Search Engine Optimization
The Battle to Get Your Website to the Front Page of Google
Search Engine Optimization is the secret to being successful on the internet. Make Google happy, and your website will sit at the top of the mountain. Make minor mistakes, and it will be hidden on the back pages.
Building a great website that isn’t optimized for search is like painting a masterpiece and putting it in storage.
The foundation of everything we do at Border West is done with this in mind. Optimizing a website is a slow process that can take months to show benefits. Even then, Google algorithm updates can throw in monkey wrenches several times per year.
This is why you need a solid base strategy, constant education, and the versatility to change directions at the drop of a hat.
We’ve listed the processes we use to optimize websites for our business and our clients. Everything on this page can be used as a diagram for most websites. Or it can be used as a way to understand what we’ll do for your business if you hire us.
Questions about SEO?
We can help!
We know there’s like a gazillion websites out there that claim to have all the answers for making your website “show up first on Google”
Maybe you just have a few questions to see if SEO is a good idea for your specific situation
Maybe you don’t even know what SEO is (you’re not the only one, trust us!)
Call Border West at the number below to talk, or click the button and we can discuss it through email
We’ll answer any questions and see if maybe we can help. If we can’t, we’ll try to steer you in the right direction.
No pressure, no contracts, no over-inflated promises. Just honest answers.
1. Website Analysis for Search Let's See What You've Got
The first step to doing any kind of SEO for a website is to take inventory. We need to see how well it’s built.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of your site?
Does it have a foundation that’s possible to build on? Or does it need to be scrapped?
Border West is a company built on transparency. Life’s too short to beat around the bush.
We’re a digital marketing company first and foremost. We do web design for clients if necessary, and we do it well. But our business is built to sell out customer’s products and services. Not to sell them websites.
With that being said, if the site you already have is acceptable, we’ll start with that.
Now, don’t get us wrong; if you want a new site, we’re more than happy to build it. We just aren’t going to shove it down your throat like many of our competitors.
So, how do you know if your website is worth doing SEO on?
What Software Application is Your Website Built With?
The ability to optimize a website, especially if you’re hiring an outside agency like Border West, is going to depend on the Content Management System. If you’re not familiar with what a content management system is, WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace are all CMS’s.
We do almost all of our website creation in WordPress, and we’re not the only ones. WordPress websites account for over a quarter of ALL websites on the internet. Now, within WordPress, there are countless variations and programs, but it’s the foundation.
For other types of website building programs, we generally avoid optimizing. There are a few reasons, but the main one is they don’t perform as well with search engine optimization as WordPress. There are some instances where we’ll work on a Wix site for a specific industry with little local competition. But if you’re trying to do SEO for a roofing company in a city full of roofers, you’re going to need a WordPress site.
How Experienced Was the Person Who Created It?
Alright, this is possibly more important than the content management system your site was built on. How educated the person building a site is can make or break its performance.
It’s no secret, small business owners are usually operating on a thin margin. They save money where they can, often not realizing until much later if it was a good choice or not.
Everyone these days seems to have a nephew or cousin who “knows about websites.” Often, they don’t know nearly as much as they claim. And unless you’re an expert, you won’t be able to tell how badly they’ve built your site.
A few basic tests and we’ll be able to see how well it’s put together. This will determine whether it’s worth optimizing.
It really comes down to whether it’s going to be more cost effective for you to fix what you have or start fresh.
Ok, once we’ve established your site CAN be worked on, we’ll check to see how well it’s performing already. This is a critical part of our performance report.
With this, we’re going to dive into the following areas:
Where does your site show up for relevant keyword searches?
How fast does it load pages on mobile devices?
How much content does it contain? And how good is it written?
Is it visually appealing?
Are people who going to find what they are looking for here?
And the absolute most important part;
It it going to bring in business?
That last one is what’s really important. Depending on your industry, what your homepage looks like might not matter as much. When we’re working on marketing for movers, we know most of their clients are looking for two things; prices and a quote form. A beautiful homepage is going to get ditched as soon as they find the quote button. And are people really going to spend time looking at an online gallery full of pictures of other peoples’ furniture?
On the other hand, when we’re looking at deck builder’s website, the prettier the better. People viewing it are going to be looking for ideas for their own deck. Homeowners are looking for glossy pictures on sleek, contemporary web pages. They want to see precision and visual appeal, both in your work and the web pages that display it.
