Search Engine Optimization Services
Turn search traffic into foot traffic & sales by maximizing your visibility to inbound search traffic for keywords relevant to you.
Search Engines are the starting points for people looking for answers to everyday consumer questions. Today, 93% of all online experiences begin on a search engine. Simply put, search engines like Google are the most convenient and expedient way to search for information on the internet. Search traffic represents inbound leads – people actively looking for the products and/or services you sell. Whether you are a local business trying to increase foot traffic to your brick and mortar or an online business trying to increase traffic to your website; we provide tailored search engine optimization services designed to maximize your exposure.
FREE 30-Minute SEO Consultation
Schedule your consultation today and get in front of the people who are already looking for the products and/or service you offer. The free consultation includes a review of your website, the digital landscape within which you operate, the domains competing for the same keywords as you, and how you can optimize your digital assets.
Our SEO Process
We’ve developed a winning approach to SEO that has been validated dozens of times helping clients in 12 industries and 7 countries. This approach is leverages intensive research and analytics to power data-driven digital decision-making.
DIGITAL SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
No SEO program can be successful unless it is preceded by an in-depth review of the digital landscape within which you operate. You need to identify the domains you are competing with, the keywords you need to target, the content you need to develop, etc. We conduct digital diligence to establish what we refer to as Digital Situational Awareness for your business.
KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keywords are gatekeepers to immensely qualified leads. This is because keyword traffic is inbound – people actively searching for things on their own volition. We conduct the Keyword Research necessary to get you on the 1st page of Google for high-intent keywords relevant to your business and the products and/or services you sell.
TECHNICAL OPTIMIZATIONS
Search engines analyze your website’s internal elements to determine Search Engine Friendliness (SXE). Some of these elements include Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, ALT Text, and Header Elements. We optimize these and other internal elements to improve your SXE, thus improving your ranking in search results relevant to you.
LINK BUILDING
Backlinks are a major ranking signal considered by search engines when determining rankings. A Backlink is a link from an external website to your website. For example, IF Website A links to Website B THEN Website B has a Backlink from Website A. We leverage our experience and advanced software to maximize our link building efforts.
A/B TESTING & ADJUSTMENTS
Since search engines don’t explicitly say what will earn 1st page rankings it comes down to testing, rinsing, and repeating. This is why SEO is a process, not a single action. We split-test optimizations to see what is working, what isn’t working, and adjust strategy accordingly. This enables us to identify what search engines seem to prefer for your digital space.
ANALYTICS MONITORING & REPORTING
SEO success depends on many things, not least of which analytics. A strong analytics infrastructure is the bedrock of any successful search engine optimization program. We build an advanced analytics infrastructure around your website to track the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) most important to your business and provide detailed weekly reports.
SEO by the Numbers
The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that Move The Bottom Line
We track the most important digital Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are most likely to move your bottom line. To do so we leverage advanced data collection platforms like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager, and Ahrefs.
Digital Situational Awareness
Developing a comprehensive understanding of the digital landscape within which your business operates is critical to online success. We call this establishing Digital Situational Awareness and it is the first thing we do when beginning a SEO Program for a client. This process involves identifying and analyzing:
Keywords
Competitors (Direct & Indirect)
Target Audience (Demographics & Behavior)
Market Trends
We conduct an exhaustive analysis of the aforementioned in order to generate accurate data that can be leveraged to formulate a winning SEO program.
Keyword Research
Keyword Research is the process of identifying and analyzing keywords relevant to your brand, then segmenting them by:
- Search Volume
- Competitiveness
- Micro-Moment
- Intent Category
The primary deliverable of this process is the Keyword Planner – a comprehensive list of the keywords most likely to drive qualified traffic that will convert to your website.
You’ll want to start by creating a Seed Keyword List. These are the basic keywords that come to mind when thinking about your brand. For example, if you are a restaurant popular for brunch you’d want to include “best brunch restaurants and “places to eat brunch” in your Seed Keyword List. You’ll want to include at least 10 keywords.
