just imagine the amount of content that the internet holds. Through keywords, search engines have a way of telling which web pages from among the billions out there have the most useful or relevant answers for content searchers.

Keywords Are the Heart of Every SEO Strategy

The potential value of using target keywords to grow your business makes it imperative that you get keyword research and keyword mapping right from the get go. Remember that keywords give your business the online visibility that it needs in the digital marketing space. On the other hand, failing to optimize your website for search engines and end users through organic or unpaid search is nothing short of a missed opportunity to bring your brand closer to your target audience. 

Since content is one of the criteria for ranking websites, you have to make your content understandable to Google and other search engines. And this can only be possible if you give proper context to your content by placing keywords into it. These keywords serve as clues for Google and company, telling them what your page or post is all about. Without this kind of understanding between search engines and your website, there’s simply no way that your brand or content will land on search results.

It’s worthy to note that you should be using keywords not only to get on Google’s radar but perhaps more importantly to attract customers to your website. When planning your keyword strategy, your goal should be to focus on the users or visitors of your site. Think about the words or language they’re using whenever they have something to find on the internet. Once you figure it out, you can decide on what keywords to target so that people using those search terms will find their way to your website. 

It goes without saying that an ineffective keyword strategy will not be helpful for your business. There are a couple of ways this may happen:

  • Using the wrong keywords. If you don’t know what keywords customers are using in their search, you might end up with the wrong keywords in your text. If this is the case, how will you be able to answer visitors’ queries or solve a problem they’re experiencing? Not getting the traffic you want or need for your site affects your search rankings and the chance for your business to earn revenue.
  • Keyword stuffing. Keywords provide you with a means to gain website traffic as future customers use those words in their search queries. Once they land on your website, you then have an opportunity to show them more information about your business, product, or service. However, cramming your target keywords into a single piece of text results in Google penalizing you for keyword stuffing, since this doesn’t ruins the user experience. Just as you need to be careful in choosing your keywords, you also need to be mindful when and where to place your keywords.

Types of Keywords to Target

Keywords come in different forms, each of which serves a specific purpose. Keywords are categorized based on who or what they’re targeting as well as based on length.

Targeting keywords are phrases and terms that are geared toward your industry, business offerings, or audience. Targeting keywords include:

1. Market-defining keywords. These are keywords that your target audiences use when talking about your business or industry. Often, these terms will be broad and generic, but you can also define them into something more specific for your niche.

2. Customer-defining keywords. These are key phrases that relate to a specific subset of customers within a larger audience base. For example, someone might add the search phrase “for teenagers” to define the age bracket of the book shopper or reader. 

3. Product keywords. These keywords contain specific descriptions about what you’re selling, such as brand or product name, type or model, and other relevant specifications.

4.  Competitor keywords. These are keywords that competing businesses, products, or services use to attract their target market. Using competitor keywords gives you an opportunity to target a similar audience with the same interests or preferences.

5. Geo-targeted keywords. Geo-targeted keywords are tied to location-based searches. Searchers use these terms to find products or services that are near them or in other adjacent areas, so you’ll want to optimize your site for this type of keyword to boost your local rankings.

Types of Keywords by Length

The length of a keyword is generally tied to search volume, which pertains to how many searches are being made using those types of keywords. 

There are three types of keywords in this category.

1. Short-tail. Also called head or generic keywords, short-tail keywords are often made up of one to two words only. Search terms using these keywords are rather broad but very popular among searchers, so the potential to get more traffic to your site is quite high. However, this means that the competition for this type of keyword is also high.

2. Mid-tail. These search terms are slightly more descriptive than short-tail keywords, since queries in this range may now be two to three words long. These keywords may be the perfect middle ground between short-tail and long-tail keywords since the search terms are more specific and attract a large search volume. 

3. Long-tail. This type of keywords targets very specific searches, topics, or audiences understandably because searchers put in as many terms as they can to define their query.

Generally speaking, the longer the keywords, the lesser the search volume. However, this may prove to be helpful since there will be fewer pages trying to compete for ranking for this type of keyword. Moreover, you can get higher conversion rates from long-tail keywords since it logically follows that when you’re able to provide an answer to the most specific of searches, it means you’ve satisfied what the user exactly needs.

