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Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Introduction: SEO for High Rankings
3. How a Search Engine Finds and Ranks Content
4. Three Main Types of SEO
   1. On-Page SEO
   2. Off-Page SEO
   3. Technical SEO
5. Key Strategies for On-Page SEO
6. Key Strategies for Off-Page SEO
   1. Main Strategy – Link Building
   2. Other SEO Strategies
7. Why Responsive, Mobile-Friendly Sites are Imperative
8. Conclusion

Key Takeaways

• Learn how search engines work;
• Develop solid fundamental SEO knowledge;
• A complete overview of on-page, off-page and technical SEO;
• How to gain access to free professional resources, tools and guides;

Introduction: SEO for High Rankings

Have you ever wondered how your business can consistently rank at or near the top of Google searches?

How a Search Engine Finds and Ranks Content

On Google, for example, there are three phases which take place: crawling, indexing, and then ranking.

During the crawling phase your web pages are discovered by what are known as search engine spiders or bots – think of the way a real spider weaves a web to capture its food.

These spiders or bots rely upon discovering a website’s published homepage, an HTML sitemap (if submitted to Google Search Console), and any internal and external links that are relevant to a web page’s content, during the crawl phase.

Once your web pages have been identified by the search engine spiders, they are then taken back to Google’s servers for purposes of indexing or organizing them by content.

Lastly, Google then determines the ranking of your web pages and positions them accordingly on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) – compared to other website containing similar content.

For example, if your website or blog addresses the topic of organic gardening, then you would not be ranked or compared against websites that address the topic of V-twin engine motorcycles.

Three Main Types of SEO

There are three (3) main types of Search Engine Optimization or SEO…On-Page, Off-Page and Technical.

On-Page SEO

Just like it sounds, involves what you do on your own website or blog. This is the area where you have the most control over the way your content is perceived by the search engines.

This is also where keyword research, the most important activity in SEO, comes into play.

The main things to be aware of when conducting keyword research are as follows:

The volume of web searches conducted on a particular keyword (what the potential traffic may be to your website or blog);

The competition (how many other sites are also trying to rank high for the same keywords);

The relevancy (select keywords that are the most relevant to the content you are promoting);

Off-Page SEO

Just like it sounds, is the process of promoting your website or blog content through external techniques such as link building, social media and public relations.

I will also be doing a future blog post on this topic in the near future.

In a nut shell, link building, sometimes referred to as backlinking, is when other websites or blogs have hyperlinks on them that point back to your web content.

The more backlinks you can generate from relevant sites, the merrier, as this will improve your sites credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of the search engines.

Technical SEO

This area overlaps with portions of both On-Page and Off-Page SEO. For now, the main aspects to be aware of with respect to this type of SEO are strictly technical in nature.

These include site security, site speed (I touch on this in the next section), canonical URLs, indexation, UX (User Experience), accessibility (i.e., making your site content accessible to someone who is impaired), and schema (I touch on this below).

Key Strategies for On-Page SEO

Schema (aka Structured Data) – Snippets of information provided by your website to the search engines so they (and searchers) can better understand your content.

Examples…

FAQs;

Google Star ratings;

Thumbnail images of products;

Brands, pricing, and availability;

Recipes and overall cooking times;

Address, hours of operation, and cuisine type;

Title Tag (aka Meta Tag) – This is the actual title of a webpage or a blog article that appears on the SERPs.

Limit this to sixty (60) characters or less (which includes blank spaces in between words) which will greatly increase the likelihood that it will be fully displayed on the Google search results, and not be truncated (cutoff) by the search engine.

Hypothetical example…

“Personal Injury Attorneys – State Certified | ABC Law Firm” – 58 total characters

Meta Description (aka Metadata) – A brief description that summarizes the content on your webpage.

Each page of your website or blog should have a meta description.

Limit this to one-hundred sixty (160) characters or less.

I personally strive for one-hundred fifty (150) characters or less (which includes blank spaces in between words) as I find it dramatically reduces the chance the description will get cutoff in the search results.

Headings and Subheadings (H1 – H6) – Use keywords in your headings/subheadings, and always use headings/subheadings to organize and highlight your content (like I’ve tried to do in this blog article on SEO).

URL Structure – The right type of URL structure will enhance traffic to your website or blog by providing search engines and visitors with clarity.

Example: nameofcitypersonalinjuryattorney.com is a much more descriptive URL structure than nameofstateattorney.com

Alt Text – Search engines are not capable of reading images.

Therefore, you should include alternative text which describes images on a page, enhances SEO, and provides someone who is sight-impaired with the ability to understand your webpage better.

Limit this to one-hundred twenty-five (125) characters or less.

