How we maximize your SEO

Picture the world of daily searches as one side of the Empire State building. The people you need to reach are actually in a spot a couple of hundred feet up — the size of the head of a pin. It’s our job to throw darts and hit that spot.

Why? Because those are the people that represent viable customers for you. It doesn’t matter if we hit anywhere else on the building; it won’t help you.

Look at it this way: you sell accessories for British sports cars. So you’d definitely want to show up when people search “Mini Cooper mag wheels.” But what about just “mag wheels?” That’s not nearly as specific, and the bulk of searchers for that phrase are probably looking for something you don’t carry. So the effort to get your site placed in those results is mostly wasted.

You’d be better off by expanding the list of terms for your specific business, like “alloy rims for Mini Coopers,” “Aluminum wheels for Mini Coopers,” “Mini Cooper premium rims,” and the like. Those searchers are definitely looking for what you offer, and are much more likely to become paying customers.

Key to this process are resources like the Google Keyword Tool, which will tell us exactly how many people are searching on which words. It will also break it down by geographic area, if that’s important.

In addition, it will give us all related keywords. For instance, we request data on the search term “Mini Cooper wheels.” The tool will tell us that last month, there were 1,900 searches for that term. But there were also 140 searches for “Mini Cooper wheel” (singular), “480 searches for “Mini Cooper S wheels,” 260 searches for “Mini Cooper wheels for sale,” and even go farther, with 320 searches for “Mini Cooper steering wheel.”

And that’s just the beginning; we can actually access up to 800 related search terms, from that one phrase. Get the picture? There’s a lot of invaluable information available.

Factoring in additional data, like your Analytics reports (if you have them), adds another, powerful dimension to the research. The more material we have, the more we can tailor the SEO program to benefit you.

Every month, we produce relevant, unique content, and include it on your site. These “Landing Pages” serve two purposes:

1) the Landing Pages are tailored to what the search engines look for, both in the text content and the coding (see below);

2) the Landing Pages appeal to the people that visit them, not only delivering exactly what those people searched for, but also promoting your business and encouraging action (like contacting you, or purchasing from you).

Guided by the initial research and ongoing tracking (see below), we’ll constantly evaluate what we need to write about to achieve the most powerful results, and keep doing it.

That is meat and potatoes to the search engines.

Finally, we provide interesting and engaging photos and other graphics, including video, if it’s available. Because those elements keep viewers on your pages longer. And search engines track the amount of time that visitors stay on your pages — the longer the page view time, the higher the engine ranks that page.

Primary in this technique is what’s known as the “Title tag.” You’ll only see the whole title tag on any of your site pages if you scroll your cursor over the tab at the top of the browser window, and hold it there. Where you will see it is in the search engine pages: engines use it as the link/title of your result.

Example: your page is about installing the new wheels on your Mini Cooper. The headline of the page (not to be confused with the “title”), is “Installing your wheels.” Perfectly fine on the page, but if that showed up in a search result, it’s not very explanatory, is it? It would be better to have the tag read:

Mini Cooper wheel installation: everything you need to know

Now you’ve got something that not only tells the searcher what the page is about, but also gives them a compelling reason to click through to your site.

And that’s only one of the many aspects of the coding we work with on your site. We also specify the exact URL (web address), write custom meta descriptions (what appears below the title/link in a search result), build an internal link structure between the text on your own site’s pages (intra-site linking), optimize your site’s navigation scheme (how the pages are organized), and more.

Combined, these techniques build the SEO “juice” of your site’s pages, which is what you need in order to show up for the right searchers at the right time.

Those social media and local search sites play a great part in your search results. Properly configured they can work well for you. But often, they are incomplete and inconsistent.

If they do not all match (for instance if they have slightly different information about your company, including website address, phone number, and mailing address) their power is greatly diluted. We compare them all and correct all such inconsistencies, so you get the most use out of them.

In addition, having custom banner graphics, complete bios, reviews, and whatever else each site allows, presents a strong reason for people to visit your site, or even contact you directly from the social media site.

As time goes on, we have more and more data to work with: what the current search rankings all for the chosen search terms, how many people are actually clicking on them to go to your site, which of those people contact you, and much more.

Of course, all the data in the world does no good unless you know how to interpret and act on the results. We do. It’s what we’ve done for 20 years, and we’re experts. We have to be: your business depends on it.