Introduction
As you would expect, it’s a question that us marketing agencies do get asked a lot.
It’s also fair to say its a question that requires a rather complicated answer, but not so complicated that it cant be answered within this blog post of over 1000 words or so.
That’s to say if you read this blog post in its entirety, well then you should have a pretty good idea about how SEO works, and you might even decide, you know what, this agency knows what they are talking about, I am going to give them a ring.
So here it goes, a quick guide to how SEO works:
#1 Design
Sometimes some businesses think that if they have the best-looking website, that’s to say it looks much better than any of their direct competitors, then this is all the business needs in order to secure a top spot in Google’s ranks.
However, we hate to disappoint but here’s the thing, the design of the website doesn’t have a massive influence over where the business ranks.
Now, don’t get us wrong, design does matter, that’s to say if your website doesn’t work correctly, or is dated looking, well your website could obtain a high bounce rate, and a high bounce rate could mean that your business get’s moved down the ranks.
And yes the design of the website must mean it works on smartphones, so let’s just say that these are just the basics, that let’s just say these are essential if you want to improve your businesses seo.
So let’s presume for your business you have the design sorted, well, then your business should concentrate on SEO.
That’s to say by just having a WordPress website that looks great- well this doesn’t mean that your businesses seo is going to be sorted right away.
So often an marketing agency is then needed to improve the businesses seo, and often this will mean that a website designer is then used in order to improve the design, but what we are getting at is that rarely will a website be ranked on first page of Google, by just having a great design and no SEO applied.
#2 GoogleBot, (Crawling and Indexation)
Okay, here’s another point that’s really important, that is can Googlebot crawl and index your website?
And you may well be wondering, well what does that even mean?
Well, think for a second of a classic car competition, that is there’s thousands of cars that are all competing for “the best classic car in the U.K”.
Okay, so in order to work out which is the best classic car, there will be a judge, and the judge will look at each classic car and weigh up how good each car is, well, this is exactly the same for how GoogleBot works.
However GoogleBot is not a person, its an algorithm, and it’s the algorithm which decides how good your website is, then places your business in the index, and your website is then scored on over 200 SEO signals, which some agencies call “ranking factors” or “ranking signals”.
#3 Onsite SEO
The onsite seo is really important, its like have the basic features that make a car, well a car, so for example the windows, doors and the steering wheel, and onsite seo is the same, you need these sorted before you do any of the rest, such as building backlinks.
#4 Content Marketing
So content marketing is just writing say 500 words, and then adding this work to your company blog, right?
No, this would be a really weak seo strategy, instead you have to think about what questions do your customers have.
So for example, lets say that you own a business that sells smartphones, you may wish to write a blog post that explains what all the various terms mean that are to do with a smartphone, so for example if the phone had a certain glass, you may want to know more about the different types of glass and what impacts can they take, for example if you were to drop the phone onto say concrete, you may want to know if the phone could withstand such an impact?
So, if your mobile phone business has written an article which explains all the different brands that make toughened glass, and what impact each screen can take before it breaks.
Now, this type of content marketing would be useful to someone who may have broke a few phones, through say dropping them, and now wants a super tough phone, so they may read your businesses blog post, like the advice that your company has written, and they may then purchase the phone from you.
#5 Link Building
Your business will need high-quality backlinks, these backlinks must be built in a white hat way, and we would recommend that you hire a respected white hat agency to do this work.
#6 Ongoing work
So your marketing agency can implement a lot of seo work, and then that’s it, your business will appear on the first page of Google?
No, that’s definitely not right, that’s because organic seo is an ongoing process, that’s to say a lot of businesses pay an agency like us, to improve their businesses seo every month.
#7 Algorithm
Google’s algorithm is always improving, as such you should employ an SEO company that’s able to understand the changes, and make sure they are only ever offering your business white hat seo.
#8 Doesn’t come to an end
So, what you are saying is that organic seo doesn’t really come to an end?
That’s right it doesn’t, and the reason for this is simple, there will always be a new bunch of businesses that want to be on the first page of Google.
So a business that is on the first page must make sure there seo is better, otherwise those other businesses will often swiftly overtake them.
#9 White hat
All work must be white hat.
