SEO Help: Mastering Search Engine Optimization for Your Business

Need some search engine optimization (SEO) help with your website? This guide will walk you through the basics, give you tools and insight into creating an SEO strategy, and look at the common challenges of doing your own SEO and how to overcome them. We’ve also included all the extra stuff, such as tools to use and terms to familiarize yourself with. Boost your site, increase your sales, and take charge of your website today with this free SEO help guide.

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This guide will simplify and help you to implement and benefit from SEO strategies. Let’s take a look at how to do SEO optimization for your website. Are you ready to jump in? Use the quick links below to navigate this page!

What is SEO, and why does it matter?
SEO basics every business owner needs to know
Putting together an SEO strategy
Common SEO challenges and solutions!
When to outsource an SEO professional

Keep an eye out for the SEO Help Glossary Box

Throughout this article, you’ll find little SEO help glossary boxes that will help you with specific sections of SEO. Here is the first one, which includes a few general terms that apply to SEO.

Keywords: words or phrases that users type into search engines to find information.
Organic traffic: visitors who land on your website from unpaid search results.
Search engine results page (SERPs): The page you see after typing a query into a search engine.
Backlinks: Links from other websites to your website.
Crawling: When search engines scan your website to understand its content

What is SEO, and why does it matter?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website’s visibility on search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. When someone searches for a product, service or information related to your business, SEO helps ensure that your website appears prominently in the search results.

SEO refers to numerous strategies designed to increase your organic search rankings. All of these strategies are extremely valuable since they focus on boosting your site’s rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).

SEO SERPs

When your business ranks at the top of results, more people can find and contact your business — and ultimately, you’ll see an uptick in leads and revenue. Here are a few digital marketing statistics that demonstrate the importance of SEO in your marketing strategy:

93% of traffic to websites comes from search engines
63% of all shopping begins online, even if the purchase takes place offline
68% of all online experiences start with a search engine
1.5 billion locations are visited each month as a result of local search queries

Keep in mind that SEO isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it strategy, which means it’ll take sometime to see results. However, the results you see can change your business, so be patient!

Benefits of using SEO

Here is why using SEO is an advantage for your business:

It helps to drive traffic: SEO helps you connect with people actively searching for what you have to offer, from ‘plumbing services in PA,’ or ‘best coffee near me!’

You can outperform your competitors: With a bit of effort, over time, you can appear above your competitors in search results.
You can increase your ROI: SEO provides a high return on investment over time. Once your site is ranking well, you can attract traffic without spending a budget on paid advertising.
You can reach out to your local customers: Local SEO will ensure your customers find you when searching for nearby businesses.

SEO basics every business owner needs to know

For all business owners, whether you have an ecommerce store, or are offering cybersecurity solutions, understanding the fundamentals of SEO can make the difference you need. Here, we look at the core concepts, which are broken down into actionable insights.

How do search engines work?
How does SEO work?
Understanding SERPs and the different features
Overview of the different types of SEO

How do search engines work?

SEO can feel complex, but here is a simplified breakdown of how search engines like Google and Bing, work in 3 stages:

Search engines crawl your website: Bots, or spiders, will scan your website to understand its content and structure.
Your site gets indexed: The search engine stores this information in its database.
Your page ranks based on relevance and authority: When a user searches, search engines use hundreds of factors, including keywords, site speed, and backlinks, to decide how you rank.

How does SEO work?

SEO is a long-term strategy that aligns your website with what search engines and users want. A user types in a user’s query into the search engine bar, and then a search engine checks its index for websites that closely match. A query is basically a keyword.

There are three types of search intents that users do:

Information: Where the user wants to learn something.
Navigational: Where the user is looking for a specific page.
Transactional: Where users want to act and sign up, get a service, or buy.

By targeting the right intent with your keywords and content, your site becomes more relevant for user searches.

For example, let’s say a bakery owner wants to rank for the keyword “best cupcakes in the Harrisburg area.” The top three SEO strategies they would do would be:

Optimize their homepage with that phrase in the title and content.
Post a blog about popular cupcake flavors in the PA area.
Get local food blogs to review their cupcakes, creating backlinks.

