Unless you are a Ninja of some type or run a business where you don’t need customers, getting found on Google is probably a priority for you. Which makes sense! Google is the #1 search engine by a large margin, though there are other search engines that are used such as Bing and the secretly popular, DuckDuckGo.
Wait? You didn’t know there were other Search Engines than Google?
Google has mastered being the goto phrase for anybody that is wanting to look up information. I have worked with clients who were “Googling” stuff but actually using Yahoo! As there search engine. So that begs to ask the question…
We could ask our good friends Siri and Alexa about it, but they would probably just talk to Google. So, instead I went and asked an old friend that was even more popular before Google came around. Side note, don’t ever forget about old friends. Miriam Webster stated that a search engine is a “computer software used to search data for specified information.” So, really, a search engine is just a program that we use to look up information…though it does sound a lot cooler to say Google. Maybe in a future blog post we will write something about how the internet works as that will help explain what the search engines go sifting through.
Now that we know what a search engine is, it would be important to understand how to get your information found on it. We can all remember those long days in college looking for a source yet not being able to enter the correct query to find that source. So frustrating! Well, people still go searching for sources of information and you want your business to be found when they search.
There are a lot of factors that go into getting found. There are the basics, keyword research, on-page SEO, link building, and more. The worst part about SEO is that none of it seems fun. It can be a long process that will literally take years to be fully effective. And though there may be paths that take less time, there are not any good shortcuts.
Google does provide a few tools to help track the progress that you are making. It will even point out some of the things you are doing wrong. Two great tools is the Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
At StarrWeb Marketing we utilize both of these tools on all the websites that we build whether in the Minot area or, really, anywhere! These tools help us analyze whether or not people are actually coming to the website and point out errors that we may have otherwise missed. You need to make sure that BOTH of these are setup for your website. Oh, and they are free!
A lot of times we just want to write content that sounds cool. But, that ain’t cool. There should be research done that allows you to identify the keywords that your site will be targeting. This will help you write content that will supplement these goals. This is important, otherwise you won’t get found.
Google is smart and does not just want to show random results to its users. It wants to keep its users! There is this blind trust that happens. Google works really hard to uphold its end of the deal. So, it is important to website owners, bloggers, or whomever you may be to make sure that your content is optimized. Taking time to make sure that you have adequately identified your keyword goals is the first step.
Take the time to make sure that your On-Page SEO is optimized is, well…time well spent. There are few tips that you implement in your site. Make sure that your URLs are short and that you include target Keywords in your URL. Sounds simple, but make sure it is happening. This is the first look that Google gets, make it a worth while one. Some guy that loves SEO way better than me wrote a whole article about this, it could be worth your time.
Google cares about what you are writing and how you are writing it. Your intent is as important is your content. Don’t keyword stuff, but make sure that your keywords are being included in your H1 tags and the body of your content. Yes, that may seem a little like geek talk but after a little bit of “googling” you will find it pretty easy to understand.
Let’s realize something right now, meta description is important but meta keywords is not. Yeah, the days of designing a website with white text on a white background to get away with keyword stuffing is long gone. Don’t try it, it will hurt you. With that, meta also walked out the door. The meta description is important as this could be the reason why someone will click on your page off of Google, though Google probably did ignore all the meta stuff. For them, it goes a lot deeper.
This is just touching the surface of Search Engine Optimization. There is so much more that could be said but we will save that for another time. We help businesses all over Minot, North Dakota and the United States handle their online presence. If you find this information to be a little overbearing stop by our services area and see if you think we could be a good fit. Or, just send us a message and we can get a conversation going.
