How to optimize your website for ranking higher in search results.

Search engine optimization is the epitome of digital marketing scams. It’s a black hole of misinformation, complex technicalities, tireless effort, and endless trial and error. No one knows the exact rules of the game when it comes to getting on the first page of the search engine results, but many tried and test strategies have proven very beneficial for industry-leading experts. Today, we will dive into some of those strategies. So buckle up, this will be a long (and very informative) one.

SEO is a phenomenal way to increase organic (unpaid) website traffic. Companies that have successfully integrated SEO as a part of their marketing strategy have seen millions of dollars of sales each year without spending hardly anything on ads. The only catch is - if you make a mistake, it could cost you your search results listing altogether.

First, let’s start by listing the tools you will need:

• Keyword distribution spreadsheet (image below)

• Google Search Console

• Moz.com keyword, domain, and link analysis tool

• Schema.org - content analytics

• 16 - 32 hours of free time

A keyword distribution sheet can help you organize and document keyword variations and performance. An example of what one could look like is provided in the image below. Feel free to download our free template as well: Download template here.

Let’s start off by diving into this distribution spreadsheet. Here’s a few reasons why it’s important and some key elements you should focus on.

As always, your first step will be research. Find popular keywords within your particular industry and try to find phrases that your ideal customer would use when looking for your specific product/service. Try to think of this from the customer’s perspective. Take a step back from the industry terminology you’re so used to using and find basic descriptions of your product/service that could play a vital role in finding your brand online.

Write whatever comes to mind down in your spreadsheet, under a tab titled “variations” or “intent.” Jot down important statistics about the keyword/phrase as you conduct your research. For example, you can start by using Google Trend’s free tool to discover how often a particular phrase or word is searched. You can narrow the search further by specifying a geographical location, time span, category, and type of search. Since this tool usually only records mass volume, you will have to start by searching broad phrases or topics.

Once you build a foundation of popular keywords that are related to your brand, use Google Ad’s Keyword Planner to find monthly volume, impressions, average bid amounts, competition, and variations of your words/phrases. You will want to focus on lower competitive keywords that still drive a decent amount of monthly impressions, while also making sure to stay relevant to your brand.

Once you identify potential keywords and phrases, make sure to choose one central focus for each product/service you offer. Each page of your website should have a general focus on one keyword, with internal links to more informative pages, each with a centralized focus on their own keyword.

Make sure not to overuse the same word or phrase, and implement different variations of each one throughout the content piece. You can use KeySearch’s Free LSI Keyword Tool to generate lists of relevant contextual words and phrases that can be used to describe your brand in different ways, while still getting the same meaning across. These similarly contexted words and phrases are known as LSI Keywords, and can be used to strengthen your website’s correlation to particular search results.

A few other things you may notice in this image/template, is that there are sections where <meta-title> and <meta-description> are outlined. It’s important to note that your <meta-title> should focus on one specific keyword and be relevant to the content on that webpage. The header of that webpage should also focus primarily on that same keyword, without being repetitive.

The <meta-description> is used to describe the contents of your webpage, and is not as important for search optimization. Avoid cramming keywords into your description; this is where your words are meant to appeal to humans rather than machines. Write a compelling description about how the viewer could benefit from your brand, while also making a clear and concise illustration of what exactly your brand is. Otherwise, if the viewer is left with even the slightest confusion, chances are they’ll think you website is in fact not what they are looking for and proceed to scroll.

Another key point to remember is that <titles> should be less than 65 characters and <descriptions> should be less than 144. Any more and your text will potentially cut off, leaving the viewer without the complete and necessary information about your website.

Lastly, your URL is very important for defining your website’s content and ranking in search engine result pages (SERPs). Descriptive keywords should be formed to build a clear, concise URL that outline the content of the web page. Using hyphens to separate words will also make it easier for search engines to understand the content of the page. For example, if you are writing a webpage surrounding the keyphrase “professional digital marketing services,” your URL should look a little something like dmdigital.org/digital-marketing-services.

After defining potential keywords that are relevant, target high-intentioned users, and are not highly competitive, you should then focus on your content. Content should be updated on your website at least once a week, if not more. Larger companies that see massive growth publish content as often as 5 times a week, while others publish a high-quality blog every other week. You should be updating different sections of your website so that you stay relevant in every area, and ensure that your entire website is up to date.

Content goes a long way with website optimization. But it’s not just about improving user experience. Images and videos provide alternative opportunities to implement keywords and keyphrases that describe your website and help search engines better understand what your website is about.

Take the screenshot from above for example. This image appears on our home screen to help illustrate some of the professional marketing services we provide. As you can see, we linked the image to a different page on our website, added a caption, and used the file name to describe what the image portrays. You can use features such as hidden text, alt image text, file names, and links to integrate more keywords that help Google Search show your website to people who are looking for it.

While we are on the topic of links, that bring us to our next search optimization strategy. Links are essential for both on-page and off-page optimization. Linking your website to high quality URLs and in return, having quality URLs link to your website are one of the most effective ways Google Search interprets the importance, trustworthiness, and popularity of your website. This is also where SEO gets a little tricky.

Let’s take my personal favorite advertising agency’s website (besides my own of course), Ogilvy, for example. They have 314.5 thousand inbound domain links (also known as backlinks). In direct correlation, they also have a domain authority ranking of 73. With Moz.com, you can use their link research tool to analyze not only your domain’s performance, but your competition’s as well. You can also check where the backlinks are coming from, so you can determine more viable opportunities for places to get your domain linked. Check out Moz’s free trial tool here: Moz.com.

When choosing sites to prospect for backlinks, you will also want to make sure that the anchor text is relevant and descriptive of your domain. This refers to the text that is directly correlated with the link to your website. The anchor text provides a supporting description to search engines that your website is recognized by external sources for being directly related to your keywords. Therefor, the anchor text should include your primary keywords/key phrases.

You can also use this tool to identify spam links, which can be potentially harmful to your website’s search results ranking. While links are important for improving your ranking, quality is always valued over quantity. You may receive fraudulent offers for “link swapping” and paying to be placed on a domain. These types of offers are almost always harmful to your domain authority, as Google’s algorithm can determine the quality of backlinks with a simple, automated research function.

It’s important to remember to avoid marketers that promise to get you hundreds or even thousands of backlinks, because that will be the ultimate demise of your website’s appearance in search results.

Another beneficial linking strategy comes in the form of on-page optimization. Linking domains refer to outbound links, or links that take viewers to an external website. For example, when I include the links of SEO tools in my blog articles, those are considered linking domains. This tells Google that I am linking my website to well-trafficked, reliable sources of information.

You should also be linking [each] of your webpages to your Home page; if not in the header, then in the footer. This helps make your website easier to navigate, for both humans and search engine crawlers.

Finally, when you integrate targeted keywords, optimized content, and begin to grow your link network, you are ready to monitor performance and improvement insights. You can do this in Google’s Search Console tool: Google Search Console.

This domain management feature from Google allows you to view important insights such as website traffic, average SERP ranking, click-through-rates, and technical website functions (such as errors). You can use this tool to monitor your domain performance over time and allow you to identify specific functionality issues so you can fix them immediately. With CTR, you can determine how successful your website’s <title> and <meta-description> are for attracting potential customers. If you have a low CTR, it may be time to consider making some changes.

While optimizing your website for search can be a painstaking process, it will prove to be highly beneficial when you begin to drive qualified leads to your website organically. Remember, most website clicks are chosen from the op 3 - 5 search results (not including those ads). For content ideas and more in-depth HTML strategies to optimize your content, visit schema.org. You can view their wonderfully informative website here: schema.org.

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