More About Keyword Types

It’s worth mentioning that aside from matching the context of a search, Google also wants you to use keywords that match the users’ search intent. In order to use keywords effectively based on this criteria, you should track at which stage of the buyer journey your target audience is.

Someone who’s using informative keywords, for example, means that the customer is trying to know more about a certain topic or idea, so it will be impossible to attract this type of customer with keywords that relate to making a sale (also known as transactional keywords).

How to Use Keywords for SEO

The keyword research process involves identifying and filtering the list of search terms that you should be targeting. This is important, so you’ll be successful in ranking for a particular keyword.

Here’s what you need to include in your SEO strategy:

1. Create topic buckets.

At this stage, you can make a list of important and relevant topics surrounding your industry. Depending on the nature of your business, you could come up with 5 to 10 topic buckets, which you’ll be using to dictate your keyword selection as you go along

You might want to focus your buckets on the most popular topics or stories that are being talked about online or on topics that float around during your sales meetings.

Whatever topic buckets you choose, make sure they are subjects that interest and relate to your customers’ needs, while telling them what they need to know about your business. 

2. Fill your buckets with topic ideas.

This is the part where you fill your content buckets with keywords that you think customers are including in their queries. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers and try to understand how they’re using the web to look for the information they need.

Use your buckets as a dump site of sort for all the keyword combinations you can think of, although you should be able to create a good balance of generic keywords that have a relatively low search volume and those that include more specific terms with higher traffic potential for your website. 

3. Research related search terms.

When searchers are not quite happy with the search results they get, they are likely to scroll down to the bottom of the search engine results pages (SERPs) to see if there are searches related to what they were originally looking for. You can use these related search terms to come up with other ways with which users are phrasing their search. 

4. Check competition.

Spying on your competitors’ SEO strategy gives you an opportunity to differentiate your brand from theirs, do more of what they’re doing, and get better results for your efforts.

The key is in evaluating the keywords that your competitors are using, without necessarily picking them up if they don’t matter to your business or to your audience.

Just like how you try to have a good mix of generic keywords and more specific search phrases, you should also be able to make wise choices between trying to rank for more competitive keywords versus targeting for terms that are more specific to your brand, product, or service. 

5. Use keyword tools.

You’ve come up with a working list of keywords. The next step is to narrow it down using data-oriented tools for keyword research and planning. There’s a wide variety of free tools out there to help you generate keyword ideas, look for search patterns among users, analyze competition, measure keyword relevance, and so on. All of these SEO insights can be helpful as you decide where to focus your time, energy, and investment moving forward.

6. Plan your content.

At this point, you’re ready to execute your keyword strategy, which is why you should be building informative and educative content. The more content you produce, the more opportunities you have to include your target keywords, receive more exposure, and get a higher position in the SERPs. This also ensures that you’re able to avoid keyword stuffing since you’ll have several instead of a handful of pages to put your keywords into use.

A Holistic Approach to SEO Keywords

Keyword research is the discipline that lays down the foundation of SEO and content marketing. Although we can never overemphasize the significance of laying down a solid strategy in keyword research, we can tell you that a lot of it entails serving your target audience and delivering the best user experience.

You’ll want search engines to show your website the moment someone starts a web search. To hit this target, you have to know your audience, speak their language, and make connections with them as they journey through the buyer process.

At the same time, it’s about trying to rank for a good position by establishing your company’s relevance on Google and other search engines through the same customer-centric brand of using relevant and highly targeted keywords for SEO.

If you need help taking your SEO strategy to the next level, SEO Company will match you with an agency that fits your business’ unique needs. Inquire now!

How to Write Optimized Content for SEO

It’s always a must to create a content marketing strategy that revolves around thought-provoking content to achieve your marketing goals. However, most brands don’t realize that both content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) should be properly integrated to maximize the effects of either one.

Content marketing and SEO are like soul mates in the digital marketing industry: they complement each other in such a way that one will have a tough time existing without the help of the other. While you can’t be effective in marketing in general without any of them, they still can be distinguished from one another in several crucial areas. However, you still can’t separate the two entirely.