Ann Rose Bakery gives the perfect example of this.

SEO Help

You can see that Anna Rose has implemented a few SEO tactics to get her bakery to the top of the list. They have done local SEO and created a Google My Business profile that features in the ‘Places’ section of the search results. You can also see there are reviews encouraging users to pick Anna Rose over others.

There are also reviews of Anna Rose on third-party websites, such as Yelp. This gives Anna Rose an SEO backlink to the bakery website, further increasing the ranking. Lastly, Anna Rose also has its own website with all the right keywords on the landing page.

Imagine a search engine as a master of ceremonies (MC) on a stage and everyone in the audience as business owners. A user will give the MC a search query. The MC will then look at the sea of business owners to try and find the best ones that match the search criteria. All the business owners will be waving keyword placards related to their services or products.

The business owners with no SEO are standing on the ground and are struggling to get noticed. The business owners with On-Page SEO get one box to stand on. If they have On-Page SEO and Local SEO, they get two boxes. If they have a comprehensive SEO strategy, they get several boxes and are very easy to spot. Their keywords are easy to read, and the MC on the stage can clearly see if they match the query.

Those are the ones that get picked first and will appear at the top of the SERPs.

Understanding SERPs and the different features

The SERPs are what users see after they enter a query into a search engine. As a business owner, you should know about its key elements, such as:

AI overviews: An AI-generated summary at the top of the SERP provides a quick answer to the query. The AI overview pulls from authoritative sources.
Organic results: These are non-paid listings ranked by relevance and authority.
Featured snippets: Quick answers to user queries that appear above regular results.
Maps or local pack: A map with local businesses appears prominently for location-specific queries.
Images and videos: These visual elements often appear as a carousel or grid for queries related to specific product topics.
Top stories or news: News articles from authoritative sources often appear for trending topics or timely queries.
People Also Ask (PAA): A collapsible list of users’ related questions. You click on them to expand with answers and citations.

Overview of the types of SEO

SEO involves several types of marketing that all work together to improve your site’s performance and visibility. Learn how to do SEO optimization in these key areas:

On-page SEO: Focuses on optimizing individual pages for keywords, content quality, and user experiences.
Off-page SEO: This involves building your website’s authority through external efforts like backlinks and social signals.
Technical SEO: Ensures your website meets the technical requirements for research engines
Local SEO: Helps brick-and-mortar businesses attract customers in their area.

Putting it together to create an SEO Strategy in 9 steps

Discover how to do SEO optimization by making an SEO strategy!

Here are quick links to each step:

Researching
Planning
Website usability
Content strategy
On-page SEO
Off-page SEO
Technical SEO
Local SEO

1. Researching

SEO starts by sitting down and doing thorough research to understand your audience, competition, and the search landscape. You could do something similar to your business marketing strategy. Digital marketing, however, is all about looking at and researching these topics from an online perspective.

Expert insights from

Clayton WebFX Internet Marketing Expert

“Benchmark how your site stacks up against your competitors by looking at everyone’s backlink profile. This will help you gauge the level of authority your site and your competitors have in the eyes of Google, and from there help you decide how much time you should be spending on building high-quality links back to your domain.”

Here are a few of the main research areas you’ll be looking into:

Audience research: The goal is to understand your target audience and their research behavior. Define their demographics, interests, and pain points. This will be particularly useful when creating content, as you now know who you are creating content for.

Keyword research: Identify the keywords your target audience is searching for. You can use multiple tools to find relevant keywords (check out the box below). Prioritize long-tail keywords for lower competition and higher intent.
Competitor research: Find out who your online competitors for. They might not sell or provide the same services as you, but these are websites that target the same audience as you. Check out their backlinks and content to get deeper insights.
SERP analysis: Understand who ranks currently above you. Identify opportunities to get ahead, such as featured snippets and local SEO.

2. Planning

In the planning phase, insights from the research are now transformed into a clear, organized roadmap for executing your SEO strategy.

