On Monday we discussed the Top 5 Questions you should be asking your Web Designer. Today, we will go over the Top 5 Questions you should be asking your SEO specialist! First, what exactly is Search Engine Optimization? SEO, for short, is the process of organically ranking a website with both on-page and off-page methods.
1. How will you improve my search engine rankings?
Your potential SEO specialist should be able to explain to you the strategies they will be using to drive up your rankings. Steer clear of a consultant who is hesitant to discuss their strategies, or who may keep things vague as this may result in their strategies being of the black-hat SEO variety. During the proposal meeting, ensure your SEO candidate’s proposal includes an initial review of your website which would include weeding out any initial outliers or flags that could potentially hinder your search engine rankings; this can include error pages, broken links, poorly structured content pages, or inconsistent meta tag usage.
2. What types of SEO work will you do?
This may come up naturally in the course of your meeting, but if it does not – take a moment to ask the question, straight out. Ideally, the SEO candidate would bring this up during their proposal. Take note during their proposal review of the types of SEO optimizations are offering or focusing on. Have they mentioned “off page” SEO, or will they only focus on, “on page” optimization? On-Page focuses on the content of the site and how well it is optimized for keywords, as well as the overall experience for users. Just as important, is Off-Page SEO wherein the focus is on websites outside of your own and the inbound traffic they can bring to yourself. As Google now takes into account backlinks as part of your ranking, your SEO candidate should be able to speak to Off-Page SEO strategies.
3. Do you follow Google’s webmaster guidelines?
The only answer that should be accepted to this question is simple: Yes. And it should be a resounding one, at that. Simply put, failure in adhering to Google’s webmaster best practices may result in being relegated to a low search ranking, and could go as far as Google banning your website from search results altogether. While the end goal may be that #1 ranking slot, it shouldn’t be at the expense of less ethical SEO practices. Familiarize yourself with these guidelines, and do not hesitate to question your SEO candidate about said guidelines to ensure peace of mind that your website is in good hands.
4. Can you guarantee my website will achieve a number-one ranking on Google, Bing and Yahoo?
In an ideal world, the answer that both your SEO would like to give and you as the customer would like to hear would be “Yes!” However, it’s important to note that the end result, and what your SEO should be working towards consistently is progress and improvement. Be wary of an SEO who can guarantee you a Top 3 ranking in a 30 day time frame. Any specialist who is making such claims is either simply trying to make a sale, or could be participating in black hat tactics which can detrimentally hinder your website in the long run. Put your faith in a company who focuses on the improvement of your SEO and can back it up with their methods of improvement (see: Question #1).
5. How will we communicate and how often?
The answer to this may vary by the client. Truthfully told, the answer to this comes down to what you as the client would prefer. At the very minimum, on any given week you should have a good idea of where your website’s SEO is standing. This could be due to a weekly phone call, video chat, or simply an e-mail if that is what you prefer. If you know going into it that you would like an every other day touch point, or you simply are seeking a once-a-month breakdown then you should be able to communicate this to your SEO specialist and they should comply.
Search Engine Optimization is multifaceted, but none of the tactics used are proprietary. While it may be a bit intimidating to ask some of these questions, what you’re looking for most of all in the answers is a level of transparency to ensure their methods are adhering to Google’s webmaster guidelines, as well as specifics as any good SEO specialist should be willing and able to discuss with you their strategies to improve your overall ranking.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the the method of getting a website ranked organically in search engine results. There are key elements that go on-page and off-page SEO, including link building, page titles and descriptions, image file names, alt tags, link title tags and more. It seems easy enough, however, when using website builders such as Wix, you may run into more issues than expected.
SEO Methods and Wix
As mentioned in our article “The Do’s and Don’ts of Images“, image titles and alt tags are a large element of on-page search engine optimization. Wix will change the image file name to include scrambled numbers, letters and underscores. An alt and title tag are both available for images, however, only the alt tag should be used. The title tag does not carry any weight for SEO and are only visible when someone hovers over an image. The alt tag describes to search engines what your image is. For WordPress or HTML websites, image titles remain the same as when you uploaded them and alt tags and captions are available for optimization; additionally, image titles remain the same as when you uploaded them.
Websites built with this “do-it-yourself” tool are powered by JavaScript (JS), which makes the customization of the coding nearly impossible. However, Google values websites with clean code. Instead of using DIVs and other elements, they are put into the JS of the website, making it messy, jumbled and hard to read.
Furthermore, Wix plans can be expensive, include advertisements, have limited add-ons and mobile usability. Customers are unable to move a website to another hosting provider, so the website would have to be rebuilt.
Wix is not a long term solution for your business’ website. With jumbled coding and lack of optimization methods, organic result rankings will be complicated and take an extended amount of time, resulting in losing potential business.
Appearance isn’t everything for your business’ website and there are other options available. Our team recommends using a content management system, such as WordPress, which offers multiple plug-ins and themes to make your website function just the way you want! With thousands of plug-ins for search engine optimization, photo galleries, shopping carts the options are endless! Give us a call to discuss custom design or one of our responsive templates.