Unfortunately, many brands still don’t have a clue on how to make effective use of both. To do this, you’ll first have to know how they function separately before diving into the formulation of a strategy that combines both in a way that helps hit your marketing goals. Remember, there is no such thing as content without SEO, and vice versa. You will need their combined elements—words, articles, keywords—for maximum impact.

To put things into perspective, SEO helps draw people to your site while content marketing keeps them there and converts. While SEO is more technical, content marketing is more holistic in its approach. They need each other to work.

SEO Demands Optimized Content

When looking for an item to buy or a service to acquire online, the first action you usually do is conduct a search. The same goes for any restaurant, salon, or any other establishment, where you may read online reviews before deciding to pay a visit. This goes to show that most consumers are dependent and have considerable trust in search engines.

The goal of any brand is to be more visible and rank on top of search engine results pages (SERPs), so a webmaster should optimize content using relevant keywords. This is the reason why SEO and content marketing are two of the most effective marketing tools currently being used to grow scalable organic engagement.

Treating SEO and content marketing as two separate entities is a huge mistake. They are so closely related that the two are proven to work better together than they do on their own. SEO sets the guidelines and content fulfills them. Essentially, SEO needs optimized content to work. Here’s why:

  • Crawling

For search engines to better understand your product or service, they have to be able to find and read the content of your website. To do this, they need content to crawl, which helps search engines determine the kind of search queries your website should rank for and if they are relevant to a user based on their search query.

  • Keyword Targeting

Keywords are a fundamental aspect of SEO, but stuffing them throughout your website won’t help you achieve your SEO goals unless you’re willing to face penalties from Google.

Through the proper integration of your keyword strategy and content marketing strategy, you’re effectively avoiding any search engine penalty, while boosting organic rankings in SERPs, and amplifying your content strategy through SEO.

  • Link Building

Building links back to your website is still a huge part of SEO. It enhances its authority and boosts its rankings in search results.

You know your content marketing campaign is garnering considerable success if you attract highly sought after inbound links from other websites across the internet. It’s advisable to construct a digital PR strategy and integrate it into your content marketing campaign to maximize organic links and increase your exposure by getting your content seen by as many people as possible.

  • Social Signals

Social signals are activities on social media networks that include likes, comments, shares, and clicks, which can have an impact on where your page ranks in organic search results. A carefully planned content marketing strategy that performs well on social media opens a great opportunity to boost your ranking.

  • Featured Snippets

Featured snippets are now a common sight in SERPs after performing a search query, which appears at the top of the page that’s also known as Google’s Knowledge Graph. This gives you a massive advantage if you provide the right content.

Your website’s content quality plays a huge factor in helping to determine if your website qualifies to be a featured snippet, which is a highly sought-after spot in today’s search results.

Content marketing and SEO are the dynamic duo of the digital marketing industry. They each can work solo, but a harmonious tandem delivers a far more powerful and effective strategy to achieve your business goals.

Types of SEO Content

An essential part of an effective content marketing strategy consists of knowing what you need to put out there to rank in SERPs. In line with this, there are distinct content types that work best for SEO and specific formats that are best suited for certain queries. You can use them to satisfy searcher intent, match them to the right project to achieve your goals, and enhance your overall strategy.

1. Blog Posts

Blogs are one of the easiest ways to produce a regular stream of SEO content. This is largely due to the fact that blog posts are easily-accessible and generally quick to consume, making them a great way to establish authority for your website. Remember, blogs are flexible, and you can use them to host other types of media like images, videos, and interactive content.

2. Product Pages

If you run an e-commerce or retail website, product pages are your bread and butter. A well-constructed product page packed with information can serve as both SEO content and a PPC landing page.

3. Articles

These are made up of news articles, interviews or a feature piece, which are your go-to type of content if you’re running a newspaper or magazine-style website.

4. Listicles

Simply put, a listicle is an informative article that’s presented in the form of a list, making it easier to scan. Titles such as “5 Ways to Teach Your Dog New Tricks” also seem to be more clickable when found in search results or social media news feeds.

5. Guides

A guide is generally a long piece of content that details how to do an activity the right way. It’s often broken up and featured in multiple web pages, although viewing one on a single consolidated page is considered best practice for comprehensive SEO.