Internal Links – Hyperlinks which go from one page of your website to another page helps the search engines to index your site more accurately.

Site Maps – Create an HTML site map (for human consumption) and an XML site map (for search engine consumption).

Site Speed, Page Speed or Load Time – Three (3) seconds maximum is a good rule of thumb.

Slower load times may increase your website’s “bounce rate” (when a visitor leaves your site after viewing only a single page) and decrease the “time spent on page” by visitors.

There is a feature in Google Analytics which will help you measure how fast your pages are loading for a website or blog visitor.

Featured Snippets – These are search results shown above a search engine’s organic (non-sponsored) results.

Creating a comprehensive and detailed FAQ section on a website or blog will increase the chances of being included by a search engine in the featured snippet section of the search results.

Google likes to pull content from websites, blogs, etc., that does the best job (in their humble opinion) of answering a search query.

Examples: What is artificial intelligence? Why do casino dealers clap their hands? How large is the Milky Way galaxy?

Key Strategies for Off-Page SEO

Main Strategy – Link Building

Link Building – As mentioned above, this is when hyperlinks on other websites are established which point back or direct visitors to your website or blog content.

Your goal is to get high domain authority, relevant sites to point back to your content – quality matters much more than quantity.

Link building is the most effective method of Off-Page SEO!

Methods of Link Building – There are several widely used methods of link building which I list in the section below titled “Other SEO Strategies”.

I will mention a couple here that may not be used as frequently:

List your website or blog on reputable directories such as Martindale.com or Wikipedia.com

Reach out to individuals or organizations you have cited to on your website or in your blog articles, let them know you thought highly enough about their content, and ask them for a courtesy share of your post with their readers via social media.

Depending upon the entity, this may mean thousands of additional people becoming aware of your content (not a guarantee, but worth an e-mail or DM).

Caveat – Buying backlinks (there is a market out there for that) as opposed to earning backlinks, is considered by Google to be a form of manipulating search results.

Inbound vs. Outbound Links – Inbound links (the ones pointing from another site back to your website or blog) should be directed to a variety of pages on your site whenever possible – not just your homepage.

Outbound links (the ones pointing from your site to another) can be listed as a courtesy to a reader.

I am now going to provide you with some Outbound links that I believe would be beneficial to help you follow up on the topic of Off-Page SEO, and assist with creating high quality backlinks:

MOZ offers a free backlink checker tool called Link Explorer, claiming over 40 trillion links

Semrush has the largest backlink checker tool called Backlink Analytics, according to an internal database study

AhRefs claims to have the fastest backlink research tool in the industry, called Site Explorer

Other SEO Strategies

• Content Marketing – Blogging; Podcasts; Case Studies; Infographics; E-Books; etc.

• Local SEO – This includes a comprehensive and frequently updated Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business), Google Maps, and Local Directory Listings (such as Yelp and Foursquare), amongst others.

• Social Media – Facebook; LinkedIn; Twitter; Instagram; Reddit; Pinterest; Tumblr; etc.

• Influencer Marketing – Endorsements by individuals who have strong social influence on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram.

• Public Relations – The dissemination of favorable information (e.g., monetary contributions made to causes like environmental sustainability and social justice). Press releases distributed to various media outlets (e.g., when announcing a new innovative product or service).

• Guest Posting – Also known as guest blogging, this is a popular SEO tactic that oftentimes results in a link(s) going back to the websites and blogs owned by the guest author.

• Brand Mentions – Names, products, and services of various companies are identified (and sometimes discussed) by outside parties in blog posts, product reviews, and news articles, to name a few sources.

• Affiliate or Partner Programs – These types of programs allow creators (e.g., bloggers and influencers) and business owners to collaborate through mutually beneficial relationships which promote a product or service through affiliate marketing links, and ultimately drive visitor traffic to a website, blog or e-commerce store.

Why Responsive, Mobile-Friendly Sites are Imperative

Mobile devices now make up 63% of all organic searches.

Your website must be responsive in nature – able to display accurately on all types of devices including smartphones.

A visitor will spend a longer amount of time on your mobile-friendly site, which will improve your SEO rankings.

In addition, mobile e-commerce sales were $360 million as of 2021. Americans now spend an average of around 4.5 hours a day on their mobile devices, and check their phones over 60 times each day.

Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool grades the performance (Mobile and Desktop) of your website or blog based upon Speed, Accessibility, Best Practices and SEO.

Search Engine Optimization takes time and patience to achieve the right results, but with consistency and the right tools, I believe a website or blog can reap the benefits from those efforts for many years to come.

Conclusion

What are your favorite SEO strategies, and which ones work the best for your business?

Do you have any SEO resources you would recommend to other marketers?

Feel free to leave a comment below.

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See you in the next blog post…