2. Google Maps and Local SEO
Fastest Listings First
A big part of SEO for most businesses is local listings. These are going to have to be taken care of sooner or later, might as well get the local registries done right away.
Even thought many SEO professionals utilize local and national business registries as a way to get as many website links as possible (we’ll cover that later), many actually do bring in clients. This is important enough that there are entire companies that do nothing more than list your website on all of these registries and maintain their accuracy. The most famous being Yext.
Yext; A Necessary Evil?
If you’ve never heard of them, Yext is the major player in listing services. Yext pricing packages range from $199 per year to $999 per year. They offer other benefits besides the listings, but the main reason people pay them is to have Yext list their website in dozens of locations.
If you’re wondering why someone would pay $1000 per year to type your information into some websites, you’re not the first person. Many people, including myself, have decided that paying a company for this service is stupid and decided to do it ourselves.
While this seems like it shouldn’t be an issue to input your business information into a few dozen websites (you’re saving a grand, right?), you quickly find the hiccup.
Yext has been steadily purchasing many of these listing services for years. When you try to find out where to list your company, you’re taken to the Yext packages. You do a little more looking, and can’t find where to input your info. You’d assume that a company like Yahoo would make this easy to find.
Well, Yahoo probably would, but Yext owns the listing portion and they make it extremely difficult.
Just a word of advice; local listings are crucial to small businesses, but if you tackle this on your own, be ready for a headache.
And if you ever cancel your Yext account, be ready to fix everything on your own afterwards. It’s common knowledge that clients who cancel with Yext have a large portion of their listings removed or made inaccurate.
While dealing with Yext can be kind of a headache, they have very little control over the most important local SEO listing; Google Maps. Getting your business listed on Maps can be as important as anything you do with search engine optimization for local business.
For some industries like home repair or owners of moving companies, they can sometimes pull over 25% of their business from Google Maps. But even if your industry isn’t going to see a big boost in customers from Maps, it’s still a great place to promote your brand.
Even nationwide eCommerce marketers can still see a noticeable benefit from traffic from Maps listings.
Either way, these local listings are an important part of your website’s SEO. Better to set them up first and benefit from the added online traffic.
3. Start With Pay Per Click Advertising
We mentioned it before, and we probably will again, but Border West is primarily an online advertising agency. Now, we consider search engine optimization a large part of that, but to us, it is only ONE PART.
Our main goal with any new client is to start generating revenue for as quickly as possible. And do it without compromising any future efforts.
SEO takes time to really take effect. Even in the best instances, it will be at least a month or two before really starting to show any noticeable changes. And in a competitive industry, it could be several months before search engine optimization increases the website ranking on Google.
Because of this, or maybe in spite of it, Border West always recommends starting off with pay per click advertising.
If PPC doesn’t interest you at all, feel free to skip ahead
At Border West, we believe in utilizing multiple tools to help ensure success. Pay per click advertising is one such tool, and it is a powerful one. A professionally designed and managed PPC campaign can be set up and producing customers within weeks rather than months (even faster depending on the situation). Online advertising can be so powerful that, for many businesses, SEO becomes an afterthought.
While we don’t recommend this, starting off with a Google Ads pay per click campaign is a great way to achieve online goals while implementing a search engine optimization program.
The above chart is an example of the traffic expectations from a professional digital marketing campaign. While this won’t be exact for every website, it provides a general idea of the first year changes as SEO takes effect.
Notice the chart starts with some organic traffic and finishes while still getting traffic from PPC. This is because most successful websites use a combination of both organic and paid traffic even after search engine optimization has taken effect.
This is because the pay per click traffic is still generating revenue!
We’ve heard from countless business owners who dislike any type of advertising. Their main goal with SEO is to get free website visitors eventually and stop paying for ads. Smart business owners know this makes no sense. If your return on investment is still greater than the money and effort you put into paid advertising, why would you ever stop using it?
Most businesses who want to grow continue to scale successful PPC campaigns higher as years go by. They also continue to invest in top notch SEO. This is because, when something is working you nurture it and allow it to continue to benefit your business.
Amazon certainly has the organic traffic and brand recognition, they don’t need pay per click. The above chart is for the month of January, and they got 910 million site visitors from organic search. Even with that, Amazon still generated 35.5 million visitors from paid search ads.