6. Infographics

Infographics are made up of large-format images that are packed with data on a single subject and are often presented in the form of graphs or charts. Due to its highly visual and informative nature, this type of content can rack up a lot of page views and links. But its content is embedded in the image, so the text isn’t readable by search engines. For this reason, it’s important to optimize the rest of the page for ranking purposes.

7. Slideshows

If you’re looking for a way to present a series of related images, slideshows are your best bet. There really are times when images are far more important than text when it comes to delivering relevant information, but make sure your title, captions, image file names, and so on are optimized since search engines have less text to read.

8. Glossaries & FAQs

People now tend to use Google when they look up terms instead of using a dictionary. If you’re working in a specialized industry, a detailed glossary is an effective way to capture some of that important search traffic. The same goes for answering frequently asked questions. Positioning your content to strategically provide the right answers to common questions will mean your brand gets noticed during the information search stage.

9. Directories

A directory is a useful index of links to sites or other resources pertaining to a given topic. For instance, if you’re running a blog about band equipment, you can create a directory about places where you can purchase the best sound equipment for outdoor gigs around the country. Directories help build relevance around your target keywords, which is great for intent matching.

10. Videos

Depending on the type of site or business you’re running, videos are a superb way to attract an audience. You can create video tutorials showing how your products are used or demonstrate a process that’s related to your business, such as the right way of changing dead strings of a bass guitar if you’re a business that sells guitars. It’s important to note that including a text transcript of your video is a must for SEO purposes (because search engines can’t crawl the video media itself).

How to Write Content for SEO

If you want to build an audience and know which type of content to use, you have to be smart with what you actually publish. Your job is to create useful content that’s interesting, persuasive, and optimized for search engines, and you need to do it consistently.

The biggest challenge that marketers face is creating content that’s optimized for search engines, and at the same time appeals to people. There’s no “secret sauce” involved in writing SEO-friendly content. In fact, SEO copywriting or writing in general, follows a pretty standard process, but it all boils down in finding the right formula to get things done. Here are the industry’s best practices that can help you reach your goal:

  • Do keyword research and integrate them into your content

You’ve created valuable content that fits all the criteria for your audience. So your effort won’t go to waste, you should take time to make sure Google takes notice of this. This means finding out which keywords and phrases people use in their queries, as well as those you can be competitive in. Work those keywords into your content and use the right tools to track your progress.

Avoid peppering your content with keywords to avoid hurting your rankings. Instead, you have to be strategic by including them in the title, the first 300 words, and the H1 or H2 if possible. It should be noted that the integration of your keyword into your content should feel natural in your writing. Never struggle to make them fit into your article or copy.

Remember, people search Google using a particular phrase because they want to know more about it or purchase it, so it only makes sense to give them what they’re looking for. By doing so, you’ll get more traffic, clicks, and conversions.

  • Write about what people care about

There are many writers who just pump out content without the guidance of reason and with no real strategy behind it. Remember, you’re not writing for Google’s algorithm. You’re writing for your target audience, and they’re real people.

When creating content, make it a point to always offer value to your readers. Let them know a few things that no one else can tell them, or offer a unique product or service. Nobody knows your business like you do, so use this to your advantage.

  • Know the technical SEO basics

Any form of clever keyword optimization won’t mean a thing if your website isn’t even indexed. You might not be expected to know the complex workings of HTTPS, JavaScript or site migration, but it pays to know a few things about technical SEO to make you a better content creator.

Understanding how Google crawls pages and how it gives out link authority can help you develop an effective strategy. Keep in mind that content writing isn’t just about writing a blog post; it’s about creating a database of relevant content that link well together. If you have a good understanding of how your blog is structured, you’ll be able to make everything more efficient, which means each backlink to a post will deliver maximum benefit.

It also helps if you have an understanding of how to optimize a website beyond keywords. You can do this by maintaining optimized images, avoiding too many popups, or making sure that your posts are indexed. All these are important when creating content for SEO.

  • Make it long enough to count

Search engines tend to prefer longer articles with good reason. Try to go for at least 600 words. And if you can get 1,000 or more, it would be best to go for it.