Now that you have your Seed Keyword List you’ll want to expand this list from just a few keywords to hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of keywords. Google’s Keyword Planner (GKP) is the best tool to start with. Input your top 10 seed keywords into GKP. Doing so will produce a list of similar keywords. Take a moment to go through and filter out your Negative Keywords and the keywords that include brand names, discovery keywords are what you are looking for here.
Once you’ve removed irrelevant and negative keywords you’ll want to use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) to re-expand the list. Simply put, LSI keywords are different ways of saying the same thing. This is where you look for comparisons, prepositions to the keywords you already have.
Now that you have a fairly substantial list of keywords relevant to your brand you will need to narrow the list down to the keywords most likely to drive the kind of traffic that you want and that will convert. To do this you’ll want to take your keyword list and cross-reference the data with a tool like Ahrefs Keywords Explorer or SEM Rush’s Keyword Tool. Now you have a complete Keyword Planner which can be referenced for technical on-page optimizations, content writing, ad targeting, etc.
Technical Optimizations
As mentioned above, search engines examine roughly 200 ranking signals when crawling your website to determine its Search Engine Friendliness score. Many of these ranking signals are technical elements of your website including:
Title Tags
Meta Descriptions
ALT Text
Header Elements
Sitemap
Most websites fail to optimize these above-mentioned technical elements. We ensure these and other technical elements are optimized so that your SXE score is high, thus improving your ability to rank highly in search results for keywords relevant to you.
Link Building
If you’ve made it this far then you know that Google’s PageRank Algorithm (named after co-founder Larry Page) analyzes roughly 200 ranking signals when determining your ranking for queries relevant to you. What you may not know is that not all ranking signals are created equal. Backlinks are by far one of the most important ranking signals considered by Google.
A Backlink is a link on an external website to your website. Google considers Backlinks akin to a vote of confidence in your website.
Examples of Backlinks clickable photos or blocks of text that lead to your website. We engage in Link Building (the process of earning Backlinks) to grow and diversify your Backlink profile.
Like ranking signals, not all Backlinks are created equal. For example, if you are a hotel then a link from Travel Magazine’s website would be more valuable to you then a link from a 3-month old travel blog. This is due to the fact that Travel Magazine’s website has higher Domain Authority (a score indicating a domain’s authority on a particular subject) with regard to the topics of travel and lodging than would a relatively new blog. Google determines Domain Authority by looking at:
- The keywords driving traffic to a website – Since Travel Magazine receives substantially more traffic from travel and lodging related keywords Google concludes that the website is probably
- A website’s Bounce Rate & Avg. Session Duration – if less people are leaving before executing any action (bouncing) and they are spending more time on the website (avg. session duration) then Google concludes the website has high-quality content that is useful to the above-mentioned topics.
One of the best and fastest ways to increase your Backlinks is to conduct Broken Link Analysis – the process of identifying broken Backlinks on websites you want to earn Backlinks from. We look for Broken Links on the top Referring Domains identified in the previous step and reach out to:
- Notify them of the Broken Link
- Pitch them on why they should replace it with a link to your website
The success rate is relatively high (4-9%) because you are solving two problems at once for these domains since Broken Links adversely affect a website’s ability to rank and its User Experience.
A/B Testing & Adjustments
As discussed earlier, SEO is a process not a single action. This is because it takes data-driven optimizations executed consistently and adjusted accordingly to positively increase your rankings for queries relevant to you. You need to see what works, what doesn’t, and make adjustments where necessary. We test keywords to refine your keyword targeting so that you produce the greatest volume of traffic with the highest conversion rate.
We test keywords to refine your keyword targeting so that you produce the greatest volume of traffic with the highest conversion rate.
We test technical optimizations to identify the ones that create the greatest benefit.
We review your site content to identify the content that your users prefer and want to engage with.