Setting goals: Be realistic and specific with your objectives. Consider using the SMART Goal framework as your base.
Define your target metrics: Use key performance indicators (KPIs) to track your progress and success.
Segment your SEO efforts: Break down tasks into manageable categories to make sure everything is covered. Include categories like SEO content, technical SEO,and Local SEO strategies.
Develop an SEO task roadmap: Organize your strategy by prioritizing its potential impact and urgency. For example, fixing technical errors is a high-priority task as it impacts both the user and the search engine indexing. Lower-priority tasks will include creating a long-term, evergreen content strategy.
Develop a content calendar: Create topics tied to keyword clusters. Organize publication scheduling. For example, Monday is for case studies, and Thursday is for blog posts. Give time for deadlines, editing, and research.

3. Website usability

If you want to improve the usability of your website, you can take several steps. You will, however, need the help of a designer and developer — preferably a designer and developer familiar with SEO. With their assistance, you can improve your SEO and build a user-friendly site.

A few examples of website usability improvements for SEO include:

Using an easy-to-read font and font size across your site
Developing page layouts that make reading and interacting with content easy
Creating a consistent and intuitive navigation bar
Incorporating headings, white space, lists, and multimedia into content
Uploading a custom 404 page that provides your sitemap for quick troubleshooting

Expert insights from

Clayton WebFX Internet Marketing Expert

“Prioritize improving user experience, especially when it comes to mobile. Even if the majority of your site users visit through desktops and tablets, you will still need to prioritize how your site works on mobile devices. Detecting and correcting any mobile issues on your site will help you improve your site’s SEO in the long-run.”

Website usability will require a constant commitment from your team. If you implement changes but don’t keep them (like writing content with short paragraphs and bulleted lists), you will lose the benefits of those updates.

4. SEO content strategy

The content of your website aligns it with user intent, targeted keywords and your overall business goals to attract, engage and convert visitors. Essentially, you need to provide your readers with content that is worth their time. When you publish that kind of content, you will likely see improvements in critical SEO metrics, like time on page, dwell time, and bounce rate.

How do blogs help SEO?

Blows can be a powerful tool for SEO, increasing its visibility, authority, and engagement. They can also be useful for creating content around long-tail keywords. Fresh content also lets search engines know that your website is relevant and active.

Blogs allow you to make the most of your SEO efforts. You can use them for backlinks, to provide content for potential featuring in snippets, and for internal link building. Most importantly, it will give audiences a reason to engage with your website.

You can find content topics for your readers by doing:

Keyword research: Group keywords into clusters to create focused content. For example, all the “near me” or location ones can be done together.
Audience research: Looking at who your audience is looking for, and their demographics will also help with ideas.
SERP analysis: Study the top-ranking pages for more ideas. Try to see if you can add something more to the articles or give your own opinion on the topic.

Each piece of content should be well-researched, high-quality, and optimized for both users and search engines. A few best practices include:

Address user intent directly. Is it informational? Transactional? Or navigational?
Write engaging headlines that include the primary keyword.
Incorporate visuals, such as images, videos, and infographics.
Add a clear call to actions (CTA) to guide users to the next step.
Make sure you use primary and secondary keywords naturally throughout the content.

5. On-page SEO

Meta title: The title of a webpage that appears in search engine results
Meta description: A brief summary of the page content, shown under the title in search results
Alt Text: descriptive text for images, helping search engines understand image content.
Header tags are used to structure content, improving readability. They often look like this: H1, H2, H3.
Internal links: links that connect one page of your website to another.

On-page SEO refers to optimizing individual web pages to rank higher in search engines and attract more relevant traffic. It focuses on the page’s content and HTML source code.

The meta tags give users an understanding of a page’s purpose. Meta tags refer to the title tag, which appears as the clickable heading on SERPs, and the meta description, which appears below it.

Meta data

Header tags can range from H1s to H2s to H4s and appear in your content. Via header tags, users can skim your content and find the information they need fast. Search engines, meanwhile, can use header tags to build a better understanding of your content.

That’s why you want to write header tags for search engines and users. Your header tags should:

Feature your core or related keywords
Inform your reader about your content or content section
Keep your content readable and easy-to-understand

Expert insights from

Clayton WebFX Internet Marketing Expert

“Create a keyword and content plan. It is important to remember that Google ranks pages, not just entire websites, so each page needs to have a clear keyword and content plan in place for an effective SEO strategy.”

