Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be confusing. With dozens of acronyms, technical jargon, tools,
programs, statistics, techniques, and all the talk about pandas and penguins, it’s pretty intimidating.
Let alone the fact that SEO is a field that is in constant flux! In spite of the confusion, there’s a
simple way to think about SEO campaigns today and beyond: as a set of three core elements that support
each other to support an SEO campaign. Leveraging a strong social media presence and social media link
building, you can improve your online visibility and reach a broader audience. You can also utilize
Google Analytics, if you want to track the performance of both your website and other social media
pages. It ensures that your target audience is effectively engaged on every social media platform.
Let’s take a look at each of these elements, as well as how to implement each of them to increase
traffic, conversions, and ROI.
What are the core elements?
Discussed in detail below, but provided here in survey form, the three core elements are as follows:
- Content – Create and Publish Great Content
- Inbound Links – Gain High-Quality Links
- Social Media – Be Active and Engage on various social media platforms
I call these the three core elements because they are necessary for any
modern SEO campaign to succeed. Without each of these three core elements, your SEO campaign won’t
be properly supported and will likely fail. Before launching into an explanation of the three core
elements, there are a few things to understand about how they work together.
- You must have all three core elements in order to have a successful SEO
initiative. When performing SEO triage, you can’t simply decide to leave off one or more of
these elements. Good SEO means being diligent in each of the three areas.
- Each core element strengthens the others. When you build each of the SEO core
elements in the right way, you are actively strengthening and supporting all of them. These SEO
efforts possess synergy. For example, when you create outstanding onsite content, you render it more
likely that you’ll gain inbound links. More links usually mean additional social shares, which
translates into more and stronger social signals. All three components are in play, and each is
working to enhance the other two.
- There are no shortcuts. You may finish reading this article with a sense of
fatigue. Admittedly, doing SEO the right way is a ton of work. The hard-to-swallow truth of the matter
is that you can’t take any shortcuts. Thankfully, you don’t have to do it all yourself. You can hire
an in-house SEO specialist if your company is capable of it. Alternatively, you can contract an SEO
firm to cover your needs.
Core Element #1: Content – Create and Publish Great Content
The first core element comes first logically because it involves your own website — the hub where
everything happens. This element can also be called “onsite SEO” to distinguish from SEO practices that
happen off your site, such as external content that garners inbound links (such as guest blog
posts) and social media involvement. Here are the
essentials:
- Site Design. Good SEO can’t exist on a shoddy website. The design must be clean,
simple, and intuitive.
- User Experience. Hand-in-hand with a great site design is user experience or UI.
Keep your user in mind with every action that you take on your website. If your site fails your user,
you’ve failed with SEO. The whole point of SEO is to give the user what he or she is searching for.
What’s more, if someone clicks through to your site and sees a load of ugliness, they’ll quickly close
your website. This action is called a bounce. The search engines record every bounce, and a
higher bounce rate can lead to decreased rankings.
- Keyword Research. Many people are familiar with keyword research, or at least the idea of keywords.
Keywords have been one of the few unchanging aspects of SEO. A site must regularly use, but not
overuse, certain keywords that users are searching for. Be sure to use plenty of longtail keywords, those search strings
that consist of three words or more. Additionally, you must never commit the cardinal SEO sin —
keyword stuffing. Worrying about saturation rates and keyword frequency is a thing of the past. Use
the keywords, yes, but don’t overuse them.
- Content Optimization. Every website has content that only crawlers and browsers
see. This is called the meta content, and it’s crucial for SEO. Even URLs are part of your
content. Make sure you’re using best SEO practices in the following places:
- URLs
- Meta titles
-
- Meta Description
-
- Meta Keywords
-
- Robots.txt
- High-quality and frequently updated blog. Although you may have a spiffed-up
website with all the right SEO meta data in place, you’re not done with SEO. A blog is a powerful
weapon in the SEO arsenal. Without it, your SEO initiative will be severely hindered. High quality
content engages users; don’t neglect blogging. There are two important laws of blogs:
- Update it frequently. The more frequently a blog is updated, the better it
registers with the search engine results pages. Keep your blog fresh.
