How to Structure your Company for Long Term SEO Success

Creating a successful web management campaign takes time, effort, and versatility. Those who learn how to effectively tailor their web pages to Google’s algorithms can benefit from boosted rankings that expand their company’s reach, and provide them with access to brand new markets. For smaller, or new businesses, the concept of SEO can often seem like an intimidating prospect. There are so many rules to follow, and so many complicated words to learn. However, SEO is simply there to ensure that you continue to get good rankings in the search engine, preferably above your competitors. It’s easy to see how SEO is a valuable tool, but an important factor to remember about it is that SEO is dynamic. It is not a static concept, instead, it evolves, changes and adapts, and you need to be prepared to move alongside it.

An Introduction to SEO

Failing to adjust your website to the changes that Google makes can result in some seriously damaging penalties, leaving your SEO success in ruins. For example, although website managers could once simply ‘stuff’ their site with keywords in order to garner high rankings, the Penguin and Panda updates by Google have put a stop to that. However, this doesn’t mean that keywords are no longer important. The updated algorithms are simply trying to draw attention to more than just a handful of relevant words. As a growing child, Google is starting to learn about whole subjects, so that it can separate quality content, from junk. It may seem like this has made SEO more complicated, but it actually makes the whole ordeal easier, because you get to focus on quality content with the knowledge that you’re not going to get outranked by sites full of spam.

Applying SEO to your Website

There’s nothing wrong with being a little nervous about the concept of SEO – you just can’t let it scare you away. With that in mind, here are a few simple steps on how to apply SEO to your website, and keep yourself updated for long term success.

1. Content marketing: There has been a strong focus on imagery and video over the last year, but despite this, content marketing remains a strong way to keep your site on top of the pack. Using a high-quality blog, or series of articles that can attract your target market and keep them entertained and informed will give Google more content to index, meaning that you get more ranking opportunities.
2. High-quality content: It’s been mentioned before, but quality content is essential. Make sure that you never publish keyword-stuffed, spammy, or useless content. If you do, Google may end up penalizing your site, and even removing it from indexes. Remember, if your site hasn’t got a Google presence, then you basically don’t exist.
3. Make sure your site is accessible: Once you’ve got your site activated, Google for it by using the site: command, in front of your domain name, for example, site:mydomainname.com. If only a couple of your pictures show up, then you’ve probably got an indexing problem. Also, your website might suffer if there are too many images or multimedia videos on certain pages. Although the visual appeal is great to have on a webpage, remember that search engines love text.
4. Make sure your site is healthy: There are a number of ways that you can go about checking the health of your website in regards to your SEO strategy. Google Webmaster Central, for example, is a tool offered by the search engine itself, which can alert you to issues such as crawling problems or potential hacks. It also offers up valuable statistics on how many people are linking to you, and which terms are connecting people to your website.
5. Be Social: Search engine optimization and social marketing used to be two completely different concepts. However, today, they combine with each other to make a great online strategy. If you have an active social media account, then you’re more likely to achieve higher rankings in Google. Remember, there are various websites you can utilize, from Pinterest to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Google+.
6. Build Back links: One of the crucial ways that search engines decide which pages are worthy of great rankings is to look at whether those pages have high-quality links. Of course, a lot of people try to build links in the wrong way, through spammy guest posts and other means. However, this won’t get you anywhere. Search engines will reward hard links that have taken a great deal of effort for you to gain. This means that you need to get links from high-quality sites that are natural and authentic.

These are just some of the basic ways that you can go about tailoring your SEO strategy for success. Perhaps the most important thing that you can do is remember to constantly search for updates to algorithms and tactics throughout the internet. The more you educate yourself, the more you will be able to take advantage of the many benefits that good SEO can bring to you and your business.