4. Amazing Content
The Backbone of SEO
Content creation is going to come up often in conversations about optimizing a website. It is truly the most important part of any SEO strategy. Content is so important that, even if you do everything else wrong with SEO, you can still do well on Google with amazing content.
So what is content?
Content is a combination of all the words and images on your website.
It’s what you put on your site to appeal to whomever your target audience is.
If you’re a wedding photographer, your content would be your best photographs, along with detailed descriptions of photographing the perfect wedding. You would possibly include blog posts about setting up for rehearsal dinner shots and capturing Uncle Fred shaking his butt after a few glasses of wine.
You may ask, why do you need blogs about wedding photography? Why can’t you just show pictures?
The short answer is that search engines like Google can’t see pictures. They read words and code. When you show a picture on your website of Uncle Fred dancing, Google reads the description. If all you have on your website is short descriptions of images, how is Google going to know to show your site to someone searching for the best wedding photographer.
This is why you need a blog that produces great content regularly.
The Best SEO Agencies Have Amazing Writers
The main job of any SEO agency is going to be creating content. Sure, they’re going to work on technical SEO and figure out how to speed up your website. But they’re going to need to produce blog articles and content on a regular basis.
Now, as we said before, amazing content can get you ranked, even if your website isn’t optimized for search. But just because it’s possible, doesn’t mean it’s likely. You probably know your industry better than any digital marketing company. Why not just write content yourself?
This is definitely a possibility if you’re a good enough writer and if you have time to churn out great articles all the time.
It also helps immensely to be in an noncompetitive industry. And if other websites in your industry have bad websites. And worse writers than you.
The secret to great content is recognizing user intent.
User intent is a blanket term for, “what the heck are they asking for?”
When someone types something in a search bar, they’re essentially asking the search engine to answer a question. The question could be where is the nearest golf course? Or it could be a search for drunk uncles dancing at weddings (you’d be in luck!)
The search engine’s job is to show a list of answers, ranked according to whichever they think is going to provide the best answer.
So how does the search decide which website is first?
Ranking Factors for an Optimized Website
If you’re reading this page to find out how to do SEO on your own, one of the absolute best resources is Backlinko.
Brian Dean is one of the top names in the industry when it comes to ranking a website. All of his information is well written, easy to comprehend, and absolutely adored by Google.
There are many of his tips and informative articles that we’ve used for our own website, along with our clients. And we can confirm that it works.
Brian Dean put together a very well researched article about Google’s 200 Ranking Factors. We could try to copy his work on our own website, but we have way too much respect to consider that.
So if you’re looking for answers on what Google looks for when considering which websites hit their front page, there it is.
5. On Page SEO
Cleaning Up The Website
Since this is the order in which Border West ranks the importance of search engine optimization, On Page SEO is after content. Not everyone would agree on this, but as we said before, you can have a bad website with amazing content and still show up on Google. A perfectly optimized website with nothing on it, not so much.
So what is On Page SEO?
This is going to be the things done within the website to increase ranking factors.
Some people consider content creation a part of this, but we think it’s way too important to be bunched up with anything else.
Within the website, as well as on the web pages (on page), there are many ways to help or hurt ranking factors. For example, having lots of WordPress plugins that you don’t use. These are all issues that can be fixed internally, meaning other factors outside the site itself don’t influence them.
Here are the general categories of on page SEO.
URL Structure
Your URL, or web address, should have keywords related to the page. If it doesn’t, don’t change them for SEO purposes!
Only in certain circumstances would it be worth it, like if the page was brand new or wasn’t ranking for anything. Otherwise, changing the URL will make every link that goes to that particular web page hit a dead end. The worst thing you can do to optimize a website is remove pages from searches.
Titles
If you’re not creating your own titles, then search engines are making their own. A title with the main keyword that the page is about helps greatly when telling Google what the page is about.
This is an optimization that is worth it to change, even if the page is performing well already.
Headings
The heading tags are the basic outline of the page. Just like an outline for a school project, Google grades on structure. Websites that don’t incorporate heading tags correctly will be penalized by being knocked back several pages.
