Why Isn’t Your Website On The Search Engines Listings?

The algorithms that determine what position your website gets in the search engine results pages (SERPs) are constantly changing. Keeping up to date with the rules of SEO (search engine optimization) can mean the difference between a top spot on a search engine list and falling out of the rankings completely.

Here are 10 important factors that will help to get your website on the search engine page results.

1. Mobile Friendly Website

To get your website on the search listings it must be mobile friendly. Google can see which device people are using and will only list mobile-friendly websites in the results they deliver. If you have an old site, it’s time to update it.

2. Make Your Site https//:

Your site should be secure in order to comply with Google’s new rules, and to give confidence to your website visitors. Ask your hosting service about purchasing what should be an affordable secure site certificate and making the changeover.

3. Page Speed

The search engines reward websites which load faster, with no lag time where visitors have to wait for clunky images and so on to appear. Check the speed of your site at a site such as Pingdom and if you can, make all the changes they recommend.

4. Add Media

Video, audio, podcasts and images can all get you additional listings in relation to a page, not just the content on the page itself.

5. Make the Most of Social Media

Comments, likes, shares and so forth communicate to Google that your website is relevant and worth paying attention to.

6. Long-Form Content

Create longer articles or posts of around 2,000 words to lure the search engines with meaty content and lots of interesting keywords

7. Use A Site Map

If you’re using WordPress for your website, install the Google XML site map plugin. Edit the settings so the site map “talks” to Google and the other search engines as soon as you publish new content.

8. Don’t Forget Metatags

Although Google doesn’t give much ranking weight to metatags a good article or post title, description and keywords you want to rank well on are a must for Bing and Yahoo!

9. Dig Deep on Your Keyword Research

Make up a list of your top 20 or 30 keywords. Next, search for each word on Google. Are you on the first page of the results? If not, look at who is. Is there any way to get a back link from them or contribute to the site, such as guest blogging?

10. Use Rich Snippets If You Can

Rich snippets help classify content and signal what it is to search engines. If you are using WordPress, install the All in One Schema plugin.

3 SEO Keyword Research Strategies for Service-Based Businesses

How to Get Found When People Are Looking for Your Offerings

Where do you go when you need to find a lawyer, restaurant or interior designer? To Google, of course!

But with so many businesses competing for everyone’s attention, if you are a service-based business you really need to focus on search engine optimization (SEO) as one of your main marketing strategies.

One of the main components of SEO is to find relevant and targeted keywords that make a connection between what your ideal target market is searching for and the services you provide.

Here are 3 SEO keyword research strategies to help service-based businesses get started:

1. Dive deep into your business

You can’t develop an SEO keyword strategy for your service-based business until you understand who’s coming to your site and what they’re looking for.

Head to your Google Analytics account and look at stats like:

What keywords people are using to land on your site

What pages they’re leaving/staying on

Their geographic location

Then, you can fine-tune which keywords to target (like adding city names to service-based phrases), see which keywords aren’t showing up in your data, and create content to enhance the user experience.

2. See what the competition is doing

Whether it’s a company who’s been in the business for years and appears in the top-ranking position or a newer service-based business on the scene, you need a picture of the competitive keyword landscape.

See who comes up when you Google what your customers are looking for. Find out who else is selling your services in a specific location.

Make a note of the type of content they provide potential customers and how well optimized their site is for certain keywords. This helps you understand which keywords they are and aren’t targeting.

3. Focus on longtail keywords

The more general the keyword, the harder it will be to rank for that search term. Service-based businesses should also be researching and utilizing longtail keywords – those keywords that are ultra-specific to whatever you are selling.

While they may bring in less traffic than high ranking, shorter keywords, the traffic they do bring in is very targeted.

Maybe you’re a tax accountant who specializes in returns for people who own a second home in another country. Or a home stager who mostly works in three-bedroom ranchers in the east side of the city. Whatever your niche is, let the (local) world know!

First keyword research, then an SEO strategy

SEO is a necessity for any service-based business – whether your company is all online or has a storefront location. Do your research to develop a solid keyword strategy that will help you dominate the local search rankings.

You don’t have to do this alone! Why not hire an expert in professional search engine optimization? They’ll do your keyword research and SEO strategy the right way so you can focus on building your business in other ways.

What SEO research did you do for your business? Share your experiences in the comments!

