Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of making a website easier to find via an online search. There are billions of web pages on the Internet, so how does your website attract new clients amongst all those click-craving competitors?

If a searcher knows your business, they will likely type your company name into the search engine, or even have a direct link bookmarked in their browser. But what if they’ve never heard of you? SEO is one of the best approaches to helping your product or business stand out.

 

The Engine Behind Searching
The efficiency of a search engine is doggone impressive! If these search engines were dogs, they could sniff-out a bone buried 10 years ago and a thousand miles away! That doesn’t mean the Internet is a perfect world where a user finds exactly what they are looking for.

Say your business sells dog treats and a potential customer is looking for some new nibbles for Sparky. Sparky’s owner will likely open Google, which has 65 percent of the U.S. market share for online searches as of February 2015. When the owner types “dog treats” into the search bar, the competition on the Internet goes from billions of web pages to a few thousand, or at least a few hundred.

The amount of responses will vary depending on how common your company’s product or services are and other advanced searching components. The search could be location based, like “Northern California dog treats,” which narrows the field. Still, you’re a pretty rare breed if there is zero competition in your area—and in many ways you will compete against national corporations—so there will still be dozens of pages of search results.

Most people conducting a search will click on a website linked to the first page of results. Very few people will ever see beyond page two. Google displays no more than 10 listings on each page, so getting on the first page, and STAYING there, can be a real dogfight. SEO implementation is how a smart dog wins this fight, and most of your competitors have picked up on this scent too.

 

SEO digs deep into your company website.
So, how does Google decide which of these pages to put at the top of the results list? The search engine scans every web page so it can ‘index’ the content. This system of organization is how the ‘right’ web page is found when a customer searches. In the case of Sparky’s owner, the search engine cross references websites about ‘Northern California’ with web pages mentioning ‘dog’ and ‘treats.’ Sites that mention the exact search term will be ranked nearer the top of the list.

But what if 50 pages contain the phrase ‘Northern California dog treats?’ The search engine will also evaluate a website for relevance, authority and freshness. If the keyword or phrase is included in prominent places on the web page (the URL, the headings, etc.), that page is more likely to be relevant to the search topic.

If the page has many relevant links pointing to it, (from customer review sites, social media posts, etc.) then it is likely seen as a trusted source of information. If the content was published or updated in the last month, it appears more useful than if it was published a year ago. Keeping content fresh is largely up to the website owner. You need to give visitors a reason to keep coming back, and a blog and complimentary digital newsletter can help tremendously.

Taking these factors into consideration, a search engine is able to provide an ordered list of appropriate sites based on relevance and authority. Fresh and useful content functions as the dogs hitched to your dogsled. You won’t get far without them.

 

Let SEO mark your territory. Just remember…

It takes patience.
Any SEO effort should start with research and collection of baseline data, called web analytics. How much traffic is currently coming to your site each day? How are visitors reaching your site? What pages are most frequently visited? How long are visitors spending on your most important pages? Using this information leads to adjustments to your web pages, and the data is then further studied to track the effects of implemented changes. But, it does take time. 

It takes effort.
With only 10 spots on page one of the search results, there’s guaranteed to be a dogfight to mark territory. The pack currently on page one has fought hard to get there. You’ll need dedication and effort to push even one of them off. 

It takes commitment.
SEO is a lesson in unwavering obedience and agility. If you stop, your well trained website will become sloppy and distracted. Do not expect to get to, or remain at, page one if you do not have a realistic and sustainable marketing budget.

Have you invested a lot of time and money into your company’s website, but it isn’t giving you the results and rate of return you expected? SEO may be the answer, and the Mopdog team is wagging our tails to fetch you that solution.

Not done searching? Learn more about SEO from a past Mopdog case study, “SEO Case Study Part 2: Jack McGovern Coats Disease Foundation,” and about web analytics from a past Mopdog blog, “Is a professional analyzing your data? Learn the basics from us.”