Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important parts of creating and maintaining a web presence for your business. The sheer volume of content on the web necessitates that your content be optimized for search engines. If your product, your website and social networks in this case, is not the best it can be your potential customers will go elsewhere to find what they need. The web is no different from the rest of the world in this respect.
Search Engine Optimization is not Voodoo done exclusively by people in black hats from anonymous, run down internet cafe’s around the world. Maybe it was a bit like that up until last year but it isn’t that way any more. Search Engine Optimization is science. It always was but in the past it was just easier to find weakness in the algorithm that could be exploited to cause poor quality, spammy sites to show up on the first page of search results.
The Search Algorithm is “an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function.” (Wikipedia). Google’s recent Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird updates to their search algorithm have closed most of the loopholes that used to allow people to subvert the intent of the search engine. In the diagram above we have illustrated the differences between the old way of doing Search Engine Optimization and the new one.
The easiest way to think of Search Engine Optimization is that the search engines have an “ideal model” of what a perfect web page should be. They use this model as a template by which to judge every site on the web whether it is your own company website or the pages on your social networks. The closer that your pages are to matching this perfect template the higher they will rank in the results that the search engine gives to a specific query.
Search engines are now looking for the best quality content to answer a query. They are even taking into account the intent behind the question. For this reason your Search Engine Optimization efforts have to be ongoing. Every piece of content you contribute has to be created according to SEO best practices. Everything you do on the web matters.
Parts of Search Engine Optimization
On Site Best Practices
Every page on your website should have certain things in specific places and in certain percentages. Things like the meta title and description, number of words on the page, images, links, image descriptions, percentage of the time that specific words are used, etc. Much of these things will make no obvious visual impact on your site design. They won’t even be seen by people who visit your site. Yet they make a great deal of difference in whether your site appears on page one or page thirty of search results. They really are that important.
Link Building
Much of the new paradigm for Search Engine Optimization is all about the quality of the content on a site. Of course the search algorithm is not a critic. Given two paragraphs of equal length it could not tell the relative value of one over the other in abstract ways. Therefore one of the biggest factors that the search engines take into consideration when determining the value of a piece of content is the opinion of other people.
One of the ways that search engines do this is by looking at the number of sites that have links to your site. Not just any site will do though. It looks for links from sites that are contextually relevant to your site. Sites that are deemed to be of equal or higher quality than your own will give you a positive boost. Sites that are of lesser quality than yours or not contextually relevant will pull down the perceived value of your content.
Social Network Likes Shares And Follows
The second way that the search engines determine the value that people find in your content is by considering how many people share, like and follow you on social networks. It is pretty obvious that the more value people find in your content the more likely they are to tell their friends and followers about it.
Your ongoing Search Engine Optimization efforts are now, by necessity, tied directly into your Social Network management. We can help you in this respect by utilizing tools on the web and on social networks to promote your brand, your products and your content on social networks.
Our Search Engine Optimization Services
We will analyze your website, local directory listings and social network pages and adjust them to bring them into line with SEO best practices. It is surprising how many sites either have bad SEO or no SEO in place. Even good sized companies and media sites such as newspapers, online magazines and TV or radio stations are just as likely to never have had Search Engine Optimization built into their sites. Many web designers don’t do Search Engine Optimization. They just design awesome websites.
Basic site analysis: $100 Includes analysis of your home page, social network pages and local directory listings along with recommended fixes. This is the analysis only, fixes can be done by whoever you choose.
Site analysis and repair: $25 per page (4 page minimum). This package includes the above except that we do the fixes as well as the analysis.
Ongoing SEO: Cost: 10% of campaign budget. We will help you create backlinks to your content and build your social likes and shares. We can promote your content on various platforms in various ways.
We can also create content for you or edit your content to bring it into line with SEO best practices before you add it to your site. Fees for this service will also be $25 per page.