I am not an SEO expert. But I do have a handle on the concept.
After all, my job is to write content for businesspeople, from authors to small business owners to the marketing departments of big tech, finance, and other types of companies. When I’m writing that content, I have to know how to get it to rank.
On search engines, that is. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s an umbrella term for the tactics one might use to get a website, blog, or other type of content to land up high on search engine results. Studies show that most people only look at the first page of Google results, and that the first few items on the list get way, way more attention from human eyeballs and clicking fingers.
So if, for instance, you own an acupuncture studio in Portland, Oregon, as one of my actual clients does, you want people searching for “acupuncturists in Portland, Oregon” to see your site at the very top of their search engine results list.
This is not easy, because there are at least 919 acupuncturists or related businesses in Portland—at least according to Yelp, that bastion of accountability (kidding; I hate Yelp just like everyone else). Why would your site come up higher than any other?
You can hire an SEO expert to help you “rank,” but it can be expensive. SEO changes constantly as search engines evolve and try to keep people from tricking their system, so what works one day might not work the next. People who specialize in SEO have to stay on top of Google and Yahoo and Bing’s algorithms and rules, and that’s not easy. My experience is that SEO experts range wildly from the super great at it (and expensive) to the affordable shams. Of course, there are always exceptions, and if you can afford an SEO expert, it’s worth a try.
My personal belief is that having real, readable, interesting, from-the-heart content on your website works way better than any SEO trick out there. Here’s why: yes, you want people to click through to your site. But when they get there, you want them to be happy with what they find. Otherwise, they fall “right out of the funnel”—sales jargon for leaving your site right away and not buying your thing.
Just having great, descriptive website copy; an active blog that you contribute to frequently with authentic, on point posts; and genuine social media activity on whichever platform you prefer (I think LinkedIn is great for business content, but you can never go wrong with Twitter) are the best ways to rank your site high. Oh, and having a nice, professionally built site.
SINCE WE’RE DOLING OUT ADVICE HEREMy advice is always to pay for a good designer/web developer to build you a site on the WordPress platform. That’s a post for another time, but with designers, like SEO experts (and writers), you get what you pay for. I know some great designers. No, they are not cheap. Yes, it is worth it. |
Anyway, all of this aside, I do have a few basic SEO recommendations for your content, which you can pass along to your professional team or, if you’re tech and marketing savvy, you may even be able to implement yourself
1
Figure out what your main keywords are. This is a whole science in itself (Google AdWords owns that science), but there’s also an intuitive sense to it. As I mentioned above, if you are an acupuncturist in Portland, you probably want people who Google “acupuncture Portland” or “acupuncturist Portland” to find you. Also consider any specialties that set you apart, like “fertility acupuncturist in Portland.”
2
Work on incorporating those keywords into the text on your site—not just the main blocks of copy on pages, but the headers and image captions and stuff. It’s ideal if you can mention your intact keyword phrase(s) up high on main pages.
3
Find a way to go into the backend of your site and change your Meta Description and Meta Title to also incorporate those keywords. These are the things that control what your site name and description look like in a search results listing. The words in this descriptions also play a big part in search results ranking. Here’s what it looks like if you search for my business, Outside Eye Consulting:
When you upload images, name them descriptive things that perhaps also contain those keywords. (You can name the file directly on your computer before uploading it, or use WordPress’s media descriptions.)
5
Regularly add content to your site so that Google ranks it as “fresh” — the easiest way to do this is with blog posts.