Adjusting Your SEO to Improve Your Brand Through Content

Writing top-quality content is an absolute must if your brand and your business are to succeed. Of course, there is a lot more that goes into writing content than just writing content! It takes research to come up with topics and after you have come up with the ideas, you need to study so that your credible resources support your topic. After you have written and shared, you need to optimize your content so that it gives you a high ranking in the search engines. All that is so that other people can find you when they search.

Getting other people to notice what you are doing and buy into it
If you don’t post top-quality content and it is not optimized effectively for the search engines, it won’t get you anywhere. It is that simple. The writing may seem easier than the optimizing. However, there are some easy adjustments that you can make to the search engine optimization (SEO) part of it, which will hopefully bring you fantastic results.

Start with the writing
If your content writing (whether you write the content yourself or you have someone else do it for you) is not top quality, it won’t take you very far. That is the number 1 requirement. If your content contains errors, is inaccurate, or is just not expressed well is that the reader will become distracted by all of those obstacles and he or she will not be able to pay attention to what you are trying to say. You need to make sure that your content doesn’t contain any obstacles of any kind. When it comes to the search engines, it is important that your content is recognized as good quality. It seems like a stretch that the search engines are sophisticated enough understand the difference between good writing and bad. However, there are ways that the search engines can accomplish this.

Analyzing behavior: The truth is that the search engines have the ability to intuitively understand certain human behaviors. For example, the search engines understand bounce rates and the amount of time that readers spend on any given page. A lot can be deduced from that. The bounce rate is the amount (or percentage) of people who arrive on a given page but then quickly abandon that page without any additional interaction. The other factor that the search engine focuses on here is how long a person actually spends on a given page. All of that is calculable for the search engines.

Compliance with SEO guidelines: The fact is that following the guidelines is very important. If you don’t follow the guidelines, the search engines will know and it will not be good for you. On the other hand, if you comply with the guidelines, you will be found easily by others and the search bots will be able to index your website. That way, your target audience members will find you easily and quickly. You certainly don’t want to end up being punished because you didn’t follow the rules.

Paying attention to reviews: The truth is that people review your content. It is not correct to assume that only machines are doing the work. The search engines rely on those humans to give human reviews. When you are writing content, it is essential that you write it in a way that you feel will be valuable and educational to others.
Next, optimize your content
It isn’t enough to merely write the content well. You also need to optimize that content so that you are able to acquire real results. You need to think like a search engine. If you are able to do that, the results that you achieve will most likely be really good. When it comes to your content, you will want to consider the following elements:
A compelling headline with a strategically places keyword or key phrase
Paragraph headlines with effective keywords or key phrases
A link between the article title and the teaser (opening) paragraph
Titles and subtitles with appropriate heading levels
A meta-tag with the most important keyword or key phrase
Include graphic images: It is an established fact that your content must be well written. However, it is important to consider that there are many people who are visual. That means that they react very positively to images. Graphic images will go a long way to enhancing your written content. If up to this point, your content only contains words, and your traffic is light, it is really time to consider adding a graphic element. You may be surprised at the positive results that you achieve.
Use effective backlinks: Links are important for your content and they will always be important. A backlink is one of the few ways that your target audience members can interact with you. It is all about the relationship that you are able to establish. Of course, it goes without saying that your links need to be reliable. They need to function well so that the other person arrives at the right place when he or she clicks on your link.
Make sure that your content contains a social element: You will definitely want to include social buttons in your content so that other people can interact (with you and with each other) and share your valuable content. Social media is one of the essential elements of your business’ foundation. Always remember to include the social element in whatever you are doing.
Give people the opportunity to start a discussion: A comments section is extremely important. You want to give other people the opportunity to share their thoughts and their opinions. Very interesting ideas and progress have come from lively discussions. Of course, you must also be prepared for the potential for some negative comments as well. They are just as important (if not more important) for your growth as positive comments.
Make sure that you have a strategically placed call-to-action (CTA): Not only is a CTA critical to your brand’s success but where you place that CTA (or multiple CTAs) is just as important. You want to place your compelling CTA in a place where it will do the most good and be seen the most easily. If you do it properly, your CTA should bring you more traffic and generate more buzz about your brand.
Conclusion
The marriage of top-quality content and effective SEO is a very important one. Having one without the other is not nearly as effective as the two together. Your content needs to be valuable to others and your optimization efforts allow you to get noticed so that other people have the opportunity to appreciate and benefit from what you can do for them. Writing great content without effectively optimizing it is like building a casino in the desert. It is amazing but nobody knows about it. SEO should never be an afterthought. It is a necessity, not a luxury.
Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company’s Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.

His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.