search engine optimization Archives

May 7, 2021May 6, 2021

Search Engine Optimization: Defined

Search engine optimization (SEO) matters more for your website than you might think. It is defined as the process of optimizing website content to make it more attractive to search engines and users. It determines where your website shows up on results pages, impacting the number of people who click on the link to your site.

With a recent study showing that the first organic result in Google Search has a click-through rate of 28.5% on average, this number gradually falls after the first position—becoming only 2.5% by the tenth position. This shows that focusing on eCommerce SEO is a key strategy to boost the visibility of every online and offline business.

The Basics of Search Engine Optimization

To understand how search engine optimization works, it’s important to look at the benefits that it brings to users and search engines. Firstly, search bots from engines like Google visit web pages, then it catalogs and ranks them on an index using complex algorithms.

As users type search queries and keywords into the search bar, the search engine decides which results to show them in order of relevance. When you optimize your site, you should not only focus on the technical aspects of SEO but also explore what type of content viewers want to consume.

This will allow you to connect with them and provide them with the solutions that they’re searching for online. However, using outdated or unethical SEO practices can seriously harm your site. Tactics like keyword stuffing and other black hat techniques designed to fool search engines can lead to your website being blacklisted and made invisible to users.

Types of SEO

There are two main types of SEO that you need to consider, namely on-page and off-page SEO. As a form of digital marketing, optimizing both areas is crucial to improving your website and helping it rank higher in terms of search engine results.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO refers to content on your website that you should optimize, including code that isn’t visible to users. This includes the title of any pages and articles on your blog page, quality of research, content, anchor text, and HTML headings. Paying close attention to content marketing can help improve your ranking.

Optimizing images and page speed can also lead to a better user experience and signal to search engines that your website is trustworthy and worth visiting. To check the quality of your on-page SEO, conducting a content audit can help you keep track of your overall performance.

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to actions that occur outside of your site that can help build the reputation of your page. This includes earning backlinks from other reputable websites within your niche through the process of link building. One great way to do this is through guest blogging and making use of social media networks.

Through off-page search engine optimization, search engines can evaluate the authority of your website and how popular it is in terms of social signals like brand mentions, directory submissions, and image and video shares.

What Ranking Factors Are Involved In SEO?

Although SEO involves interactions between a range of complex factors, here are a few that can impact your website’s overall ranking:

Relevancy of keywords
Originality of content
Quality and quantity of external and internal links
Time a user spends on a page
Trustworthiness and lack of bias
Level of expertise
Page load speed
Mobile compatibility
Site security
Image optimization
Readability and user experience

What Are The Benefits Of SEO?

Investing in SEO for your website means that you’ll see improvements in SEO, in addition to greater visibility, you’ll get:

Higher organic traffic and decreased digital marketing costs
Increased trust and credibility as a brand
Improved user experience
Increased local audience engagement
Higher quantity of sales
Collaboration with different brands
Key insights into brand performance and areas for improvement

Choosing An SEO Service

Although the pricing of SEO services can vary across companies, it’s important to work with a reputable team of experts that can identify potential areas of growth for your brand. Often, you get what you pay for, and SEO provides long-term benefits that pay greater dividends in organic traffic over time.

Get in touch with us today at Bliss Drive to find the SEO package that best suits your needs. Using the latest SEO strategies, our team of experts will deliver a customized organic digital marketing strategy that leads to real results.

May 29, 2018October 23, 2020

How to Spot a Shady SEO Company

Tons of companies are vying for the coveted #1 position on Google.

Together with the increasing demand to rank highly in search engine results are the increasing Search Engine Optimization services being offered left and right.

Google “SEO Service” and it will return over 4 million results.

Every SEO company claims to be an expert, saying they can optimize your on-page and off-page.

Some will even promise to get your website on the first page of Google results in 6 months or less.

However, unless they can prove it, you really can’t tell.

You can spot a liar through eye contact. But when dealing with an SEO company, how can you tell if you’re working with the real deal?

Before I reveal that answer, let me briefly discuss what SEO is all about.

SEO is actually not that hard.

Marketing may have changed over time and you may hear about algorithm updates every now and then. But with SEO, the fundamentals remain the same. You just need to remember these two pillars of SEO:

Pillar # 1: On-page SEO

This refers to the strategies that you can control on your website. On-page SEO helps Google determine what your website is all about.

