On the web, it is said, “Content is King” so why are there so many companies selling Search Engine Optimization campaigns? Is it beneficial to review and optimize your website to be optimized for search engines?

In a word: Yes!

Everybody wants to be #1, and if it were as easy as telling Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., “Hey you, Mr. Search Engine, my site needs to be #1.” Then everyone would liberally sprinkle the magic fairy dust formula throughout their websites and PRESTO!~ every site would be #1

…er, wait a minute the math doesn’t quite add up on that.

The Business of Search

To understand ‘good SEO‘ it’s important to understand the business of search engines. Search Engines make the bulk of their revenue from ad ’sponsored listings’ sales. Similar to any other company in the business of selling ad space, rates are mostly determined by the number of views, impressions, and/or visibility. Google and Bing continue to mine data, track user actions, and discover new ways to deliver the ads and results most relevant to their search customers.

The bottom-line is that they want searchers visiting their engine to find what they’re looking for fast–more traffic equals higher ad space value.

Meritocracy

With hundreds of websites vying for the top-spot in Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) the search engines have developed complex algorithms and processes to guarantee the best websites get the best rankings.

Over the years, SEO companies have developed ‘tricks’ to get websites ranked high in the SERP which prompted search engines to continually tune their search results. Search giant Google has deployed a human verification strategy, an article published by The Register details a 160-page Google manual, which explains how ‘raters’ are to rank relevancy, spam, and overall quality of individual sites.

User Engagement Optimization: Back to the Basics

The search giants know what matters to its customers and are diligently working to safeguard their search results from being tainted with ‘black hat SEO’ strategies.

What does that mean for you?

Write content for People, Not Search Engines!

Create original, easy flowing, well-written content that will engage your visitors; give site visitors a pleasant, positive, enjoyable experience that speaks to a need and delivers results!

Is SEO, snake oil?

Great content, graphics, and Calls to Action are only part of the equation of building a Conversion Optimized Website. There are best-practices that all websites should abide by in creating a well-formatted code base to deliver your amazing quality-driven content across the web.

Here’s a short list of ‘behind the scenes’ elements every site should consider as part of their overall SEO strategy:

  • Analytics tracking installed?
  • Checked Analtyics/Webmaster tools for:
    • 404 / 500 errors
    • duplicate content
    • missing titles
    • other errors listed by Google
  • Use browseseo.net to check for content structure
  • Check for broken links (images, pages, external sites)
  • Use of keywords in URL
  • Keyword Density review
  • Title tags (70 characters or less?)
  • Meta descriptions (156 characters or less?)
  • Proper use of H1, H2, H3, H4 tags?
  • Accurate use of semantic keyword rich terms (content for humans that’s simply optimized not stuffed)
  • Do all images have ALT tags and use accurate and descriptive filenames?
  • Have you checked your site page speed with Google’s free PageSpeed tool?

As you can see there are plenty of things you can do to make your site more Search Engine friendly without being spammy, unreadable, and useless.

Takeaway: Don’t fall for the “Rank #1 in Google, SEO scams”

Engaging Relevant Content + Prudent SEO = “Holy Conversion-Optimized-Website Batman,
your site is engaging customers like never before!”

Want to learn more about Montana Banana’s Conversion Optimization strategy?

Contact Us Today

 

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Filed under: Conversion