Search engines are inclined to favor “in-depth” content that’s made up of about 2,000 words. The bottom-line is, the longer your content, the more value you’re likely to give your readers, and this gives you a better chance to lower your bounce rate.

  • Keep an eye on your analytics

SEO content writing isn’t just a write-and-forget kind of gig, so you should never post your article and walk away. In fact, what you need to do is regularly monitor your content using Google Analytics. Bounce rate, time on site, and pages per session are a few of the important metrics you have to keep an eye on.

Knowing how your content is performing can help you make the necessary adjustments to your content strategy. If your site has a high bounce rate, this means your website visitors aren’t staying too long, possibly because you fall short in providing them with the information they’re looking for. 

  • Half of the battle is online PR

After writing and posting fresh content, your work is only half complete. The final step involves linking your content all over the place, so to speak. Now’s the time to start building link and social signals to help search engines notice your content. A large part of this involves building and maintaining relationships with online communities who your content is relevant to.

Know What Works for Your Business

It pays to know the ins and outs of writing content for SEO. Learning the required skills may take time, and mastery takes even more, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be on your way to achieving your marketing goals.

Remember, there is no cookie cutter way to pull this off successfully. You’ll have to make the necessary adjustments to determine what works for your business. In the long run, you’ll get better with creating content for SEO with the business growing as your strategies become more precise.

Mobile SEO Fundamentals for Businesses

People have a tight knit relationship with their phones. It’s the first thing they check in the morning and the last thing they put down before heading to bed. Chances are, it’s also the first thing they use when searching for a product or service online. In fact, 3 out of 4 smartphone users rely on mobile search first to tackle their immediate needs and around 51% of searchers will purchase from a mobile-friendly website.

This is why it’s crucial for businesses to consider implementing mobile SEO in their optimization strategy. Traditional SEO tactics aren’t enough, seeing that you’re dealing with these portable, internet-enabled devices. If you want to dominate the search rankings, you need to infuse mobile SEO tactics in your arsenal.

Google and other search engines require websites to follow best practices for mobile optimizations. Just a quick recap, Google traditionally crawled, indexes, and ranks sites based on their desktop page content. This caused issues for mobile searchers since desktop versions are significantly different from mobile versions.

And that’s when mobile-first indexing emerged.

Essentially, mobile-first indexing is the process of creating a mobile version of a desktop page optimized for indexing and ranking, which vastly helps mobile searchers. Plus, it brings your website content in front of this mobile-heavy demographic.

We now live in a mobile-first world. It’s not enough that your desktop page is ranking on search engine results pages and loads on mobile screens, it needs to be built for mobile.

Mobile SEO vs. Desktop SEO

A desktop copy doesn’t mirror well on mobile devices, and even when a desktop site is accessible on mobile, it’s a pain to look at on a small screen. Bad formatting and crowded design overwhelm users. Here are the differences between mobile and desktop you need to bear in mind to help you shape your mobile SEO tactics.

By device – Mobile and desktop screens are vastly different in size, and the former doesn’t have a keyboard as opposed to the latter. Mobile users can just command their voice assistant to search queries for them. Meanwhile, desktop users are encouraged to type their search keywords. They also tend to scroll further down the SERPs and the pieces of content they view.  

By intent – Users perform searches based on intent—to find information, to go to a specific location or website, or to perform transactions. Consumers can simply whip out their phones to look up reviews or other product information before making a purchase, even when they’re already inside the store. They’re also more of a click-to-call type than desktop users, who are likely to type out an email when looking up “how to contact” businesses.

By user behavior or levels of engagement – Mobile devices are a lot smarter today than 15 years ago. Users can now perform mobile searches from keyword search to voice search. Consumers who use their phone to perform queries are likely in a hurry and in need of immediate answers. With desktop search, users are likely sitting down in front of a desk for longer periods of time.

By quality signals – Mobile search supports different quality signals compared to desktop to deliver a seamless mobile search experience. For example, social signals and links from QR codes and text messages can improve mobile rankings.