There are four things that you can base your On-page SEO strategy on:

SEO best practices
On-page SEO checklist
Technical
Relevance of content

All of these aim to check and optimize your page Title, Meta Description, Interlinking, Content, and the Alt Text for each image.

When On-Page SEO is done correctly, your company can enjoy the following benefits:

Get good rankings more easily—Google can better understand what your pages are all about. You can easily rank high among low-competition keywords.
High Click-Through Rate (CTR)—More people will visit your web page.
Better user engagement—You get to engage with the right people who come to your site based on the keywords or buyer intent.
More qualified leads are converted into your sales pipeline.

The On-page SEO is not a secret. Anybody can do it. But if everybody can do it (and they all try to do it really well), which web pages do you think Google will rank higher?

Interesting.

This is where link building comes in. Link building determines the authority of the website and helps Google identify which web pages should get a good ranking.

Link building is covered in Off-Page SEO, which is the second pillar of SEO.

Pillar #2: Off-page SEO

The authority of your website is determined by the “off-page” of your website. This is measured by the number of links which direct to your website.

When link building strategies are implemented correctly, your website will rank on competitive keywords and your website’s rank will get a boost, which translates into greater ROI.

Your link building efforts can build the Trust and Authority of your website. By having links that go to your site, Google won’t be able to resist giving you a higher search ranking.

Here are the benefits of having a strong off-page optimization strategy:

You can publish new pages and get ranked very quickly.
It ensures you achieve top placement in organic searches… and stay on top.
You’ll earn trust from visitors to your page.
You’ll get referral traffic from other websites.

Our company Bliss Drive created a case study on one of our clients, Carry Out Supplies.

The Carry Out Supplies Case Study

Carry Out Supplies previously had an average of 120 referring domains. You can see on the graph below that the backlinks are stagnant from May 2017 to February 2018.

When we came on board, we improved their On-page SEO and ramped up their Off-page optimization. You’ll notice a spike on the graph at around March 2018.

Currently, Carry Out Supplies has 300+ referring domains.

The increase of backlinks resulted in an exponential increase in Organic Traffic and Organic Keywords.

Organic Traffic – from 1K increased to 5K

Organic Keywords – from 2K increased to 8K

One of their target key phrases is “wholesale coffee cups,” which earned Carry Out Supplies the number one spot in the Google search results—appearing immediately after the paid ads.

Carry Out Supplies target key phrase is "wholesale coffee cups"

As referring domains increase (increase in backlinks), the Organic traffic and Organic Keywords also increase.

All the graphs above present a case that proves a properly implemented off-page SEO strategy makes a huge difference. And though it may not look that obvious, the graphs also answer the question of how to spot a shady SEO company.

So, how can we spot a shady SEO company?

They can’t (or won’t) present graphs, which prove their SEO success.
A shady SEO company doesn’t talk about their backlinks strategies—they refuse to discuss it or prefer not to reveal their specific strategies.
They don’t use AHREFS, which is a great tool for serious SEO companies. Other companies may use tools like SEMrush and Spyfu.
Their focus is on On-page SEO strategies and they are not doing much with off-page.
They’re making amazing promises but not backing them up with proof.

Here’s a piece of advice: If what the company is offering you sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

SEO brings the highest ROI, right after email marketing. So, to make SEO work for you, you have to make sure you choose a professional SEO company you can trust.

Here are some things to look for when hiring an SEO company:

Background: how long has the company been in the industry, who are their clients, who are the people behind the company, what are their past clients’ reviews, etc.
Case studies: can they present a case study or past successes?
Tools and strategies: find out how they approach their SEO campaigns

Conclusion

Choosing an SEO company to work with can be a challenging and confusing endeavor. Many companies offering SEO services sound pretty much the same.

Some may entice you with a lot of show and dance—always question their capability. Find out if they can really deliver.

The difference between a good SEO versus a not-so-good SEO are the backlinks that get implemented after the on-page optimization.

A good SEO company will provide both good on-page optimization and off-page strategies, which can bring your store from the middle of nowhere right up into all the action.