If you’re just starting with search engine optimization, you have probably been warned about black hat SEO and only using white hat tactics to increase the organic ranking of your clients. But, what exactly is black hat SEO is techniques and the strategies that fall outside of Google’s webmasters guidelines?
The Old Tricks
Invisible Keywords Stuffing – Ghosts don’t have a place in search engine optimization! By stuffing pages with invisible text goes against the guidelines laid out by Google. Previously, websites could be ranked organically by adding text that would blend into the background or setting the size to zero. There is not a specific percentage or ratio for the number of times your target is mentioned within your content. If you’re using the keyword meta tag for keyword stuffing, this tactic is outdated and the meta tag holds little weight for search engines.
Paid Links – You wouldn’t give someone money for a fun-sized snickers bar out of their trick or treat bag, would you? There’s nothing fun-sized about the links you buy from link farms, in fact, you will be penalized! Your links should all be organically built, and not based on page rank.
Duplicate Content – Avoid toil and trouble by creating content that is unique to your services, website and business practices. It is vital to your search engine optimization to create pages that are relevant to your services and are not plagiarized with content from other websites.
Comment Spam – You may notice spam advertisements being posted if your blog allows comments. The author will most likely have a URL linked for their name or within the body of the comment itself. Monitor your comments, just as you would your bag of Halloween goodies.
Cloaking – It is important to remember to build your website for your customers and not the search engines. Cloaking is a black hat technique that essentially lies to both customers and search engines as to what your content is about. Being invisible may be a cool super power, however… for search engine optimization, this may be a party trick you want to avoid!
Sweet, Sweet Treats
When it comes to optimizing your website, there are a few tools that will make your life easier.
Moz’s On-Page Grader – is a great tool that will let you know if you’re missing anything, from H1’s, images without alt tags, links without title tags.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner and Trends – Google Trends is a great way to see when your services are being searched for the most. Whether you opt for an AdWords campaign, or increase your optimization efforts, you may find something a little surprising in these results.
Webmaster Tools and Analytics – What are users searching to find your website and how many impressions are you getting? By combining this tool with Google Trends, you’re bound to find a new avenue!
Happy Halloween from our search engine optimization and web design team to yours!
With over 46,000 plugins to make website maintenance easier, WordPress is our choice for a content management system. The plugins we use depends on our client’s needs, from booking calendar, volunteer sign-ups to photo galleries. Here are our team’s choices of plugins when we first set up your WordPress powered website:
Our Top Three WordPress Plugins
Wordfence Security – Wordfence’s constant updating feed keeps your website from getting hacked. The live traffic view tracks users that have navigated your website, the pages they navigated to, etc. Be sure to add your email to the notifications to receive updates on invalid logins, major site changes, and more. Recommendation: Avoid using “Admin” as a username to increase the security of your website.
Yoasts’ WordPress SEO – Our search engine optimization analyst’s go-to SEO plugin is Yoast. Duplicate titles and descriptions can cause problems for your search engine optimization. By using Yoast you’re able to set a unique title and description for your pages and posts. Other features include no-index, no-follow, canonicalization and more!
Total Cache – The speed of your website is extremely important to your search engine optimization; test the speed of your website by going to Google’s Page Speed to see how your page performs. Install this plugin, refresh and see the result!
What are some of your favorite SEO plugins? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook. For additional reading, read our post on The Basics of a Website and get started today!
Search Engine Optimization requires consistent work to help increase your organic rankings on Google, Bing and Yahoo. With the multiple tactics there are a few common mistakes you could be making if you’re doing your own search engine optimization.
Duplicate Titles or Descriptions – Titles and descriptions inform users, and search engines, about a specific page on your website. Title tags are 60 characters and are found across the top of your browser tab, as well as the first line on your organic search result. It is important that when creating titles that the main topic be at the beginning. The character limit of a description is longer, but still needs to be clear, concise and grab the attention of users as people will likely base which website they opt to select from for their search query based on your descriptions.
Avoiding Keyword Research Tools – This brainstorming session will give you an idea of what you should be focusing on for your website. Failure to spend time researching will likely result in your organic search results not performing as they should in relation to your direct competitors due to lack of effective keyword usage. A few of our favorite keyword research tools include Moz, Google AdWords and Google Analytics. For additional learning, check out our article on keyword research.
Not Optimizing Images and Links – Bots are unable to visually your image, but by using descriptive alt tags, you’re informing search engines what your image is and what it is about; the content surrounding the image also helps bots. A link’s title tag should inform what the page you’re linking to is about.
Keyword Stuffing – 15 years ago, adding keywords you wanted to rank for all of your website, links, images, etc., shot your organic ranking to the top of the results. Now, that falls under black hat SEO tactics and search engines can remove you from the results all together as a penalty. Your website’s content should be organic, relevant and unique to your business.
Non-Descriptive Links – Much like the image and link optimization, it is important for the link text to be descriptive of the page it is leading to. Avoid using terms such as “Click here” or “Learn more” and rather use the term you are referring to in relation to what you are linking to, i.e. “flower arrangements”.
By consistently adding relevant content, link building, evaluating and maintaining your website you could be on your way to an increase in your organic rankings in a legitimate way.
