As a business owner, you naturally strive to satisfy your customers’ hunger for your products or services through a robust digital marketing strategy. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the peas and carrots of your digital marketing dinner plate. While not as flashy as the main course content, SEO is an important part of your online presence that helps your business grow through deliciously organic search result visibility.
The key to landing on the first page of your audience’s search results is first understanding which digital dishes search engines like to find at the table. Search engines like Google hold very specific tastes in terms of online compatibility. Google’s appetite and SEO palate also change constantly as search engine developers continually work to improve online search services.
With customers waiting in line to devour your specific brand of online services and snacks, it pays to feed your digital marketing strategy by understanding some key SEO terminology.
Key SEO Terminology and Strategies Every Business Owner Should Know
Keyword Research – A vital component of any SEO strategy, keywords include the terms, ideas, and topics your target customers search for online. Keyword research involves finding and focusing on the right keywords for your specific goals, audience, and profitability.
Metadata – Metadata captures and describes behind-the-scenes details about online content like photos, documents, and web pages. While customers can’t usually see metadata, search engines rely on metadata almost exclusively to understand and index the content in your photos, PDFs, and web page titles or descriptions.
Local Listings – Think of local listings as successful online networking agreements with neighboring businesses. Any time your business is mentioned in another business’ social media tag, blog post, affiliate link, or local directory, you passively spread awareness of your brand and increase your SEO rankings and digital traffic through successful local listings.
Competitor Analysis – SEO competitor analysis is the act of identifying your business’s online competition, assessing their physical and digital position in search results globally, nationally, and locally, uncovering their links, keywords, and content, and analyzing what you find to enhance your own business’s SEO strategy.
Social Presences – While a Facebook page is a poor replacement for an actual small business website, social media can enhance your SEO rankings. Play your social media cards right, and your social media audiences will share your links on their own blogs and websites (hello, local listings!) and help create content business owners can reuse elsewhere. Social media also helps build a strong business brand; Google is more likely to prioritize strong brands in search results.
Niche Listings – Similar to local listings, niche listings include online directories that cater to specific product or service categories, like nearby mechanical services, eco-friendly cleaning products, or local farms and produce. Niche listings improve SEO rankings by not only linking back to your website, business, name, and brand but by utilizing the specific keywords you want to focus on the most.
Page Speed – Did you know Google prefers to send their customers to websites with lightning-fast loading speeds? Page speed impacts your customers’ overall user experience and can make the difference between a sale and a return to the search results for better (faster) options.
Listings & Reviews – Want to show up on the first page of a local search for businesses like yours? Listings and reviews are the best ways to get there. The more you appear in listings and directories, the better your SEO success. Similarly, Google clearly states that high-quality, positive reviews improve businesses’ visibility on their platform.
Relationship Leveraging – Those directories and listings we keep talking about aren’t always easy to find. In fact, some listings, like those on low-quality, advertisement-focused directories filled with popups and misinformation, are harmful to your business’s SEO. Google doesn’t want to send customers to sites filled with spam. Building relationships with like-minded, trusted businesses is the best way to ensure your business is only featured in high-quality listings customers can depend on.
Mobile Usability – In the fast-paced world of mobile connectivity, every business owner needs to ensure their digital marketing efforts are compatible with cell phones. Mobile usability analyzes digital compatibility (like website responsiveness, page header auto-fit, and menu useability) so your customers have a good online experience whether on a desktop, tablet, or phone.
Ranking Data – Ranking data includes all data on your websites, social media, and listings that impacts your business’s placement in search engine results. This includes things like content and metadata. Search engines use a process called indexing to categorize websites; the more SEO-focused your digital data is, the better your digital brand will rank.
Unlinked Mentions – Occasionally, a listing will name your business but fail to include a link to your webpage, social media accounts, or online contact funnels. When this happens, customers are required to take an extra (reluctant) step to connect with you. A good SEO strategy involves enhancing every listing and online mention with clickable links so customers can easily engage with your business regardless of where they found you.
Backlink Review – Nothing is more detrimental to SEO and frustrating to customers than links that lead to error pages. Backlink review is the process of scanning each link on your website, blog, and digital content to ensure the links are still functional, easily followed by the search engines visiting your page, and successfully leading your audience to the intended destination.
Content Placement – Website visitors (and consequently, search engines – because search engines are in the business of making their search customers happy) prioritize content that doesn’t require scrolling, especially when your audience is using a laptop or desktop. Content placement impacts user experience, comprehension, and brand awareness and acts on a subconscious level to communicate what your business (and digital brand) is all about. The most important info needs to be the first thing customers (and search engines) find when visiting your digital platforms.
Content Review – A good SEO strategy reviews digital content constantly. Search engines love new content; most will only revisit your site when new content is added, so it pays to add relevant, beneficial content as much as possible. Additionally, irrelevant, misleading, or outdated content can hurt your search engine rankings. Google does not like answering customer inquiries with incorrect information – fail to remove wrong info, and you’ll pay for it in your rankings.
Analytic Benchmarking – The best way to gauge SEO success is by creating and tracking a series of goals aimed at SEO improvement. Analytic benchmarks allow you to identify, organize, and keep tabs on each element of your SEO strategy so you can adjust your efforts as needed and focus on SEO elements that make the most impact.
Opportunity Monitoring – The world of search engine strategy is constantly changing to keep up with algorithm updates, Google improvements, and online customer needs. Like all other areas of digital marketing, SEO is not a one-and-done success initiative; it requires constant supervision, monitoring, and identification of improvement opportunities.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – a tactic using online advertising to promote your website or online content through paid campaigns across various search engines. SEM is commonly performed along with SEO to create a comprehensive digital marketing strategy to improve the visibility of your website and attract targeted traffic.
SERPs – stands for Search Engine Results Page and typically refers to a page that displays the results of a user’s search query on search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Typical SERP consists of organic listings and paid advertisements relevant to the user’s search terms.
Are you looking to enhance your business’s SEO strategy with digestible, easy-to-follow tools and clear-cut processes? GreenCup Digital is here to help. Take a bite out of the competition by partnering with our SEO specialists to make the most of your online presence. Every strategy listed above comes standard with GreenCup Digital’s SEO packages and is proven to increase visibility, engagement, and overall digital wellness. Connect with us here to schedule a free consultation over lunch and laptops. Together, we can take your business’s SEO efforts from famine – to feast!
