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Search Engine Optimization 101 in Tacoma, Washington

What is Search Engine Optimization, and why is it important?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a crucial digital marketing tool designed to help all businesses. While SEO marketing consists of many elements, understanding each one is the key to success. Building relationships with prospective clients, raising band awareness, and setting your brand as an authority in the field are just some of the benefits you can expect with SEO marketing.

In a nutshell, SEO involves optimizing your website to get unpaid yet targeted traffic from search engine results. It means changing your web design and content to make it more attractive to search engines. The main goal is for your site to appear as a top result on search engine pages.  

While you can do your pages SEO optimization, the more prudent choice would be to hire an expert to do the job. If you’re from the Tacoma WA area, our SEO marketing experts are here to help. 

What are the benefits of SEO optimization?

• SEO increases traffic and leads, and therefore sales. Need we say more?
• SEO is a sustainable strategy. While it may take a couple of months to see any benefits, SEO is the best option for your business in the long run. Once you get to the top, it’s rare for any page to move down unless you’re facing tough competition.
• SEO builds brand awareness. Your goal is not only to make it to the top of search engine results but also for users to purchase your service or product. Ranking on search engines will build trust and credibility with your audience.
• SEO can equalize the chances of small and large businesses. Especially for companies that are just starting, outspending larger competitors seems close to impossible. But, if you invest in quality and effective SEO strategies instead of relying solely on advertising (as large companies do), you might get the chance to gain the upper hand.

While these are just a few benefits you can expect with SEO optimization, they are enough to prove that SEO is an effective strategy. It might sound confusing at first, but with the help of our SEO Company Tacoma WA, you’re on your way to greater heights. 

What is the difference between Black Hat and White Hat SEO?

These are two different approaches that businesses use to optimize their page for search engines. Black Hat SEO is focused on optimizing content solely to rank in search engine results. These businesses do not take into account human visitors who will browse through their content. In the end, these pages may rank more quickly, but contain unreadable content that often looks like spam. While this overnight success story sounds enticing at first, Black Hat SEO can ruin a brand’s authority and sustainability in the long term. Remember that while this kind of approach may work at first, search engines will eventually find out what you’re up to and penalize your website.

On the other hand, White Hat SEO enables you to optimize SEO and build a sustainable brand. Instead of focusing purely on SEO, this approach prioritizes human users browsing through your content. White Hat SEO aims to create readable, easy-to-navigate content while still following the rules for SEO optimization.

What factors can affect SEO optimization?

Making it to the top involves knowing how to get there in the first place. Take a look at some factors that can affect your search engine results page (SERP) rankings. 

Content Marketing 

A well-designed website with poor content is just as bad, or even worse, than a poorly-designed website. Your content is crucial in attracting both search engines and visitors, and it is through this that you can use SEO marketing. The higher quality of your content, the more likely that search engines will rank your page higher. Apart from being informative, your content must be engaging enough that your visitors will heed your call to action, make a return visit, and even recommend your page to others. This way, you are also building your brand’s credibility and authority in the field. 

To create content optimized for both search engines and actual visitors, make sure to create well-written content that is also relevant to your audience. You can create blog posts or articles, social media content, tutorials (e.g., how-to, DIY’s), and infographics, or other visual content. Don’t forget to use SEO keywords – terms or phrases that users type in search engines when looking for answers or products and services. The closer your content is to these SEO keywords, the more likely that your page will rank higher.

While new content is always good, it’s not still necessary. You can also update existing content, add more information, and rewrite posts to make them more useful.

Creating content sounds like tedious work, but it will pay off in the end. If you’re new to the field, you can start by creating a few blog posts and building a social media following. You can create media to attract new leads once you’ve garnered a steady following.

On-page SEO optimization

These involve elements that you have complete control over and, therefore, can improve using SEO optimization. This is more than just content marketing; it digs deeper into your website’s HTML.

• Title Tag: This gives users an idea of what your page is about. It shouldn’t be too long, but must include your business name and main SEO keyword.
• Meta Description: Think of this as a summary telling users more about your page. The meta description appears under the title and URL of your page when it appears in search engine results. 
• Sub-headings: These make your content more organized and more comfortable to read and is also an effective way of using SEO marketing. You can use H1, H2, and H3 tags.
• Internal links: Creating links to other content in your site will help search engines learn more about your page.
• Image Name and ALT tags: Make sure to include your chosen SEO keyword or phrase in the image name and ALT tag, the latter of which appears when the image cannot be displayed. Search engines index images, too.

While SEO optimization is useful for any business, don’t get too carried away. There is such a thing as over-optimization, which is punishable by search engines like Google. Ideally, each content should focus only on one or two keywords to keep it concise and relevant. Incorporating too many keywords leads to unfocused content and may harm your SEO.

Aside from content, your site’s architecture is also essential in driving more traffic to your brand. Ensure all parts of your web pages have accurate SEO definitions and use web design that allows search engines to crawl through your page easily.

Aside from creating internal links, build a sitemap, and submit it to search engines to enhance your page’s ‘crawlability.’ This way, search engines will understand your page better and rank it higher in results.

It’s also essential to build a mobile-friendly website for your users. People tend to scroll past your page if the navigation looks too complicated.

Off-page SEO optimization

On the other hand, off-page SEO’s are those factors you have no control over. Despite this, off-page SEO optimization can have a significant impact on your website’s rankings. Listed below are common off-page factors and how you can improve on them.

• Social Media. With the advent of social media, a simple like or share can boost your page’s credibility and ranking. To increase your SEO, you need shares from influencers. To gain their trust, your content must satisfy the criteria previously mentioned. The more quality posts you publish, the higher likelihood of your content being shared.
• Backlinks. To build trust, you need backlinks from other websites with authority in your field, especially if you’re starting. However, you have to be careful since spamming sites containing your link is a surefire way to be banned from search engines.

Now that you’ve learned how SEO optimization works, time to make the necessary changes to your website, and improve your SEO marketing in Tacoma, WA. Keep in mind that while it’s crucial to rank, valuable content that your readers will appreciate should be your priority. At the end of the day, they’re the ones who will keep your business afloat.