SEO Strategies - The Basics Revisited

Introduction: The purpose of this article is to highlight key strategies that can easily be implemented on your website. It certainly makes sense to have your LinkedIn profile congruent with your website or landing page. 

The better you are at SEO, the more traffic and hence, the more sales you will get. Of course, if you have a huge marketing budget you can spend it all on advertising and totally forego #SEO, but if you are on a shoestring budget, you can always tap into the powers of SEO to get free traffic! 

You should have your keywords on your profile. It’s really what people use to search for your service or expertise. If you aren’t sure, search for your skill sets, just as a potential client would do. You may be surprised by what you find. Most likely you will find someone just like you. This is where you can make a great difference in your profile content determines whether you win or miss out.

 Keyword Research is an Essential Part of SEO

You will need to find what #keywords are the most sought after in your niche and target them in your web content. Do your research on Google Search.  I like to search for keywords on LinkedIn, YouTube and SEMrush. This ensures I have all my bases covered.

That way, when the majority of people search for something on the net, everything will lead to your website. The best place to do your keyword search is at Google Adwords Tool.

The winning formula for good keywords are:

1. High search volume
2. Low competition

As a general rule of thumb, getting about more than 1000 organic searches a day is a good bet for a highly searched keyword. If you want to check out your competition, get the Google toolbar and see what are the “page ranks” for search results are on the first page.

These keywords and key phrases will then be targeted to draw you massive free traffic via SEO. There are also long-tail keywords that are longer key phrases with fewer search volumes but virtually no competition. These should be targeted as well, especially if there is a local component to your search, like SEO Marketing Boston.

Onsite and Offsite Optimization

Introduction: As mentioned earlier, onsite optimization deals with the things you can edit on your own website to make your web content more likable by Google.

There are two types of optimization techniques: 1. Onsite optimization and 2. Offsite optimization. Onsite optimization deals with the things you can tweak and modify on your own website to make it more relevant to Google searches.

Offsite optimization deals with interactions with websites outside of your own website. This could be in the form of getting backlinks or social interactions, which we will go into more detail later. 

Here some easy strategies you can start applying to our businesses immediately!

Onsite Strategies in SEO: The first thing you must know is the keywords. In short, every page should have about 2-5% keywords density.  Be sure to sprinkle your keywords where it’s due but don’t overdo it.

For total optimization, keywords or key phrases should be present in the titles of blog posts, the first sentence of the first paragraph and at least once in the body.

Keywords should also be bolded or italicized every now and then. Links should be worded with anchor text links (keywords and phrases).

Also, onsite linkages are highly recommended. Meaning, you should link blog posts and pages together if they are relevant. These small steps contribute to SEO and should be applied when convenient.

One more thing about onsite SEO, people say that images don’t contribute to SEO. The reality is this.  Images should be given alternate texts or descriptions.  You can also link images to blog posts. Remember, attention to detail does make a difference.

Stick to these good practices and you’ll be on your own to free traffic.

OffSite Strategies in SEO: Offsite optimization deals with your content outside your website that contributes to SEO. One of the main components of offsite optimization is getting backlinks. #Backlinks are one of the primary strategies for offsite optimization. 

A backlink is basically someone else’s website linking to you. Obviously, pages with higher page rank that link back to you give more Google Juice. The key is to get as many high page ranks. The more RELEVANT websites linking back to you, the better. Quality always trumps quantity.

Here’s a tip, it’s a good idea to check out your competitor’s websites and request a link exchange.

Another important component is the social interactions. Be aware of Google’s algorithm changing from time to time. In the past, they implemented a new ruling that social interactions are important for SEO. This could be things like sharing on Facebook, Twitter, comments, etc. The world is connected to everywhere now, not a stand-alone component.

Advanced Techniques for boosting your Page Rank

Do not ignore the Power of Blogging.  If you haven’t written a blog post on a blogging platform before, then think again.  Tagging, categorizing and organizing your blog posts come a long way and can greatly improve your SEO rankings.

Translation Plugins work great if you are blogging. It really does help users navigate your site better, as well as create a ton of onsite links within your website. 

People are always searching for information in other languages.  You will likely get a much higher ranking targeting a different language. You can easily start with Spanish.

And finally, create a mini sitemap. This is great for helping people (as well as Google spiders) navigate your map and creates a bunch of mini links.

In closing, this discussion should motivate you to re-evaluate your keywords for your LinkedIn Profile. It really is important to match up with the LinkedIn searches conducted by your prospective clients. This is one way to be discovered.