Search Engine Optimization
Keys to Hiring the Right SEO Specialist
1. How did you find them? You should see them ranking highly in an organic listing on a search engine, and/or with an optimized profile on a social media site. Both are signs of positive SEO RESULTS.
2. Ask the SEO consultant how he/she measures results. You should hear about an increase in your organic traffic, rather than just “keywords on page 1.” If you want real results from your SEO efforts, you’ll need to see an increase in organic traffic that’s worth your SEO investment.
3. What SEO strategies will they use to generate strong ON-GOING results? You should hear:
- We’ll help you develop a steady stream of optimized content
- Use social media promotion to create in-coming links (from Google+, Pinterest, and Tumblr if appropriate) for SEO purposes
- Promote social sharing of your original content
- Focus on targeted blogger, website, and reporter promotion to generate in-coming links and drive traffic
You should NOT hear:
- “We’ll buy hundreds of links every month for you”
- “We’ll automatically link to you from our X web properties”
- “We’ll create pages just for the search engines”
- “We use writers in (some other country”. Be sure to ASK where their content writers are located. Copy that SELLS in the U.S. cannot be written by copywriters who are not native English speakers, nor by copywriters living in other countries.
Some SEO specialists still don’t understand the idea that sub-standard English, useless articles, or writing not written by expert copywriters are not good directions for improving SEO — and will turn off visitors.
SEO is all about CONTENT — regular development of original, high quality Content that others will want to share and link to.
Is your “organic” traffic from search engines to your website increasing each month?
Our clients see a steady increase in organic traffic. One e-commerce client continues to hit record numbers of organic visitors each month — and has for the last 18 months that we’ve been working with them.
Is your website showing up on Google when your most important keyword phrases are searched?
Our educational software client is one page 1 of Google for 4 of their most important keywords for the first time in their website’s history — and has been there since we optimized their website.
If you can’t say “YES!” to both of these, then your SEO is not as effective as it could be.
We’ll help you select the keyword phrases on which you’ll compete, and where we believe opportunities lie. SEO isn’t rocket science — let us show you how it should be done with:
- Search-friendly page URLs, optimized Page Titles and Meta Descriptions, Main (H1) Headlines and (H2) Subheads, in-text links between pages, optimized image file names and alt (alternate) text, and 301 permanent redirects from all old pages
The first key to effective SEO is to choose your keyword phrases STRATEGICALLY. You want keyword phrases:
1. With a reasonable amount of search volume each month (some companies will promise you the #1 position — but for keywords no one is searching for)
2. Where there appears to be an opportunity for your website to rank well (based on the types of websites that now rank well for those keyword phrases, the phrases those websites are optimized for, and the types of pages that appear)
3. Most likely to bring QUALIFIED traffic to your website
We want to write for the visitor first — but work in a keyword phrase on each page where it naturally fits. Specifically:
1. Use the keyword phrase in the most critical areas: Page URL and Page Title.
2. Optimize HEADLINES and SUBHEADS to include those keyword phrases, synonyms, and closely-related phrases.
3. Optimize the body copy to include the keyword phrase, as well as create optimized text links between pages.
4. Optimize image file names, titles (captions), and descriptions (alt tags).
5. And we’ll create a 301 redirect spreadsheet, to ensure that each of your existing page URLs are permanently redirected to the appropriate new page URL.
6. We’ll spider your website the way Googlebot does, to identify:
- Duplicate pages
- Broken links
- Duplicate or missing Page Titles and Meta Descriptions
- More than one Headline coded as your main (H1) headline (or a missing H1 code) on a page
- Presence of the Keywords Tag (we recommend removing them)
- Word count per page
- Incoming links
Some companies believe their website has been optimized — but yet their page URLs don’t include keywords — a critical area for SEO.
If your website doesn’t currently have optimized page URLs with keywords (i.e., responsefx.com/website-development-services/), your SEO consultant will:
- Do keyword research to identify one or two target keywords for each of your website pages that have search volume
- Propose new page URLs incorporating keywords
- Code permanent redirects (301 redirects) from each old page to its corresponding new page to retain the value of any in-coming links to your current pages
If your current SEO efforts are less than optimal, it may be because:
- You were never involved in the keyword phrase selection for your own SEO efforts
- The agency or programmer that developed your website wasn’t that well-versed in all of the critical pieces of the SEO puzzle
- Your website was created “a while ago”
- You haven’t been regularly adding original content
- Ecommerce sites: Your product descriptions were copied from a manufacturer’s site
- Ecommerce sites: Your sort options are creating duplicate content that hasn’t been addressed in Google Webmaster Tools
- SEO hasn’t been a priority for you
- Google likes FRESH content. Regular posts on a Blog can be great for this.
- Every Blog post should include Social Media SHARE options — because Google may be paying attention to the number of Shares of your content across the web (and every share has the potential to expose your posts to new potential customers)
- We’ll add SHARE options on your key Content and Offers web pages as well.
- Social Media Sharing of your Content can help generate quality in-coming Links and traffic. By making your Content more visible via social media, bloggers and other websites may notice your valuable Content and Link to it. (And every quality link, whether valuable for SEO or not, can generate traffic.)
- Every piece of Content can be RE-PURPOSED for additional visibility, and LINK and SHARE possibilities:
- The Blog post . . . can become a Slide show (and posted on Slideshare) . . . and a Video (and posted on YouTube, as well as embedded on your website) . . . and an Infographic (and promoted via social media)
- Multiple blog posts . . . can become a White Paper (and used as a Lead Generation Offer) . . . and a Webinar (another Lead Generation option)
