As a business owner, you can do a lot to get more customers coming through your door. However, if you don't have good visibility in the search engine rankings, you could be missing out on nearly half or more of your potential business and revenue. Luckily, getting high in the organic rankings is manageable with the right search engine optimization (SEO) firm.
There are a lot of SEO companies in the Denver Co area, and a lot of them offer a wide range of services, so it's important for you to do your research and find the right match. But before you look for the right company for your business, you should first make yourself familiar with some of the basic ideas on how SEO works. This will help you to determine if the companies you're looking into are really offering what they claim.
SEO is a long-term strategy for getting your web pages ranked higher on the search engine results page (SERP). And if you're unfamiliar with it, it may sound like a pretty simple process: just throw some keywords on your website and watch as your rank climbs the charts. Unfortunately, that's not how it works at all. SEO requires a lot of planning, effort, and most importantly – time – before you start to see the results.
There are also different types of SEO, each with its own goals. Understanding the differences between them will help you determine your company's needs and how best to match them up with the strategies used by SEO companies. Listed below are some of the different types of SEO and what they can do for your business:
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is all about leveraging the tools and options available on your own website or web page. It's a process of finding ways to improve your rank by optimizing your web pages through tags, titles, meta-descriptions, content, and more. This way, you can affect what appears in the SERPS without having to depend on changes made by the search engines themselves or waiting for them to crawl your site or page.
Some aspects of On-Page SEO include:
Keyword Research
The first step in on-page SEO is to find out which keywords to use. To do so, you'll need to research the search trends and patterns of your target market. This will tell you what keywords to use, where to include them (in titles, descriptions, and tags), and how often. You can start with general terms and then drill down into specific words or phrases that are relevant to what your business does.
Optimizing Metadata
The metadata includes the titles, meta descriptions, and tags, which will help search engines understand what your website or web page is all about. These elements determine whether your website or page is relevant enough to show up in the SERP, that's why it's important to optimize these elements. This will also affect your rankings, so you'll need to make sure that you also include your target keywords to help you rank well.
Internal linking
Internal linking is another important On-Page SEO strategy to use. This entails hyperlinking your web page internally to other related web pages on your site. This helps search engines understand the context of your web page, as well as provide additional sources of information about the topic and product or service that you are providing.
Off-Page SEO
While On-Page SEO focuses on what you can do to affect your rank from within your website, off-page SEO focuses on the "outside" factors that help determine your page rank. This includes authority and popularity, as well as the number of other sites linking to your website or page. As you can imagine, it's difficult to control what other websites do with their links, but you can aim for a natural flow of links by providing value to other sites in the form of content, social media shares, and more.
Some aspects of Off-Page SEO include:
Backlinks
For your website to rank high in the search engines, you must have a considerable number of links pointing back to your site. Links help search engine crawlers discover and crawl your site and also help establish its relevance and authority about the topic associated with the link.
Getting links from external, high-authority websites or popular blogs is a great way to increase rankings. However, this will need an in-depth knowledge of the target market and how best to approach them. You may also need to invest in advertising and exposure, as well as building relationships with the site admins. SEO companies should be able to create or acquire relevant links to your page or website while making sure that it looks natural and not manipulated in any way.
Social Media Marketing
Social media sites can have a major impact on your off-page SEO. It has become essential for companies to have a strong social media presence, with many using it as their primary platform for marketing services or products. Having thousands of followers on your site can be an effective way to get more visibility and traffic, but this may take time depending on how well you can engage your target market through various posts and discussions. An SEO company should be able to help you build your following and spread awareness about your site or business, as well as create a social media marketing plan that is specific to your context and goals.
Content Distribution
A great way to get more exposure and increase your SEO rankings is by distributing your content on various platforms. While you can post on your websites and pages, having articles featured in relevant sites and magazines can add reputation and value to your brand. Apart from articles, you can also have your videos, podcasts, presentations, or other content featured on different platforms. This will increase your visibility and allow you to tell your story to a wider audience.
Competitive Analysis
Analyzing the competition is also a good strategy for improving your rankings and staying ahead of the competition. An experienced Denver SEO company should provide you with information on how your competitors are doing, including where they get their links from, what topics they cover in their content, and how they are distributing their content. You can use this information to create a better strategy and improve the performance of your website or page.
Technical SEO
While Off-Page SEO revolves around the reputation and authority of your site, Technical SEO is used for improving how well your website is optimized for search engines to crawl and index your site. There are various technical aspects that you can optimize, including your site speed, internal linking structure, and image files. You can also look into improving your site's security and fixing any broken links or typos to make sure that your site is easy for crawlers to understand.
Some factors that are covered in Technical SEO are:
Structured Data
Also referred to as Schema.org, structured data markup is a standardized markup language that allows search engines to read images, reviews, events, recipes, etc. This allows websites to display rich snippets on SERPs with relevant information, including title, subtitle, image, etc. By using structured data markup, companies can improve how their content appears on SERPs and allow their website to be more accessible to search engine spiders.
Schema Markup makes it easier for users to access information about a particular website or person, as well as the entities that are mentioned in your content. This helps search engines provide better results and improve their understanding of what your page or site is all about.
