SEO -Search Engine Optimization in Vermont

Keyword Research

The importance of keyword research is often underestimated. There are many factors involved in achieving a top search engine ranking, but keyword research is the foundation of the SEO process. The better you understand your customers, the more of an edge you will have over competitors. There’s a lot more involved in choosing the best keywords than simply plugging keywords chosen in a quick brainstorming session into Google Keyword Planner.

Relying on any keyword research tool too heavily can cripple a website’s goal of achieving high search engine rankings. Effective keyword research is a multi-step process.

• First, a niche market or markets must be identified.

• Next, thoroughly analyze the customer demographics. Define a typical customer. What motivates a buying decision?

• Finally, choose keywords or keyword phrases that prospective customers are most likely to use.

If the keyword research is not executed thoroughly with human insight, much potential business will be lost. Keyword research is not a one-time project. When conditions change, ineffective keywords need to be replaced with better choices.

Quality Link Building

Some of the worst website offenses in the past involved quick and dirty link building schemes. Legitimate link building techniques are known as “white hat” or “natural.” “Black hat” techniques are just the opposite, violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Black hat techniques were used to quickly increase a website’s search engine ranking by adding large numbers of irrelevant or spam links to a website. Google’s Penguin and Panda algorithm updates severely penalized sites using this black hat method with huge losses of traffic.

No reputable SEO firm will recommend or use any black hat link building methods.

Building quality links, however, remains a critical component of website optimization. High-quality links, such as from recognized authorities in the field, government sources or educational institutions, are considered natural links and improve a website’s authority and trust. This has a positive affect on the website’s search engine ranking. A poor quality website will not attract or retain high-quality links.

Google’s overall policy on links is relatively clear. Google’s stated goal is to emphasize a good “user experience.” As a corollary, websites providing natural or high-quality links will benefit and and sites with unnatural or poor quality links will be penalized. However, link building is tricky. It takes experience and time to accumulate worthwhile links. Trying to manipulate the system is never advisable and will ultimately result in a Google penalty. Understanding and remaining compliant with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines is essential.

So, with all the possible repercussions, why do links matter?

• Links point to content, which is and will continue to be all-important. If there are no other websites pointing to the content on your website, another website with poorer but optimized content and high-quality links could achieve a higher ranking.

• Links are used by Google to find, categorize, index and rate websites and website pages.

• Visualize a thermostat. Each quality link increases the temperature of the website by a degree while each unnatural link lowers the temperature. As a website accumulates great links, the temperature will finally reach the hot zone. This will help to send the website to the top of the search engine results page.

Website Content Creation and Optimization

Content is still king. Relevant, informative and useful high-quality content is essential for a high ranking in Google and the other search engines in 2016. Poor or outdated content will contribute to a lower ranking and less traffic. Content marketing provides useful information to prospects and current customers, building trust and enhancing the brand. Interactive content is becoming increasingly popular with consumers.

Quality content offers many benefits in addition to boosting search engine ranking.

• Business decision-makers and consumers as a whole prefer to receive information from a series of articles rather than from an advertisement.

• Most consumers tend to believe that those organizations providing useful custom content are interested in building a good relationship.

• Videos are increasingly popular. Over half of all consumers feel that video content is the most trustworthy.

• Videos provide a positive image of the company for 71% of consumers.

• Content marketing is extremely cost-effective, costing 62% less than traditional outbound marketing.

• Whatever your niche, strive to be seen as an expert in your field.

• B2B organizations are heavily into content marketing. A survey released by the Content Marketing Institute revealed that 86% of B2B companies have implemented content marketing into their strategic marketing plan.

Hyperlinking Optimization

A hyperlink, or more commonly link, has two parts:

• The URL to which the link points (www.mydomain.com);

• The anchor text which the user sees (“click here“) or the URL, if no anchor text is used. Anchor text looks professional and aids the search engine in understanding the relevance of the target page, which helps raise the website’s ranking.

In the example above, “click here” is commonly used on web pages, but is not a good choice for anchor text. It contains no information about the page being linked to. To optimize the anchor text, use the subject of the target page, such as “Schedule an emergency plumbing service call.”

Optimizing hyperlinks is a small step, but effectively optimizing a website or page is like most large projects. Many small steps make up the whole.