There are a few SEO marketing basics to know when getting started.

SEO marketing is a set of digital marketing practices designed to make websites, webpages, and other digital assets easily crawlable and servable by major search engines. If your website is search engine optimized, that means it’s catered to the current preferences of the search engine algorithms and is more likely to appear in the search results for relevant queries. If your site isn’t optimized, search engines will most likely pass over your site and serve one that is optimized, even if your content or business is a better fit for the user’s needs.

A few components of optimizing your website are:

1. Publishing high quality content consistently
2. Optimizing certain backend HTML elements
3. Offline optimizations
4. Website structure

Implementing these SEO practices significantly heightens the chances of your business being found and chosen in relevant search results.

1. Publishing High Quality Content Consistently

What makes for high quality content changes frequently in the digital marketing space. It’s important to always stay updated as to what the search engine algorithms currently favor. For example, Google recently rolled out a Helpful Content update that makes using SEO best practices even more important.

Tried and true principles for putting out quality content are:

• Making sure your content includes relevant keywords
• Researching trending topics related to your field or business and writing on those
• Including quality links
• Writing with proper grammar and in an easy to understand tone
• Using strategic and intriguing headlines
• Implementing data-rich media like images, videos, gifs and memes, infographics or sound bites
• Consistently publishing new material and updating old material

All of these combined factors signal to search engines that your business and website are credible and your content will be genuinely helpful for users.

For more in-depth information on best practices for SEO content, read our blog What is SEO Writing?

2. Optimizing HTML Backend Elements

Even if you’re not a website development guru, the most important HTML elements aren’t difficult to find and edit.

The most important and easily accessible elements are:

• Meta descriptions (the bit of text that shows up in the search results that describe what the content is about)
• Site headings (the titles in your site’s navigation or menu)
• URL (should include keywords)
• Alt text (descriptions of images)
• Title tag (the main heading that shows up in search engine results)

Depending on your site builder platform, you can do these yourself, or have your website development team do them for you.

Many of these backend elements show up for both the search engine algorithms and for users. As with any content on your site, these elements need to be easily crawlable for the algorithms and easy understandable and readable for human users.

3. Offline Optimizations

Digital marketing can be impacted by offline marketing efforts!

A few ways to support your digital marketing and SEO efforts offline are:

• Enhancing your social media presence as well as your in-person events
• The geography of your business (if brick and mortar)
• Improving your site’s overall authority in your industry
• Making word of mouth marketing easy and attractive

While each of these include online elements, they bleed into the offline space because they deal with people’s actions offline.

If someone is searching for a business, they most likely want one that’s within an easy driving distance for them. Making sure your business’s map and mobile presence are easily accessible will help it be found and chosen!

If your business can support live events, fundraisers or charity volunteering, its overall presence in your community will be strengthened and it will more easily become a household name and the go-to for whatever services or products it offers.

4. Website Structure

The way your business’s website is set up online and how easily navigable it is for users plays a big part in its overall SEO.

The biggest things to get right with your website’s structure are:

• Making sure that the site is mobile-friendly
• Implementing site security measures
• Ensuring a fast loading speed
• Creating a site map which you submit to search engines for indexing

Again, depending on your website’s builder platform, you may be able to make these changes yourself or, if you can’t, hire a website development professional to handle it for you.

These practices make navigating your site easy for both human users and search engine algorithms! When both of these parties are happy, your business has a much better chance at being served in relevant search results. 

Final thoughts…

In many ways, SEO is the foundation for all other digital marketing strategies. When your business’s website is optimized for search engines and human users, your other digital marketing efforts are much more effective, and your business is set up for online success.

SEO and digital marketing require a specific set of skills and can be time consuming for business owners. RevLocal handles it all for you. To learn what it’s like to work with us, check out our resources page or contact us for a free consultation!