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In my effort to bring value to /r/entrepreneur without an ounce of self-promotion (aside from the fact that I'm posting this from my own account), I'll be doing a large article specifically for this sub every week or so.
This week's topic is one I've heard lots of clamoring over: SEO. Hopefully this will help you figure out a solid SEO strategy that won't drain your funds. Enjoy!
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Old habits die hard. SEO has been around for two decades, and it’s still being heralded as a magic trick that will mysteriously send traffic to your site.
Why? Because SEO can indeed be powerful, but you have to do it right, and many sites don't.
You’ve probably been told to improve your site’s SEO. You might be pouring money into SEO right now. Your SEO consultants might throw around fancy terms like LSI keywords and tell you that with enough work, your site will steadily rise in Google.
Is it true? Is SEO really the holy grail of marketing? In short: No.
Don’t get me wrong––SEO can be a valuable tool in the right contexts. And it was an outstanding method in, say, 2006. But due to a number of factors (which I’ll get into), SEO isn’t as powerful as it once was.
Today, your best bet is to make sure your site has SEO, but don’t allocate too many resources toward it. Most businesses will be fine with the basics and a little bit of advanced magic.
Here’s my agenda for this post:
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I’ll explain why SEO isn’t that great anymore
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I’ll discuss the different factors that affect SEO today
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I’ll tell you what to do to give your site a solid SEO foundation
Fair warning: This is going to be a long post, but it’s still got a lot of condensed information. I will be glossing over some areas.
And if anything needs corrected, leave a comment telling me where I went wrong, and I'll fix it ASAP.
What is SEO?
For anyone who isn’t familiar with SEO, I’ll take a moment to explain: SEO (search engine optimization) deals with optimizing a site so that it ranks high on Google. For example, when you Google “boat shoes” and see the #1 result, that’s the highest ranking site for the key phrase “boat shoes.” Everyone wants their site to rank high on Google (preferably page 1), so pretty much everyone should be interested in SEO.
For the purposes of this article, I’ll use “Google” instead of “search engine” for obvious reasons. That said, similar factors apply for other search engines.
Why isn’t SEO that great anymore?
SEO has become a less rewarding area to pursue because of two main factors: clutter and algorithms.
The Problem of Clutter
If you Google “bicycles,” you’ll see hundreds upon hundreds of bicycle companies. Only 10 of those can be on page 1 (and usually less because of results from images, news, Google Maps, etc.). And let’s face it, most of us are in a crowded niche. It would be foolish to try to rank on page 1 of Google for bicycles.
Local SEO (which I’ll briefly talk about later) is a much easier target, but many companies don’t have a local presence or base. If you’re targeting a global audience, it’s going to be hard because there are millions of other sites competing for the same exact keyword or key phrase you’re competing for.
The Problem of Algorithms
You might have heard about the various SEO algorithms that Google has implemented over the years. In a nutshell, these algorithms are how Google decides which results to display and how to rank those results. Algorithms are always changing, and new ones are taking over old ones on a rolling basis. For example, Google’s latest algorithm update gave ranking preference to mobile-friendly sites.
Algorithms aren’t a problem, per se, but they do require you to make ongoing SEO changes. They also present a formidable challenge, since sites with lots of traffic are going to get on page 1. Google’s algorithms are created to display the most relevant, highest quality sites for every keyword and key phrase. Your little site probably isn’t going to get a lot of traction from Google if you’re competing for a popular keyword or key phrase.
There are ways that you can abide by the algorithms’ rules, and it’s not extremely difficult, but if you can’t dedicate a good amount of your time to SEO or hire someone to do it for you, then you’ll most likely struggle.
What factors affect SEO today?
Today’s digital landscape has a lot of new factors that all apply to SEO. Mobile friendliness and responsive design are two such factors. If you have a mobile-friendly, responsive site, and your competitor has an identical site that’s not mobile-friendly or responsive, Google will rank your site higher.
Some factors are the same––keywords/key phrases, meta descriptions, backlinks––and these are still areas of SEO worthy of your time.
For SEO in 2016 (and the near future), here are some of the most important factors that contribute to your SEO:
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Keywords/key phrases
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Optimized meta description
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High quality backlinks
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Mobile friendliness
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Responsive design
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Page speed
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Traffic
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Quality of content
Obviously there are tons of factors, but these are 8 of the most important areas to focus on.
What SEO should I be doing?