By ranking algorithms – Ranking in the top SERPs is even more important on mobile than desktop search since space is more limited on a mobile screen. Finding your content on the fourth position on mobile results can see a CTR dip of more than 90%.

Mobile searchers are more engaged when browsing on their mobile devices compared to desktop users, but they’re also more impartial to scrolling or viewing more results than the latter.

Mobile SEO Best Practices

A lot of desktop SEO techniques apply to mobile SEO, with just a bit of modification to align with mobile searches. Below are the best practices you should follow for effective mobile SEO.

1. Test for mobile usability

Checking your site’s mobile usability can inform you whether mobile users find trouble accessing or browsing your website. This is a vital part of mobile SEO; it helps you identify and fix issues that may have negative implications for users and your search ranking.

You can use Google’s Search Console and Mobile-Friendly test tool to check your site’s mobile usability. See if your page content is responsive and fares smoothly on mobile screens. These tools deliver reports and state if any critical errors need immediate fixing, such as the following:

Partially loaded pages – The page could not load all page resources. This can impact how Google reads and understands your page.

Small font size –  A scaling issue where the page demands mobile users to pinch the screen for better readability (but calls for a bad UX).

Closely placed touch elements – A usability issue where the tap buttons are too close to one another, making it difficult to tap the right links or buttons.

2. Optimize titles and meta descriptions

This SEO technique is common practice in traditional SEO. But it bears more weight when it comes to mobile optimization. Here are the character limits for mobile and desktop tags:

Desktop: Approximately 70 characters for the title, 155 characters for descriptions.

Mobile: Approximately 78 characters for the title, 155 characters for descriptions. 

Since you’re working with limited screen space, you want to present the best results in the most concise way (without compromising the crucial bits of information) when creating titles, subheadings, URLs, and meta descriptions.

3. Optimize your content

While we’re at it, observe proper formatting and better readability of your content for smaller screens and search engines alike. Regardless of the type of content, you must ensure that it translates and fits fluidly on mobile devices. Here are a couple of tips:

  • Break your content into readable paragraphs
  • Keep titles and headings short and simple
  • Use bullet points, bold, or italics to highlight important information
  • Use media that are compatible with smartphones
  • Optimize tap buttons
  • Limit the number of images in a page
  • Choose readable font style and size
  • Utilize white space

4. Improve page speed

How fast your page loads determines whether your visitor will leave your site in five seconds or stay ‘til it completely loads. Speed is revenue, especially in mobile where users expect immediate answers to their queries. Around 53% of mobile site visitors abandon pages that take longer than three seconds to load. With this, you see how page speed is more important for mobile optimization than desktop.

You can enhance your page speed by:

  • Minifying code (eliminating unnecessary and redundant elements in HTML, CSS, and Javascript)
  • Enabling compression
  • Minimizing the number of redirects
  • Using browser caching
  • Optimizing your images (save in smallest size while retaining image integrity)

5. Design for the mobile experience

A mobile-friendly site focuses on user experience. It doesn’t demand users to zoom for better readability. Moreover, it considers the physical challenges of browsing on mobile. For instance, users with fat fingers can likely find it difficult to select the right buttons without hitting the wrong one. Instead, an excellent mobile designed optimized for search makes users achieve their goals seamlessly.

You can conduct user testing to see how well your site performs to actual mobile users. This should give you honest and valuable feedback that can help you understand how users interact with your website.

6. Keep your CTAs front and center

Mobile phone screens have less space compared to desktop screens. An overwhelming amount of text, images, and other design elements will call the user’s attention for negative reasons. For mobile call-to-action, it’s best practice to keep your CTA brief and direct, including the descriptive text around it.

Most importantly, place it on zones that have the most “touch” activity and the easiest for thumbs to reach (i.e., the center part and bottom area of the screen). It was found that 75% of mobile users swipe or touch the screen only with one thumb. So, keep your CTA buttons and conversion-related copy where users can easily tap and see.

7. Improve navigability and site search

Mobile users have specific intent when searching online. They expect to accomplish these goals quickly and easily with little to no trouble. A confusing web design and interface can hinder a visitor’s experience. No matter how good your services are, if your site gives them a headache just to navigate around, they’ll leave your page in favor of the competition.

