Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a form of online marketing where marketers and webmasters use a range of techniques to ensure their webpage listing appears in a favorable location in search engine results pages (e.g., Google, Bing, and Yahoo).
SEO is one of the fastest-growing marketing segments today. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are paid listings on search engines; they can often be viewed at the top of the search results or to the side.
The shift from marketing with traditional media to digital media reached its turning point in 2010 when advertising agencies spent more on digital advertising than print for the first time.
Surprisingly, Fortune 500 companies have traditionally lacked a strong performance in organic search results. Fortune 500 companies are struggling to show up in organic (free) search results for their industry’s key terms. For example, 53 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have no natural search visibility for their most advertised keywords.
A few of the factors that will determine your website’s ranking in organic search results include the following:
Link Authority
Link authority looks at how many incoming links a webpage has from other websites. The weight of the incoming link depends on:
Relevancy: Is the incoming link coming from a site with the same topic?
Authority: How authoritative is the site that is linking to you?
Placement of the external link: Where on the webpage is the link located?
Be aware that Google sees buying links as unethical, and if caught, a site could be delisted from the search engine.
The link authority model is something that has been within the Google algorithm since founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page developed BackRub.
On-page Optimization
On-page optimization looks at the quality of the copy on the webpage. Search engines rank webpages and not websites, so that means every page should have a unique title, uniquely targeted keywords, and unique content.
The targeted keyword should be included in the text of the page, headers, title, and image descriptions. Other elements to look at are grammatical errors and how user-friendly the page is. The key is to optimize each webpage for the user and search engines.
Google encourages sites to update their content, which means sites that create a lot of fresh content might see a bump up in the rankings, compared to sites that are static. The objective of search engines is to rank quality content higher.
Social Metrics
How well does your website incorporate the different forms of social media into a coherent web strategy? A heavy social media presence improves your website’s brand ranking. Social metrics as a ranking factor for search engines is relatively new but is estimated to increase in importance in the future.
Agnostic Features
Agnostic features concern factors like page speed (how long it takes for the webpage to load), the domain-level keyword, and the page-level keyword.
Page speed is an important aspect since it goes hand-in-hand with being user-friendly for visitors.
An example of domain-level keywords for an e-commerce store that sells cheap shoes is www.cheapshoes.com, while a page-level keyword is www.brandname.com/cheapshoes.
The domain-level keyword has been reduced in importance, while the page-level keyword still provides a ranking advantage.
Another agnostic factor is if the coding of the website is up to W3C standards. Having vulnerabilities in the coding of your website could punish the site by giving it a lower ranking.
International SEO
Companies with an international presence have to consider several different elements when targeting international markets. The two most important factors are the copy and the domain structure of the website.
Quality translated content is essential to ensure the success of your localized website. For example, if you are targeting the French-speaking population in Canada, the translated copy needs to be localized from someone that is French Canadian. The same applies to Mexico/Spain, Portugal/Brazil, etc.
The domain structure needs to be country-specific. Companies often create subdomains to target their international visitors, such as, companyname.com/spain/.
The best way to target international markets is to buy a domain-specific TLD (domain name) targeted toward that specific geographic location, such as companyname.se (Sweden), companyname.es (Spain), or companyname.cr (Cameroon). This makes the user experience seamless, as well as helps with the local search engine rankings.
Excelling with Search Engines
Does your company have a long-term coherent online strategy, or is it ignoring its online presence? Protecting your brand name online is becoming more important as consumers are doing their research online prior to purchasing a product.
Does the company own other domain names similar to its brand name? For example, Google owns different geographical variations of Google.com, as well as its own gewgol.com, goolgel.com, glogoo.com, gmale.com, and many others.
How well are the different segments of your online presence working together? Is your company creating unique ways to create traffic to the site? Do your company leverage user-generated content to their advantage?
Search engine optimization is about tying all the ranking metrics together with a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. If your business is interested in succeeding online, these are some of the search engine optimization factors all businesses should invest in.