SEO 101: Have You Covered the Basics?

SEO 101: Have You Covered the Basics?

Search engine optimization is a complex marketing puzzle that, when done correctly, can significantly benefit your business and brand. As a leading provider of SEO services in Philadelphia, we work daily to help local and national clients grow their businesses by mastering SEO techniques and strategy through meaningful content and optimization.

But before tackling advanced SEO tactics, we like to ensure clients have already built a great foundation and covered the basics. Here are some ways to ensure you’re successful with your SEO strategy.

Optimize Your Individual Onsite Pages

At its core, SEO strategy is centered around having high-quality content on your website that uses relevant keywords and consumer search terms. This requires having an in-depth understanding of how your audience searches and creating a professional, easy-to-use website that is easy to find and that people want to spend time on. A robust and consistent onsite content strategy is the best way to do that.

When a consumer goes to Google and types in a keyword like “how to train my dog,” Google will comb through billions of websites to find those keywords. To ensure your website is one of the first search results, you need to create meaningful content that not only uses those keywords but is relevant and formatted correctly for a search engine to recognize. You can do this in various ways, like blog posts or optimizing the content on your “About” page. Utilizing great content and smart formatting is a way to tell Google that your business is legitimate and has content searchers want to see.

An in-depth content marketing plan is critical to optimize your onsite pages successfully. But, developing and executing a content plan is also extremely time-consuming. It involves producing and planning valuable content that has an impact. If you’re looking to hire a team to help you develop content that gets you highly ranked, our team provides client-centric SEO services in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas. We can help you develop the right content you need to get more visits to your website.

Utilize Off-Site SEO Techniques

While onsite optimization involves managing the content on your website, off-site SEO optimization involves content and actions that happen off your page to help it rank in search engines. The most common way to optimize for off-site SEO is to have other websites link back to your website, otherwise known as backlinking.

Backlinking boosts your website’s credibility because it shows that other sites or publications find your website worth sharing. Essentially, the site is vouching for your business and showing it’s a place of authority.

Off-site SEO is important but can be challenging to tackle since it requires external parties to take action and share your site. The most effective way to do this is actually rooted in your onsite strategy — create valuable content. When you create meaningful content that your audience wants to share, there’s a good chance you will start to get backlinks organically. While getting backlinks can take time, if done successfully, you’ll begin to see its results.

Capitalize on Local Search

Did you know that nearly half of all Google searches have keywords relating to the searcher's location? Capitalizing on local SEO is crucial to your company’s growth if you're a local business serving a specific community.

You should consider the local consumer when developing your content strategy. How can you incorporate and elevate local keywords that signal to search engines the area you serve? Are there ways to boost your local reputation through reviews? The more you can point to the geographic areas you serve on your website and off-site, the more likely Google will legitimize and rank your business.

Another easy and important way to boost your local SEO efforts is to claim your Google My Business Page. This free tool from Google allows you to officially establish your business through Google and share important information like phone number, hours of operation, location, website, and more. This also gives you a platform to solicit customer reviews, further amplifying your local reach.

Improve your UX

None of your content will matter to Google if your website is unusable in design and functionality. Even if you can get users to your website, if their experience is bad, Google will start to downrank your website.

An easy-to-navigate and clearly labeled site can help users find what they need quickly and efficiently. Nearly 68% of all web traffic is now on mobile phones, so your site needs to perform for those users. Ensure your images load fast and are optimized for mobile so users aren’t waiting on long loading times or can’t view the content from their phones. If you need SEO services in Philadelphia to help you with this, our team can provide a consultation and audit of your site to help point out areas of improvement.

Stay Consistent

Once you determine your SEO strategy, you have to stay consistent to see results. SEO optimization is a marketing technique that requires a long-term plan to ensure you stay ranked and legitimate. After the first month of your strategy, make sure you review your website data and make a note of any trends or actions users are taking as a result of your website content. This can help you adjust your site and determine how you should provide future content to your users.

With so many moving parts and complexities to SEO, hiring an SEO service in Philadelphia can help you develop a strategy that can adjust based on the data and results.

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Working on a successful SEO strategy requires time, patience and tactical knowledge of search engine protocol. At Padula Media, we can provide the expertise you’re looking for to grow your brand’s presence and optimize for more web traffic. We work closely with our clients to provide a custom SEO strategy that helps them reach their specific audience and goals. Ready to get started? Contact us today and learn how we can be your resource for SEO services in Philadelphia and beyond.