Website Speed Optimization
Having a fast-loading site is essential for SEO, as well as for user experience. Slower pages usually translate to lower time on page and bounce rates. This can affect how your website or page ranks in SERPs and prevent you from getting more traffic. Ensuring that your site has minimum load time and is optimized for speed can help improve conversions and visitor engagement. Make sure that all your content is properly compressed and optimized for fast loading, as well as transferring.
Mobile-Friendly
To make sure that your site is accessible to different users and mobile devices, you must make your website mobile-friendly. This will ensure that your site's content is automatically optimized for mobile devices and viewable in any screen size or pixel density. The majority of online searches today are performed on mobile devices. By optimizing your site for mobile, you can make sure that your content is accessible to more users and increases its chances of being found.
Local SEO
With more and more people looking for businesses online, Local SEO has become an important factor for most companies. Local SEO makes it easier for people to find businesses in their area, while also providing location-specific information that can help them make a decision. Local SEO aims to improve your visibility for keywords that are relevant to your location. It can also help build credibility, authority, and trust for your business since people can see testimonials, ratings, and other information provided by previous customers.
A strong local SEO can help companies rank their business for location-specific keywords, allowing them to reach more users in the area. This type of SEO would work best for local businesses or any company that has a physical location, such as a restaurant or hotel.
Some strategies being used to boost Local SEO are:
Getting Reviews
To hit two birds with one stone, a lot of companies try to encourage customers to leave reviews for their business on various platforms. Not only you're leaving positive feedback to existing customers, you're also encouraging people to check out your business and increase your visibility. This can significantly affect how well your business does in SERPs, as search engines prioritize websites that have a lot of reviews and mentions from previous customers.
Local citations
Citations are basically any online mention or reference to your business, which includes the name, address, and phone number (NAP). Having your business mentioned on different platforms helps search engines understand more about your business and its location. This increases your chances of being found in searches, especially for keywords that are pertinent to your area.
Getting Listed on Directories
Directories serve as a catalog or a guide for businesses and other types of organizations. The majority of directory entries come from user-submitted listings, which search engines can use to refine their results and provide more accurate and relevant search results. Some directories focus on specific types of businesses, while others specialize in locations.
Ensuring that your business information is listed in the right directories can help improve your site's SEO and increase its visibility when people are looking for local businesses or services that you offer. This makes it easier for customers to find you, especially if your target market is in a specific location or you're a local business.
E-commerce SEO
As the name suggests, this type of SEO focuses on improving the visibility of E-commerce sites and online stores to drive sales and increase customer engagement. This type of SEO aims to help boost your website's rankings, drive more qualified traffic to your site, and convert visitors into paying customers. The majority of online shoppers will always check out product pages or other sections before making a purchase, which means that you'll need to make sure that these areas are well-optimized to get your website's name out there.
Some strategies being used for E-commerce SEO are:
Product Page Optimization
By increasing your page's visibility, you can draw more attention to your product or service page. This can encourage more people to check out your site and try your business. If you sell high-ticket items, then you'll need to have a page that is loaded with product information, specifications, customer reviews, images, and videos. This will help educate potential customers about the product while giving them an idea of what they can expect if they purchase it.
Canonical URLs
Having duplicate pages can be confusing to search engines and your visitors. When you have similar URLs for each page, it can dilute your site's authority and cause ranking issues. The Canonical URL feature allows you to specify which page is the original and should be indexed by search engines. While this is usually done for duplicate pages, you can still use this feature to consolidate and reduce the number of URLs that point to a single page.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Once people get to your online store or website, you should make it easier for them to make a purchase. This is why you need to have an optimized site that can encourage visitors to click on various elements or take certain actions. The majority of online shoppers will spend time comparing different products while researching the best option available for their needs. So strategies help you determine these actions and strengthen them with the use of CTAs or calls to action, which can get your visitors moving in a certain direction.
How to Determine the Right SEO Digital Marketing Agency
There are a lot of Denver SEO agencies that might seem promising and reliable. However, not all can offer what your business needs to get ahead and grow its online presence. Make sure the agency has the right experience and knowledge about how search engines work. It should also be able to provide detailed reports on your market's digital landscape as well as recommendations on how to improve your current strategy.
Transparency is another key when it comes to any business transaction, but this is especially true in the world of SEO. The last thing you want as a company owner is to deal with firms that promise one thing, but don't deliver.
Here at Denver Digital Agency, we offer a wide variety of digital marketing services that can provide businesses with an edge over the competition. Besides SEO services, we also offer social media marketing, content creation, SEO consulting, website maintenance, and more.
With our services, you can have a powerful online presence that will result in increased traffic to your site, stronger brand awareness, improved ranking on search engines, higher conversion rates for sales leads, and satisfied customers who are willing to share their experience with others.
As an experienced Denver SEO firm, we can analyze your business's digital landscape and offer the best-tailored SEO solutions. With our team of innovative and professional SEO experts, we can help you meet your business' specific goals. We have helped numerous businesses grow their online presence, and yours might be next so don't hesitate to give us a call.