Heading tags should look like this:
H1-Title, Never more than once on a web page
H2-Sections, These are your different parts of the page and can be used as much as necessary
H3-Subsections, These are used to breakdown H2s in more detail
H4, H5, H6-
H4s breakdown H3s
H5s breakdown H4s
H6s breakdown H5s
Generally, you’ll always use H1s and H2s, and almost always H3s. Further than that will depend on how long your page is and how much you elaborate.
Alt Text for Images
Remember when we said that Google can’t see pictures? Alt Text is how they’re viewed in searches.
When you add an image to your site, you’ll have an area to fill in a Title and Alt Text. The Title area is just for your use as a way to label pictures so you can find them later. The Alt Text is what search engines see.
Having an Alt Text description on images that describes what it contains as well as references the page it’s used on it the most beneficial. If this isn’t possible without sounding like you’re trying to trick Google (don’t do it, much smarter people than all of us have tried and failed), a brief description will suffice.
The worst thing you can do, and it happens all the time, is not give it an Alt Text label at all.
Meta Description
The meta description is the little half paragraph underneath your website name.
In this area you want to provide the best description of the page while adding in the main keyword. This needs to be done for every page and post within the website.
Often issues like this, which are the easiest to fix, can result in a huge improvement on your website ranking. And more importantly, a proper Meta Description should drive more clicks and a better user experience.
Page Speed
It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that loading time became an important part of search engine optimization. Now, it can make a world of difference.
According to Google, 53% of mobile visits will be lost if the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
So rather than have a page get clicked on and then abandoned, they just get buried where they rarely get clicks.
Keywords
We’ve mentioned keywords quite a bit, but we haven’t really explained them. Keywords are single words or short phrases that help match your page up with online searches. Keywords are basically how Google knows if your page contains the information a searcher is looking for.
Typing something like baseball will bring you a ton of results.
Over 2 and a half billion to be exact.
Obviously with 2 billion results there’s going to be some serious competition for a site about baseball.
But narrow that down with some better long tail keywords, and you may have a chance of getting found.
The term leather baseball gloves for little leaguers drops it down to 5.6 million results. That may seem like a lot, but that’s actually quite manageable if you’re trying to optimize for that term.
Internal Linking
The last part of On Page SEO is internal linking. Internal links are what create the road map that ties your website together.
Having internal links strategically placed can seriously help with SEO. While writing for human consumption, you have to consider how Google is viewing your site. A link on this page about SEO to our blog page about how to improve a contractor’s Google ranking helps search engines connect the two pages. It also helps them figure out how they’re related.
Another important aspect of internal linking is, once again, user experience. The goal with any website is to provide the best answers to searches, as well as keep people on the website. Having great content that links internally to other amazing content is a great way to keep them interested.
6. Off Page SEO
Friends With Backlink Benefits
Now that we’ve covered everything that can be done within the website, it’s time to move on to Off Page SEO.
Off Page SEO is done by making your page more popular to the internet in general. It’s part of that complex grading system that Google uses to determine what websites rank higher.
Think of it like an election. Your website is the candidate running for election. In order to win, the candidate needs people out there talking about him and how he’s going to benefit them.
Now, in a perfect world, this candidate would just lay down his ideas and people would spread the word, causing him to get elected (it could be a her also). But in reality, the candidate is going to need to get a lot of help to beat the other candidates. He’s going to need contributions from outside sources, as well as a whole bunch of people sharing his message. Way more than he could do on his own.
He’s going to need some help from social media networks as well, which is actually true in our example as well as with SEO.
Now that we’ve thoroughly confused you, let us explain.
The candidate’s message is your website content. People will read your content, but you need A LOT of people reading it. People sharing your message is people sharing your content, along with adding it to content on their own sites. This is called linking.
Now having good enough content to have people share and link on their site should be enough. But if you want to really have your website rank in a crowded field, you’re going to need some serious funding.
Backlinks are your campaign contributions, and backlink building is you soliciting them.
Back before there were thousands of mega websites and even more internet experts, generating backlinks for SEO was much more natural. Great content consistently created over months and years secured a website’s top ranking. People would see that site as an authority, using borrowing it’s content for their own site, and making it even stronger.
Now there are millions of websites who all want those top spots, and there aren’t enough seats at the table.
Off Page SEO and backlink building is how you squeeze in and grab a plate.
So how do you speed this process along?
