Having a solid SEO strategy is very important to getting a website in the top rankings in search engine result pages. An adept SEO specialist has many tools to use in order to accomplish this task effectively. In his repertoire there are on-page strategies as well as off-page strategies that can all work together to help a site be more visible to the search engines. While these can be effective, the old saying “too much of a good thing” is a possibility. Over optimizing a site can have an adverse effect on its ranking. Actually, when a site is over optimized it is very likely that it will trigger penalties and these can cause the site to drop significantly in rank, or be totally eliminated. It’s important to find the right balance in using SEO strategies without overdoing it.
Directory submissions used to be a valid, white hat SEO strategy. The goal of a directory was to offer a site on which content could be placed and then linked back to another website. Essentially, it was at that time a good way to get lots of inbound links which made it perfect for SEO purposes. However, with the recent updates to the Google algorithm, specifically the Penguin update, a once popular and legitimate practice has become black hat.
Whether you are talking digital marketing or traditional marketing there is a basic concept that should shape marketing efforts. This concept is basically that you go where your audience can see you. For instance, if you are selling something like custom hunting bows you are not likely to advertise in Vogue magazine. Even the novice can recognize that the audience you want to reach with information about bows is not likely to purchase a Vogue magazine; or definitely would not be looking for information about a bow in Vogue or Good Housekeeping. A marketing platform is selected based on the primary audience it entertains in traditional marketing, and likewise the process for choosing social media platforms and online channels should be focused on where the target audience is likely to spend their time online. While Facebook is the largest social platform, sheer number of users is not necessarily an indication that any marketing efforts would be successful. A business is much more likely to convert on sites where the audience is more engaged with the brand. Instead of focusing solely on the size of the community, it is important to consider the demographics of the users of an online platform and target the communities where conversions are most likely to occur.
Geo-targeting is continuously gaining in importance, especially for the small business. Once a business website is set up and published online it is seen by people all around the world. But for those who run local businesses, local traffic is really what is of the utmost importance. It is certainly necessary to have a website for a small business today. It’s the first place someone goes when they are looking for any type of service, especially a local business that can offer the service or product that they need. When a search is entered by someone needing local services they want to know some specifics like where you are located, the hours of business and the types of services that the business has to offer. Some of the most recent stats indicate that the bulk of consumer spending happens within just a few miles of their residence. This is what makes geo-targeting so important for today’s businesses.
Keeping up with all the trends in SEO best practices can be difficult. It can seem like change is the only thing that remains constant in the online world. We know that the search engines are updating their algorithms for search rankings constantly. This just makes the SEO specialist need to stay up on the most current changes in order to maintain SEO best practices. It also offers protection from getting those dreaded penalties. Content is one of the areas that has been a top for several years. We know that there have been many changes in the way that the search engine looks at content and how it measures in the algorithms. There was a day when content, any content was good. But some of the most current trends in the ways the search engines look at content has some scratching their heads. It’s not okay to just put up content for the sake of having content on a site. It needs to meet certain criteria. Content has a distinct purpose and it’s not so the search spiders can “read” it. Content must be high quality and written for the human readers not computers.
There are many different types of strategies that are used in an effective SEO campaign. These might include things like content creation, on page and off page optimization, Metatag data, social chatter and also backlinks. It’s common knowledge that search engines like Google are always making changes to the algorithms that they use to rank sites. Of late, there has been a lot of talk about backlinks. Gathering backlinks used to be a great white hat SEO tool and the more a site could obtain, the better its ranking. But people farmed and purchased backlinks just for the sake of getting backlinks. In many (maybe most) cases, the backlinks had no relevancy with the content or the site they were linked to. Google updates have been made in an attempt to clean it up. Gathering backlinks for the sake of having a large number of other sites linked to a site is now considered a black hat practice. Humans frown on it, and Google will penalize a site that is guilty of it. But this does not mean that backlinks have no value whatsoever, especially when it comes to SEO. It’s just important to know which ones really count and why.