Make sure that users can easily find your contact details, the enter button in site forms, and the search bar, among others. Remember: You have a narrow display, so maximize the space you have.

8. Scale your images

Find the best format for your images and scale them to an appropriate size for a more intuitive and functional mobile browsing experience. Ditch the giant image headers. Make the header smaller or remove unnecessary images for your site’s mobile version. Users want to scan the content they’re looking for and you can fulfill that by certifying that the text loads first and isn’t interfered by images.

9. Support CSS, JavaScript, and images

In the past, mobile devices couldn’t render CSS, JavaScript, and even images as elements. Some webmasters handling mobile sites blocked either one or all three as a result. But those days are long gone.

Don’t block these elements since Google’s Smartphone GoogleBot wants to view and categorize all site content. These can help the bot assess if your site has a responsive mobile version.

10. Avoid Flash   

Flash usage can do more harm than good for your mobile website version. Browsers on modern smartphones do not support Flash plugin, which means mobile visitors will most likely miss out a lot of elements and fun features your site has. If you want to inject some special effects like animations on your website, use HTML5 instead. This is guaranteed to work on mobile devices.

11. Stay clear of disturbing popups

Back in August 2016, Google declared that from January 10, 2017 onwards, websites with intrusive window popups or interstitials visually obscuring the content underneath will affect ranking signals. A popup that requests you to sign up to a newsletter is annoying enough on desktops. Imagine seeing that on a small smartphone screen when users only expect to view the content. 

The update aims to improve the user experience and make content easily accessible on smart devices. Popups or interstitials aren’t useful on mobile; they’re disruptive. You can opt to use information bars or simple banners as an alternative for your campaigns.

12. Use Schema.org structured data

Structured data, also known as a schema markup language, is a construction of organized micro-data that you can inject into your site’s HTML code. This bunch of codes highlights your contents’ most essential details to help search engines better understand your page content to contextualize and index it accordingly.

Since mobiles have small displays, results with rich snippets get served up quick on the SERPs. Structured data can also help your page rank in position 0 at the top of the first results page. This stands out on mobile better (because of the limited screen) than on desktop.

You can use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to help you markup elements in your site content and Google’s Structured Data Testing tool to see if your markup works flawlessly.

13. Optimize for local search

Roughly 50% of consumers who perform mobile searches to look for a local business are likely to visit the store within a day. If you’re a local business, you need to align your strategies with local search tactics in mind to target your market.

Create separate URLs for better web design and display on the respective devices (i.e., website.com and m.website.com). You should also standardize your business details across all platforms. This pertains to your name, address, phone number, city and state name, etc. in your mobile site’s metadata.

14. Mobile site configuration

The most critical strategy you’ll come around when establishing your website is determining what matters most: responsive web design, dynamic serving, or a separate site configuration. These three methods can adjust to all screen types and sizes but each has its advantages and disadvantages.

  • Responsive web design – The server is consistent in sending the same HTML code across all user devices (i.e., desktop, mobile, non-visual browser). However, it translates the display differently depending on the screen size. (Google prefers this design pattern)
  • Dynamic serving – Utilizes the same URL no matter the type of device, but responds with a distinct version of HTML and CSS  as per the device type.
  • Separate site configuration – Generates different codes for every device and uses separate URLs for desktop and mobile.

15. Make web design fully responsive

While there are technically responsive websites, they can still have issues in terms of usability for mobile users. Google recommends adopting an all-around responsive web design approach to building a mobile-friendly website. Sites that utilize this method use CSS3 media queries to layout the content display on screen width, orientation, and resolution. This way, the content appears seamlessly regardless of the mobile device’s screen size.

Wrapping it up

Updating your SEO strategies with mobile-first methods boost your business’ web presence. Effective and well-executed mobile SEO tactics help you get in front of your target audience while giving them a pleasant experience when interacting with your website.

Interested in adding mobile SEO to your optimization strategies? SEO Company offers mobile SEO services that can help your website rise in this always-on world, pushing your brand at the top of search rankings and driving customer satisfaction. Get in touch with SEO Company now to start driving more mobile traffic, conversions, and revenue!

Need a hand with mobile SEO? Contact us today!