Analytics Monitoring & Reporting
In-depth and accurate data-gathering is integral to successful SEO campaigns. You need to track and monitor the KPIs most important to your business in order to gauge success, identify areas for improvement, and to formulate data-driven strategies and tactics. We develop an analytics infrastructure around your website that includes:
Google Analytics is a free tool offered by Google that allows you to track things like how many people saw your site (users), how long they stayed on your site (session duration), how much time they spent on your website, where they are from, and hundreds of other useful KPIs.
Whereas Google Analytics lets you track your website’s users and how they interact with you website; Google Search Console allows you to track how your website, as whole, performs on Google. With Google Search Console you can see how many people say your website on Google SERPs (Impressions), how many clicked on your website (Clicks), what % of Impressions resulted in a Click (Avg. CTR), what your average ranking is for the keywords you’ve been indexed for (Avg. Position), and dozens of other useful data-points.
Google Tag Manager is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to easily set up detailed tracking of specific actions on your website. For example, you can use Tag Manager to install tracking scripts on your website that will record when people click on a button, create and/or abandon a cart, scroll to the bottom of a page, and thousands of other insightful interactions with your website.
Google Tag Manager is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to easily set up detailed tracking of specific actions on your website. For example, you can use Tag Manager to install tracking scripts on your website that will record when people click on a button, create and/or abandon a cart, scroll to the bottom of a page, and thousands of other insightful interactions with your website.
Tracking the keywords you’ve been indexed for (appear for) and your rankings for these keywords helps us to ascertain your performance online and to identify areas of improvement.
One of the best ways to earn (and keep) rankings is to benchmark your competitors and track their performance. We use advanced web analytics software to track your competitor’s keyword rankings, Backlinks, and content development. This enables us to stay abreast of any efforts that could threaten your rankings.
On-Page Optimizations
When you input a search query into a search engine a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is rendered showing results relevant to your query. These results are not a live. Instead, search results are pulled from the most recent index created by the search engine you are using. Search engines periodically crawl the internet to create these indexes. For example, Google’s web crawlers (known as “GoogleBots”) crawl the internet every 7-14 days.
When crawling, web crawlers review specific elements of your website in order to determine relevance to keywords and Search Engine Friendliness (SXE). The higher your relevance to a query and the higher your search engine friendliness, the higher you will rank. We optimize these on-page elements to ensure search engine friendliness.
Title Tags
Title Tags are the clickable blue links for webpages seen on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) & are a significant ranking signal. We optimize your Title Tags so that they are search engine friendly.
Meta Descriptions
Meta Descriptions are the short summaries of webpages seen under Title Tags. Searchers reference them when deciding whether to click on your Title Tag. We optimize them to improve click-through.
ALT Text
Search engines cannot comprehend the meaning of images & videos. They rely on Alternative Text (ALT Text) to do so. ALT Text describe images & videos for search engines. We optimize your website’s ALT Text.
Header Tags
Header Tags define HTML headings & are organized <h1> to <h6>. Search engines consider the text in your Header Tags to be more important than standard website page copy. We optimize your Header Tags.
Load Speeds
Load Speed is critical to user experience (U/X) & U/X is a major ranking signal for search engines. We optimize your website to improve load speeds on mobile & desktop therefore improving search performance.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) is used to describe the presentation of webpage elements. Often there are errors with the CSS code of websites. We optimize your CSS to ensure search engine friendliness.
The Value of Search Engines
Search engines are more answer engine than search engine. Simply put, Google (like other search engines) has become the most convenient & expedient source available for answers to everyday consumer questions. This evolution was driven over the last decade by a few things, most notably:
- Mass adoption of smartphones
- Algorithm Updates
- Proliferation of 3G & 4G network connectivity
Inbound Leads > Outbound Leads
Few lead sources provide more qualified leads than Google. This is because leads from Google are inbound – actively searching for the products and/or services you sell. For example, someone searching for “real estate agents in San Francisco” is explicitly looking for SF real estate agents. They are referred to as “inbound” because their interest is self-manifested, not requiring external stimulation.
