How Understanding SEO can benefit your brand and increase traffic to your site.

In order for people to find you online, your content must be optimized for search. All of your content, not just website copy. Your blog, press releases, articles and even social medias posts should be optimized to some degree. That means initiating a real Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan and taking time to understand the SEO process.

SEO is the process of inserting the right keywords into your site so that search engines like Google can rank you higher. The point is to make your website easier to find based on their search requirements.

1. Understanding the Rankings
Google tries to give the user what it thinks they are looking for, and the higher your site ranks for relevant terms, the easier it is for people to find you.

Chances are you’re not the only business in your industry, which means you’ve got to stand out any way you can. To understand SEO as a strategic method, you need to realize that it enhances your content in a way that works from the inside out.

2. Using the Right Platform
A good SEO strategy starts with the right website. Fresh, continuously updated content is always good for SEO because it makes the website more robust and provides more of an opportunity to inject keywords.

Content Management Platforms like WordPress make fresh content easy to disseminate and have backends that are optimized for search. Plus, you can add SEO widgets that make every page and post checkable against SEO requirements.

3. Crafting Your Message
When you take your SEO more seriously, you take your writing more seriously. By writing original, quality content, you’ll demonstrate expertise, and gain rankings in the search engine.

Make sure every part of your message aligns with your focus as a brand and what you are trying to accomplish with SEO. When sharing a post on social media, make sure that post links back to whatever you are trying to promote (website, blog, or both). That post must have key words that are SEO compatible.

This is your opportunity to take control of your online reputation. Deliver genuine, honest messaging that positions you as an authority.

4. Blog With Purpose
To understand SEO, you have to understand what Google wants to see. If Google sees you’ve got a decent industry-centric blog, meaning one that’s well trafficked and shared, it essentially sees you as an expert or an authority. To Google, you’re clearly trusted on this topic, so the search engine boosts your ranking.

5. Consider All Angles
Your SEO plan should account for how search engines work, what is being searched and search terms/keywords based on the target audiences. The main components of a true SEO strategy are:

keyword research
competition analysis
link-bait
optimization on the backend of the website
page speed
mobile usability
authority stacking through link building
analytics/plugins
directory of online listings

6. Keywords and Meta Descriptions
The keyword for a page should be what the page is about. Use it once in the title, once in the first paragraph, a few times in the copy, and then in the meta description.

Meta descriptions are for human consumption, and Google doesn’t really read them to determine ranking but you still need to take them into consideration. They are the little one or two sentences of text you see below a site title in search results and they’re pretty much meant to get the person to click on the page. This is where you need to understand the human factor along with SEO.

When you become more visible, you have the potential to attract new consumers. And the higher rank is vital because very few people ever click past page 3 in search results. So, make it a point to never make your consumers dig for you.

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