Learn how we can boost your company’s search engine ranking by booking a complimentary SEO Strategy Session. Give me a call now at 949 229 3454.

You can also visit us anytime at www.blissdrive.com.

July 24, 2017October 6, 2020

When Will SEO Not Work for Your Business?

I was on a discovery call recently with a potential client, an international business owner. He is in the food subscription business, and wanted to start doing some SEO. He had been spending about $20k to $30k every month on Facebook and social media campaigns and wanted to understand how he could leverage search engine optimization to help him gain more traction and increase sales.

When I started looking at his market, we quickly realized that he’s in a business where people are not immediately looking for a subscription box service. It’s more of an impulse buy on part of the consumer. This equates to a low demand for his solution even though it’s a good one.

When there’s little to no demand for your business or the solution your company offers, this means people are not searching for you or your business solution on Google. It is in this case where SEO is not likely going to work in the typical way. SEO campaigns will work, in terms of finding the key words, then binding those words that have search volume to increase rankings and get traffic. In this case, there is not one specific key word that has the ability to focus on gaining traffic.

With that said, we figured out his target audience and who would buy his subscription food service. We then developed a content marketing strategy that would add value to his customer when they’re looking for specific needs. We turned his target audience into a media hub for his food delivery service by focusing on consumer needs and wants.

As an advertiser, he has a product by teaming up with other companies and putting products together to sell. Now, just by talking about their products online they will in turn advertise his product. This way, it’s a free way for him to get traffic to his audience and advertise his product to them. That’s going to work tremendously well for his business.

Your business may not be the typical business that has keywords with search volume baked in with demand. That’s not to say you can’t also find your audience and target some trigger points to meet their actual needs to solve a problem they didn’t know they had. Using campaigns or events on various scales where people are looking for specific products you work with, and then showcase your product, to get more sales that way.

August 1, 2013May 6, 2021

Why You Should Focus on Long-Tail Keywords First and Short-Tails Later

A great SEO campaign is shaped like a tree: thousands of small roots stem into a few big branches. The most effective websites generally don’t target thousands of highly valuable short-tail keywords and a few smaller keywords, but thousands of long-tail keywords and a few carefully selected short-tail, high-traffic keywords.

Using the tree metaphor, let’s look at the approach that many SEOs take to building and executing their SEO campaigns:

Step One: Target 10+ lucrative, high-value, high-traffic keywords.

Step Two: Focus link building on these keywords and no others.

Step Three: Develop content solely for these high-value keywords.

The end result is predictable: their website moves up the ranks for its top keywords, but not at a particularly impressive speed. Instead of achieving a first-page ranking – and thus, receiving traffic – it sits on the second or third page, failing to attract more than a few monthly visitors from its ‘lucrative’ target keywords.

The unfortunate reality of SEO is that listings on the first page of Google receive a far higher share of traffic than those on the second page. The ration isn’t 70:30, as many expect, but something far closer to 98:2. Being at the bottom of the first page is a big boost over being at the top of the next, despite the closeness in numerical ranking.

Because of this, the best SEO campaigns are often planned with the lowest-hanging fruits targeted first, and the biggest fruits last. Long-tail keywords – keywords that receive as little as 100 searches per month – are the ideal initial target for your SEO projects due to their lack of competition and relative ranking simplicity.

Instead of the three-step model for failure we’ve discussed above, a successful SEO campaign should use the following three-step system:

Step One: Target 100+ lucrative yet low-traffic keywords.

Step Two: Focus link building solely on these low-traffic keywords.

Step Three: Develop content that targets all of your search keywords.

It takes very little effort to rank prominently for long-tail keywords, making them an ideal target for the early days of an SEO campaign. Better yet, every piece of content you build to target a long-tail keyword during your website’s early days becomes an exceptionally valuable SEO asset when it’s time to target higher-value keywords.

Think about it: it’s far easier for a prominent, well established website to rank for a high-value term than it is for a brand new website. As such, it’s worth building your website to become established and respected before you target the search keywords that are so frequently out of reach for a newcomer.

Great SEO is far more about planning and strategy as it is about the sheer volume of links and content you can generate. A website that’s built up gradually, with modest targets in its early days and ambitious targets later in its lifespan, will experience a long-term advantage that no race-to-the-top SEO effort can ever hope to match.