What even is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of getting your business's website on the first page of Google.

So, how do you make that happen?

Well, if we are going to be completely honest about it, there are two ways to get your site to the first page of Google. One option is to pay a premium to do paid search advertising for a quick, temporary boost to your baseline site traffic. The other option is to work with an SEO specialist over the long term to increase your baseline traffic. This will create a consistent, predictable stream of customers that are searching for your product or service.

If you haven't already clicked the link to learn more about paid search advertising, let's dig more into how SEO works.

On-Page SEO

There are two major parts to search engine optimization. One is on-page SEO and the opposite but related is off-page SEO, which we will talk about later.

The visible...

On-page SEO is often the first step in getting you closer to the first page of Google. This is because the changes here are often the most important and most controllable.

This can be anything from writing entire blog posts or changing meta-data, or some code on your site. That code is the information you find on the Google Search results page. It looks like this:

...and the invisible!

Yet, those are only the visible changes. The changes that have the biggest effect are often those you don't see or have the ability to change on template websites.

I'm talking about your website's crawlability (yup, you read that right, that's a real word). Search engines like Google and Bing have tools that explore your website. They look for broken links, duplicate text, or hidden pages. This is to make sure users can access your website.

If these crawlers cannot understand your website or are unable to find a page, then it flags your site. The more flags your website has, the lower your site will begin to rank online.

Off-Page SEO

Now for off-page SEO! Here, the work becomes a bit more indirect.

Here's what I mean by indirect. One of the important aspects of SEO is to increase the number of links to your website across the internet.

You can think of this as increasing the size of a target that is your business's website.

An example of this could be a news source that publishes an article that includes a link to your website. Or, it could be a social media account that has a post referencing your product. This also includes your own social media platforms!

Either of these examples creates more chances for people to find your business online.

Another option is the simple act of adding your business to an online directory! Whether it is Google Maps, Yelp, or your local chamber of commerce's website.

By increasing the number of backlinks to your website, you can start to get closer to the first page of Google.

The Conclusion of the Matter

This isn't everything. Search Engine Optimization goes much deeper and even changes from platform to platform.

Mhmm. Google, Bing, YouTube, Facebook, and even Instagram have their own SEO processes.

That's why SEO can become a handful for anyone looking to work their way to the first page of Google. Not only that, but this process takes a long time.

More often than not, you won't start to see any return on your efforts until close to three months later!

There's much more to discuss and we would be glad to explain anything that you are curious about! We can answer any question you throw our way. And, if you'd like an audit of your website, we can do one for free!

You can give us a call at (907) 456 - 7384 or send us an email by filling out our contact form here.

We look forward to hearing from you soon!