How Do You Rank?

     SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of formatting your site to increase visibility when users search for products and services related to your business. The better visibility you have, the more traffic there is directed to your site, which in turn helps your business. The term “rank” refers to which spot your website sits when a prospective customer searches for businesses like yours. Ideally, you would like to sit in the first position as 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search results. Therefore, ranking high on search engines is crucial.

1. Content:

Quality and authentic content generated for your intended audience increases site traffic, which positively effects your search engine ranking. Aside from increasing site traffic, quality content helps your site generate backlinks (an incoming link from one web page to another site). High-quality backlinks only come from high-quality content so the more backlinks you are able to produce, the higher you are likely to rank on search engines. Quality content also allows for more strategic and concentrated use of keywords. Which again, helps your site rank higher.

Additionally, quality, thought-provoking content improves your overall user experience. Purposeful writing, structure and navigation helps your site with organic traffic because the easier to use the site the more they will.

2. Natural Language Processing:

Up until recently, our understanding of SEO was to include your keywords wherever possible to rank higher. Now, the understanding of SEO has changed and become more personal regarding the communication between humans and computers. Natural language processing refers to the understanding of the context of internet searches. With this change, search engines can understand the context of phrases and use simple words in a conversational manner to use these keywords in a sentence. This strategy is effective for ranking higher on search engines because when used in URLs or site copy, the readability of your site improves.

3. Keywords:

Keywords tell search engines what your site is about and help people find the information they’re looking for. Keywords range from single words to complex phrases and keywords directly reflect the integrity of your search engine results. Although keywords are important, they should be used in ways that are organic, not forced. Awkward sounding content can negatively affect the results of your website because your readability score will be lowered, and users will not stay on your site for long because the content is hard to follow.

4. Analytics Monitoring:

Keeping up to date with your current SEO analytics is crucial. Without this step in place there is no way to determine which of your strategies is working and which are not. Consistently analyzing your current site results also allows you to decipher if your key words need to be changed, if you need to craft better content, or if you should refine your meta titles and descriptions. These are all necessary analytics that can all help your site move the needle in SEO. The more you practice monitoring, the faster pace your site will climb the search engine rankings.

 

     In summary, search engine optimization, or SEO, can not only aid in pushing greater exposure for your business online, but also to help you refine your business’ community through quality, targeted content. Contact DMG today for your SEO strategy needs.

 

Common Measurement Tools:

SEMRush: https://www.semrush.com/ 

Google Analytics: https://analytics.google.com

Matomo: https://matomo.org/