While you shouldn’t overly stuff your keyword in your content, you should use it at least two to four times, depending on the length of the article. Also, try out different content lengths, from a regular blog length of +/- 1000 words to more comprehensive articles of +3000 words.

When you create hyperlinks and images, add an alt tag to give them a descriptive name. Try to keep the image file size down for quick loading.

6. Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to all activities performed outside your website to improve its search engine rankings. Off-page SEO often refers to strategies such as:

Backlink building: Link building that focuses on earning your website backlinks — or links from other sites to your website.
Social media engagement: While a link to your site from social media doesn’t have a big effect on your rating, it still drives traffic and can expand your audience to a whole other sector.
Online reviews: Positive reviews are always a good thing!

People often mark outreach and content promotion low on their list, but it’s an essential part of SEO. If you don’t build links to your website, your site will struggle to compete and rank in search results. You need to make time for this SEO optimization.

7. Technical SEO

Terms to familiarize yourself with

Site speed: The time it takes for a webpage to load, which impacts rankings and user experience.
Mobile-friendly design: Ensuring your website works well on mobile devices.
XML sitemap: A file that helps search engines find and index all your pages on your site.
Robots.txt: A file that tells search engines which pages to crawl or ignore

Page speed is a ranking factor for search engines like Google. If you want to help your SEO and improve your search rankings, then you need to create a fast website. This step will require a developer’s help (or page speed optimization services). Either way, you can launch and maintain a fast site that ranks well.

Get started by testing your website with Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool.

Google Page Speed

Google will provide you with a score, as well as recommendations for improving it. Get your developer to help you navigate through the results.

8. Local SEO

Local SEO focuses on your businesses appearing for geographically relevant searches. It’s about getting your business on the map – literally. You can optimize for search engines’ local results by making use of the Google My Business profile feature.

You can also include your town, neighborhood and city name into your content. Create location pages for each keyword. The great thing about optimizing for local search is that even small businesses can often outrank larger competitors with it.

Common SEO challenges and solutions!

Here is a list of common SEO challenges, and practical solutions to address them:

Challenge	Description	Solution
Low organic traffic	Your website is not attracting visitors from search engines.	Conduct keyword research to target relevant terms Go through your current content and see if you can do improvements. Try and build some more high-quality backlinks
Ranking for the wrong keyword	Your site ranks for irrelevant or low-traffic keywords.	Analyze current rankings and align keywords with business goals Try to find the pages/posts with the issue and refine them to the correct terms.
High bounce rate	Users leave your site without interacting or exploring further.	Improve page load speed and mobile responsiveness. Enhance content quality to match user’s expectations.
Crawl errors	Search engines can’t access or index some pages on your site	Use Google Search Console to identify crawl errors Fix the broken links and update your robot.txt file. Submit your XML sitemap
No local visibility	Your business doesn’t appear in local searches or Google Maps	Register for your Google Business Profile. Use local keywords and encourage customer reviews
Low click-through rate (CTR)	Your pages appear in SERPs, but it doesn’t get clicked	Write compelling meta titles and descriptions with a clear CTA Use Schema markup to enhance your listing with rich snippets

When to outsource an SEO professional

Now that you understand how SEO works and why it’s important, let’s take a look at the signs your site needs professional SEO help.

1. Your site doesn't appear in SERPs for your most valuable keywords

When determining if your site needs SEO help, you’ll first want to check if your website ranks for keywords and phrases that are valuable to your business.

For example, if you provide construction equipment rentals, you’ll want your business to appear at the top of results when people search “construction rentals in [your location].”

If your site doesn’t rank in the top three search results, it’s a sign that you need help with SEO.

2. Your website doesn't get much traffic

After you establish where your site ranks in SERPs, you’ll want to evaluate your organic website traffic — the number of visits your site receives from people who click your organic search listings.

