Q. and A. on SEO Basics
SEO matters, right? But what is it exactly and what should I do about it. Brandon Leibowitz is the expert we called on. Brandon founded SEO Optimizers – his mission is to help clients improve their Google rankings. Here he talks SEO Basics for business owners from the non-technical side. Here’s what he had to say…
Hi Brandon, thanks for taking the time to put your thoughts about SEO into basics terms for the non-technical among us.
Sure, and I’ll jump right in!
So, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it covers everything involved with making search engines like Google love your website and move you up the list of search results. Google does this so that you see relevant, meaningful results to your searches which in turn makes Google look good and keeps you coming back.
Over time people have spent more and more time trying to understand what Google is looking for and then applying these new marketing disciplines to their content.
If you think of it as a way to predict how well your website will answer a potential visitors’ questions, as well as establishing the credibility and honesty of your website, then it starts to make sense.
And please explain why it is called ORGANIC?
It’s a strange choice of words but it just means you’re getting that high up in the results for free, rather than paying to run an ad.
Okay! Now, the heart of it. How does the ranking actually work?
Think of SEO as a point system. These “points” are called ranking factors — there are over 200 of them.
They’re determined by Artificial Intelligence using a program called RankBrain that looks for relevant content. RankBrain checks out the content and then decides if your website answers the question being asked and ALSO if your website is legit.
And then please explain how a small business gets a good ranking.
Ranking factors come and go, but there are some core ones which really matter. They’re the ones which we want to focus on, so I’ve put together a list to get us started…
1. Keywords! Keywords matter.
A keyword is a best guess word or phrase that captures the essence of what the user is searching for. If you can embed them naturally in your text, your site will be more relevant and appear higher up the search results.
Here is one way to do it – Let’s say — for example — you own several coffee shops in the Chicago area. You research and find that, “Artisan Cafe Chicago” is receiving 800+ monthly searches. Zeroing in on that, you plan on writing content that uses this keyword.
WHEN should you start thinking about keywords?
Day One! You want them in there from the very beginning because they’ll add so much value to your SEO efforts.
Are there sites to help me find keywords for my business?
Of course! Google Keyword Planner is one. AnswerthePublic.com is another. Also, Ahrefs is worth a close look.
2. High quality content
The next thing is the content actually needs to be good. There are far too many sites out there that just plug dozens of largely irrelevant keywords into their text to try and get noticed. Google cares about the experience it delivers to its users, so it’s getting wise to this approach and downgrading the rankings. Focus on quality stuff you’d actually want to read and include a few relevant keywords naturally.
Then work on organization. Many visitors will simply SCAN over the text. It makes sense to organize your page for the visitor - that means headlines, subheads, bullet points, bold type. You get the idea.
3. Your website needs to be speedy
Speed is important if you want your ranking to rise.
For one thing, if your site loads fast, users come back for more and if they are shopping, speed makes shopping easy. And fun.
To boost the speed, take out the non-essentials – all those things that seemed like a good idea – so NO large images. NO flashy graphics, NO music players, NO unnecessary plug-ins, and maybe no videos – although visitors love videos. We can talk about that later.
You can check your website speed with PageSpeedInsights, which is a testing tool. Also, Pingdom
4. Your website needs to be mobile friendly
Your website will probably be looked at on a mobile device. Website visitors use phones and tablets and other mobile devices – versus standing computers – a LOT! As high as 75%. So, make sure your site is mobile friendly – something else that you need to start on Day One. Nowadays, this capability is generally built into your website. If not, fix it now. Just check out your site on mobile devices. Make sure everything fits, that it is readable, and that visitors can navigate easily through the menus.
Why bother? Mobile friendly sites rank higher.
5. Link building
Getting links from other sites is important in improving your websites ranking. It is officially known as Off-Site SEO. Incoming links are considered “votes of trust” and help positively affect your websites ranking. The more authoritative and relevant the links are that point to your site, the better its ranking position on search results.
6. Eliminate “duplicate content.” Duplicate content is content that shows up on different websites – and not in a good way. It comes down to plagiarism, really. As an example – if you purchase content to use on your site, it may have been copied or stolen from yet another site. Publishing on your site can hurt your search engine rankings. Copyscape is a website that allows you to check for duplicate copy.
7. THE DEVIL IS IN THE (TECHNICAL) DETAILS
Here are some small technical fixes to lift your ranking. When everything else is done, you can follow up on these ideas.
a. 404 pages matter. When a page on your website no longer exists or follows a broken link, a 404 page will pop up. Just about everyone has seen a 404 page. The idea is to make your 404 page welcoming and consistent with your brand. Maybe explain why the page has been discontinued, provide options for moving on and make the look of your 404 page consistent with the rest of your website.
Why care? Given that SEO is about user experience, a proper 404 page helps with that goal. And it is one of the factors that helps with your ranking.
b. HTTP Vs. HTTPS
Clueless? Don’t worry about what this is. HTTPS will probably boost your SEO results. And it is pretty standard these days – “everyone is doing it.” And it is free. Use HTTPS. Get help if you need it.
c. On Page Optimization
Details, details. In the SEO world this called On Page Optimization. It is important. Boring but important. Often overlooked.
This includes your page title, meta description, header tags, URLs, and so on and so on. Your search engine cares.
And there you have it!
Expect change - as you probably figured, there will be changes – there absolutely will. Keep in touch with my site – I will keep you in touch with the changes. And no matter what, the simple practices in this blog will always be helpful for SEO.
Don’t be overwhelmed. Just follow these tips one at a time and good things will happen.
Call for a free consult. Happy to help; it is what we do. We can run through some of the details and get you pointed in the right direction. Please, take me up on it.
Wishing you every success.
Brandon Leibowitz
Website: https://seooptimizers.com/
Email: brandon@seooptimizers.com
Phone: (310) 940-9463
Val chimes in – If you are a business owner, it is difficult to do everything by yourself. And the idea is to do what you want to do – do what you are good at doing and why you got in business for yourself in the first place – and consider hiring out other goods and services. It just makes sense. A priority for you is figuring out what is meaningful, what you want to do yourself, what you want to have someone else do, and what you want to leave for another day.
SEO is important – now you need to decide where you want to start and where you would like help and have at it!
No need to jump in full force. Start with one or two items and grow. You know you have a business to run! Start somewhere – anywhere – and it is easy to move on from there. Really. Good luck! Marketing101Essentials@gmail.com