Social Media
Social media sharing is an important part of Off Page SEO. Being able to reach millions of people possibly interested in the topics you’re writing about is invaluable. Being able to essentially do it for free is ridiculous.
Social sharing in itself adds to your domain authority and can benefit your search engine optimization efforts. But having your content reaching countless people on social media greatly increases the chances that they’ll share or link to your site.
This is why it’s important to get on some social media, at least Facebook for your business. Even if you think it’s irrelevant to your website, product, or service, do it anyway.
You could be missing opportunities in more ways than you know.
Creating Infographics
Depending on the topic of the content on a website, creating infographics can really boost your organic ranking. An infographic is a visual image, sometimes containing a chart, that conveys information. These are generally colorful and visually appealing . And if they’re done really well, they’ll be “borrowed” by thousands of people.
Creating good infographics is the same as writing great articles. If people think they’re great, Google’s going to assume they are as well.
Even if an infographic on your website doesn’t go viral, search engines generally like the addition of new content. Creating your own infographics, as well as using original images and pictures, is always better for SEO than copying something that’s already online.
Guest Blogging
One of the hardest things to really process was that it could benefit a website more to write great content for another website, then link it back.
But getting a great backlink from a high domain authority website can seriously increase your own website’s SEO value.
Writing amazing content for your own website is important, but a high domain authority site won’t accept a guest blog unless it’s very high quality. Generally, they only want content that may benefit them, and will only accept guest blogs that adhere to serious standards.
This is where a professional search engine optimization agency will really earn their money. But getting a few backlinks from some major sites will be more than worth it.
Email Campaigns
Emailing competing websites and asking for a link on their site isn’t going to work in all situations. But there are many instances where simply asking, trading links, or offering something in return could really help.
When Border West analyzes a potential client’s account, we think way outside the box for SEO. Sure, link building all the ways we previously discussed will be part of our SEO strategy. But, maybe people in your industry could benefit from a listing page that we’ll promote.
Here’s an example. One of the sites Border West has recently built was about border collies. We’re putting together a listing page for people who sell puppies around the world. We’re offering to list them on a page specifically designed to sell puppies in exchange for a link on their site.
7. What Happens Next?
Long Term SEO Strategy
Everything up to this point will require some serious time and effort. Creating enough content, optimizing the website, and building enough backlinks to get a top spot on Google is really tough. Maintaining it is even harder.
Search engine optimization, done correctly, should be a long term process. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to continue to pay a digital marketing agency forever, but you will need to continue to add content and create new backlinks to maintain your ranking.
The thing is, unless your industry is an extremely rare niche, other websites will be constantly challenging your ranking. Search engines want new relevant content. A website that hasn’t been updated in years is an easy target for a competitor with fresh information.
Most business owners realize the benefit they’re receiving from SEO and digital marketing and want to expand. If spending x gets great results, why not double it?
This works with SEO as well. Let’s say you’re doing SEO for a siding business. You’ve hired a great agency that’s gotten your website to the top ranking for every siding related keyword in your area. What about other part’s of your business? Maybe you install roofs as well. The next part of your digital marketing strategy would be to get ranked on Google for roofing.
In short, there’s always more that can be done to build your internet presence. This is why the most successful companies in the world invest more in digital marketing every year.
8. Should You Consider Hiring an SEO Agency?
This is a question that can be only answered by you. All anyone like our company can do is provide you with information to help you make the decision.
Every situation is different for every website and business owner. Some see the internet as a small addition to an already thriving business. Or trying to keep up with other businesses who’ve gone digital.
Others may have already tried to test the waters themselves with a do-it-yourself website creator. They’ve sat and waited for traffic that never came and wondered why.
Or maybe you want to fight your way to the top of your industry and you’re going to use every tool possible to get there. Whatever any digital marketing agency can do to help you crush your opposition online, you’ll spare no expense to make happen.
Whatever your situation, our absolute best advice is to find someone you can trust to help you with the process. Border West is a small digital marketing agency with a built in sales team. We don’t pressure or mislead business owners to sign with us. Frankly, if they need talked into it, we’d rather not enter into the relationship anyway.
Not every company feels the same way.
Do what’s best for you and your business.
But if you’re ready to pull the trigger and optimize the hell out of your website, give us a call! We’re ready to help you crush your enemies!
(Just kidding, but we will kick butt marketing your website online)