Like I’ve said, for many sites, the basics of SEO (and a little bit of advanced SEO) will be sufficient for most sites. SEO tends to be a game of diminishing returns unless you have a hefty budget for it. I’ll assume that you don’t have a lot to spend on SEO.
What are the basics? For entry-level SEO, you’re looking at three vital areas: keyword/key phrase targeting, on-page SEO, and post-published SEO.
Keyword/key phrase targeting
This is the foundation of SEO. When someone enters a certain keyword or key phrase, will your site show up? There are a few tricks you can use to enhance your visibility in this regard:
1) Don’t try to compete for general keywords or key phrases like “cars” or even more specific ones like “Baltimore hotels.” Instead, aim for more niche keywords and key phrases: “Baltimore hotels near airport,” for example.
2) Create your own keyword or key phrase. Brian Dean did this with the “skyscraper technique.” It’s a super simple way of ranking high.
3) Use long tail keywords. These are keywords related to your target keyword or key phrase. For example, “Baltimore hotels near airport with free parking” is a combination of “Baltimore hotels near airport” and “Baltimore hotels with free parking.”
Bonus: Meta descriptions. Include your keywords here, but make sure your meta is appealing. Most people will consider both the title and the meta when evaluating search results.
On-page SEO
You can’t have good SEO without good on-page SEO. It’s exactly what it sounds like: optimizing your web pages for Google. There are tons of ways you can do this, and here are the most important:
1) Title. Include your keyword or key phrase as close to the beginning of the title as possible. Make it compelling; look up how to write great headlines and copy the greats.
2) Slug: This is what comes after the .com. For example, http://ift.tt/1YWcV2J is much better than http://ift.tt/1UbLIrr.
3) Text: Make it good, and include all of your keywords or key phrases early on.
4) Links: Provide high-quality outbound links to authority sites.
Post-published SEO
After your page goes live, you can still get SEO benefits thanks to backlinks. When other sites link to your page/site, Google will rank you higher because it sees you as an authoritative source. There are a few easy ways you can get backlinks:
1) Share your page on social media networks. These backlinks are valuable and will up your ranking.
2) Reach out to other blogs. Blogs are powerful social media for backlinks. You can pitch a guest post and link to your own page. Or you can email the author of a certain piece and say that it would make a great link in that article. Bonus points if you can argue that it’s better than an existing link or authority site.
Bonus: Have you heard that Google will penalize you for duplicate content? That’s mostly a myth. (See here.) Reposting on forums and posting guest posts you wrote on your own site are two non-malicious uses of duplicate content. (See here for more on duplicate content.)
After you've done the basics of SEO, you should probably move on to other areas that demand (or at least should demand) more attention.
What to focus on instead of SEO
1) Your core message. If you can’t sum up your brand in one sentence that describes one specific benefit, you need to take some time and do that.
Your brand needs to be crystal clear in every piece of your marketing, from a small mobile ad to your homepage. Reiterate one specific benefit, and think of your marketing as a story. Don’t sell to the reader; show them what they can achieve with your product or service.
2) High quality content. This one seems like a no-brainer, but so many sites have awful content. People respect and value well-written, high-value content. That’s important––your content has to provide value, value, and more value. You should be scared because you’re giving away so much value in your content. Always push the limits of how much you’re willing to give away.
If you struggle with good content, hire a talented freelance writer (not on Upwork or for $5 an hour, please), and you’ll see your content quality (and thus your ranking and user engagement) go way up. The bare minimum you should be paying is 10 cents per word.
3) The user experience. In addition to making your site mobile friendly and responsive, make it look nice. Make it a journey for the user––give them one clear direction to go in. Lead them down a story.
4) Strategic social sharing. (This means blogs, too; social media includes blogs.) Have a plan in place to share your content on appropriate blogs and social media networks. Find groups, subreddits, and forums that match your target audience. Get your product or service in front of the eyeballs of the people you want to invest in you.
These four areas deserve much more attention than SEO, and if you ace them, your brand will get its name out there. (And, ironically, you’ll consequently rank higher on Google.) In most cases, SEO should be a complementary marketing strategy, not a main strategy.
One possible exception is local SEO. If you have (or desire to have) a strong local presence, then local SEO is worth your time. I won't go into detail here, but check it out if you're a local business.
Summary
Don’t spent lots of time and money on SEO. Focus on keyword/key phrase targeting, on-page SEO, and post-publishing SEO. Make high-quality content. Instead of pouring all of your resources out on SEO, focus on your core message, great content, UX, and strategic social sharing.
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