To do this, you’ll want to enable Google Analytics on your site. Then, you can analyze your site’s organic traffic by:

Navigating to the Acquisition tab in Google Analytics
Clicking on “Overview” to see a breakdown of top channels
Clicking “Organic Search” to evaluate the percentage of site traffic that comes from organic search

If organic search isn’t a top traffic driver for your site, it’s time to consider SEO help for your website.

3. Your traffic doesn't convert

You’ll also want to pay attention to the number of conversions you receive from organic searches. If people visit your site but don’t convert, investing in SEO can earn you more conversions and customers.

Following the steps outlined above, click the “Organic Search” overview in Google Analytics and take a look at the percentage of traffic that converts from organic search.

If your conversion rate is low, you might need to adjust your keyword targeting strategy to reach more qualified leads — people who are most likely to purchase from your business.

An SEO expert can help you diagnose conversion problems and make necessary optimizations to earn more sales and revenue.

4. Your site isn't mobile-responsive

Today, nearly 60 percent of online searches come from mobile devices. Even if your site ranks in search results, you risk losing valuable leads and revenue if it isn’t mobile responsive.

To ensure that every user has a positive experience on your site, regardless of the device they use to access it, you need to ensure that it’s responsive. Not sure how your site displays on mobile devices?

Check out Google’s mobile-friendly test tool. If you don’t like what you see, investing in SEO help can allow you to create a site that not only ranks in search results, but also encourages clicks and conversions.

5. Your site isn't HTTPS secured

In 2018, Google started labeling non-HTTPS sites as “Not secure” in browsers.

If you want customers to feel secure and comfortable browsing your site, you need to ensure that it features a “secure sockets layer” or SSL certificate. Sites with SSL certificates appear with closed padlock icons next to their URLs and include “https” vs. “http” in the URLs.

Essentially, SSL protects your customer’s sensitive information processed by your site.

If your site isn’t HTTPS secured, it’s time to consider professional help to improve your SEO.

6. You don't use content marketing

If you want to rank at the top of search results, you need to create in-depth, comprehensive content.

Search engines like Google want to display valuable content that answers or matches users’ search queries, and if your site doesn’t provide that content, you’ll want to invest in SEO help.

Search engines and visitors alike love fresh content, so you’ll want to keep your site content updated on a regular basis. It’s important to remember that content marketing, like SEO, isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. If you want to see results from content marketing, you need to stick to a consistent content creation plan.

7. Your site provides a bad user experience (UX)

In order to rank at the top of search results, your site needs to provide a positive user experience (UX) for visitors.

Major UX components like your site’s navigation and architecture play a crucial role in the information search process for visitors. If people can’t find the information they want on your site quickly and easily, they’ll waste no time hitting the back button to return to the SERPs.

Since Google considers dwell time when ranking websites, it’s important for your site to provide a positive UX to keep people engaged and active on your site.

In addition to streamlining your navigation, adding visual elements like photos and videos is a great way to boost your site’s UX appeal.

Without a positive UX, you won’t rank at the top of SERPs, so you’ll want to consult an SEO expert if your site’s UX is less than desirable.

8. Your site doesn't have many backlinks

Search engines like Google consider the number and quality of backlinks pointing to your site when ranking it in search results.

When your site receives links from other authority sites, Google views those links as “votes” in favor of your site and its positive reputation. In other words, earning backlinks from reputable sites shows search engines that you’re an authority in your field — and they will rank you higher in search results.

Tools like Ahrefs allow you to analyze your site’s backlinks. If you want to improve SEO by earning more relevant backlinks, SEO services can help.

Improve your SEO with WebFX

Ready for some professional help with your SEO?

Check out our professional SEO services and SEO pricing. If you like what you see, give us a call at 888-601-5359, or contact us online to speak with a strategist.

We’re excited to help you drive results with a custom SEO campaign!

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SEO Help: Mastering Search Engine Optimization for Your Business

1. Your site doesn't appear in SERPs for your most valuable keywords

2. Your website doesn't get much traffic

3. Your traffic doesn't convert

4. Your site isn't mobile-responsive

5. Your site isn't HTTPS secured

6. You don't use content marketing

7. Your site provides a bad user experience (UX)

8. Your site doesn't have many backlinks

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