- Publish great content. A blog is only as good as the website content on it. To put
it bluntly, people don’t want to read crap. If you can’t write, hire someone who can. Content has to
be so good that people are compelled to both read it and share it.
Core Element #2: Inbound Links – Gain High-Quality Links
Organic link building tactics include guest blogging,
press release distribution, and other tactics.
How do search engines decide to bring your website up to the top of the search rankings? Top-notch
onsite SEO is only the beginning. Search engines recognize that your site is important based on who is
linking to it.
Take this example. Let’s say you’re a yoga instructor. You have a website, and you start publishing
some sweet articles about yoga. Somehow, Whole Living picks up on your content and asks you to do a
guest post on yoga. You write a piece for Whole Living, and link back to your website.
Whole Living has a domain authority of 80, which is way higher than your site. Bingo. As soon as they
link to you, your website gains credibility and authority. Then, you interview a health instructor in a
local private college and post the interview on your website. The yoga instructor, in turn, writes about
the interview on her college blog and links to your site. Boom. You just got a link from an .edu
website.
Because you’re now a recognized authority on yoga, you publish an article in Lifehacker about the
positive impact of yoga on work productivity. This article, of course, links back to your website.
Another power move.
All of these links to your site are driving up your website's authority. Your site has proven to
the search engines its authority and recognition. Your rankings go up.
No site will succeed in SEO unless other sites are linking to it. It’s just that simple.
Here are the best ways to gain quality backlinks:
- Guest blogging. Far and away, your best option for backlinks is guest blogging.
Look for high-quality sites that allow you to submit your content including a link back to your site.
- Press Releases. Creating a press release is a relatively simple way to create a
link that possesses authority. The process is as simple as developing a well-written piece on
something eventful in your company and submitting it to a press release distribution company such as
PRWeb. The service comes at a cost, but it is well worth it.
- Publish amazing content. All of the best web pages have one thing in common: They
have rockstar content. Your site will succeed if you consistently publish outstanding material.
- Get listed in local or industry directories and professional organizations. If
your site isn’t yet listed in business directories, you may want to give it a try. Links from any
reputable source will help to improve your site’s rankings. Yext.com offers a fantastic service for
building links from major local directories.
Links are crucial. Ensure you have a solid strategy in place for building links.
Core Element #3: Social Media – Be Active and Engage on Social Networks
More than ever before, social media
is an integral part of SEO. Search engines can quantify the amount of social presence that your
site possesses. Merely getting a few dozen tweets can ramp up a page’s authority, and therefore its
rankings, resulting in more website traffic to it. The increasing market share of Google+ is a major
ranking factor in social ranking, including the power of Google authorship. Social signals matter for
SEO.
Keep these two points in mind.
- It’s not enough to be present on social media. You must be active. If you want to
succeed in the social platform, you need to monitor your social networks with vigilance. Twitter is a
de facto complaint hotline in the minds of some users. Facebook serves as a place where
customers ask questions. Neglecting these channels is like failing to respond to an important email
from a customer.
- Find the social niches that are right for your business. It’s obvious that you
should be on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. But these four sites are but a fraction of the
social media pages available to you. There are other social media networks that serve niches of
targeted customers. Find what niche sites best match your company profile and social media posts that
you will publish, and jump in.
The power of social for SEO strategy can be subtle, but is nonetheless important. Provide sharing
opportunities on every piece of content that you publish. The greater the social signals, the better
your SEO.
Conclusion
This is the state of SEO in 2013. Online marketing
success is possible, but not without each of these core elements present and properly being
engaged. It’s no longer easy to game the system and jump up the search engine rankings in Google with a
few slick tricks. You’ve got your work cut out for you.
But you do have a game plan — understand and design your digital marketing strategy around the three
core elements of SEO. As long as you 1) ensure that your onsite SEO is rolling smoothly, 2) you possess
a robust and effective link building strategy, and 3) you’re staying active and engaging within social
media platforms, you’re going to succeed.
