Search Engine Optimization 101
What exactly is SEO?
SEO, my bread and butter – let me introduce you to one of the most fun, progressive and fast paced industries in the world today. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization – which is the process of improving the online visibility of a website, social media account, blog, article, press release and anything else that someone wants found within the search engines.
As we all know well by now, without search engines we wouldn’t know where to look for the sites that we need. Currently 85% of Internet users begin their web activity with a search engine query (that’s a huge number!). Without utilizing SEO techniques, a website is literally lost in the great expanse of the World Wide Web. If this is what’s happening with your website, read on and contact Word Refuge now so we can discuss how to solve your SEO problem immediately.
Is Google taking over the world? Perhaps.
Currently there are thousands of search engines around the globe for just about any topic and industry that you can think of. Yet the world’s biggest engines remain Google, Yahoo! and Bing who retain 90% of the market – with Google continuing to lead the way, holding the number one position with 60% of the market share. Thus, for the purpose of this article, we will focus on the practices and Webmaster SEO Guidelines for Google.
But how do the search engines work?
First and foremost, search engines can only read text. Let me say that again – search engines can ONLY READ TEXT. That is it – they cannot read photos, graphics, videos, songs, etc. Google sends out crawls (also known as spiders and bots) to read and index new content published on a website.
Because they cannot index what a picture looks like or what a video is about, copywriters must write descriptions for each visual element – this ensures that the bots can determine what your content and site is about, (in addition to allowing people whose computer won’t properly load the graphic read what the image is).
The search engines strive to display the most accurate site for a query, which is why they index words and keyphrases. Keyphrases tell the engines WHAT your page is about and WHO you are. With out keyphrases to alert the crawlers about what you offer, they have NO idea what your website is about.
However poetic and aesthetically pleasing minimalist writing looks, if you’re not specific about exactly what you are offering, you’ll be lost at the bottom of Google’s never-ending lists. And no one gets much traffic to their website solely by typing in your url…we all start with a search.
A savvy SEO copywriter will diligently research which specific keyphrases to integrate into the content.
SEO copywriters spend a considerable amount of their time determining which exact phrases searchers are using to find your product or service. A traveler looking for a hotel in London will likely search with a query similar to, “affordable boutique hotel Leicester Square, London, England”. Therefore it’s vital to include these types of phrases throughout your website, ensuring that your customers can quickly find you.
On this same note, if the crawler finds too many of the same words or links on a page (called keyword stuffing and black-hat SEO), the search engines will consider the site spam and ban you from the engine. Through very complicated and secret algorithms, the engines have ways of determining whether the site is quality or not – thus, to achieve great organic search results, it’s important to adhere to white-hat SEO practices.
Once banned from an engine, it’s a very very long road back to the top of Google. It’s best to stay out of trouble and create a website with well-written SEO content – carefully balanced between keywords and readable, persuasive copy.
Because SEO copywriting is the main driving force behind website exposure, it’s estimated that by hiring a professional SEO website copywriter you increase your sales by 60%.
* Do you see how many keyphrases I managed to use in the last two sentences? I’ve included several very important keyphrases for Word Refuge: Word Refuge, SEO website copywriter, well-written SEO content, hire a professional SEO. This is what we need to do with your site if it’s lost in the web.
In addition to quality keyphrase rich content, smart SEO site architecture and backlinking are extremely important to every SEO campaign.
Hyperlinks and “backlinking” are the backbone of all SEO content marketing campaigns.
Here’s why:
Search engine crawlers travel through the web, page by page, via hyperlinks. (This is an example hyperlink to a service – Travel SEO). Therefore site-maps are road maps for the bots, while links are the roads they travel on. To succeed in search, it’s vital to ensure your website includes a well thought out SEO site architecture that bots can easily move through to index your entire site. (Word Refuge can develop a strong SEO site architecture for you!)
By adding links in the right places, you’re guiding the crawls easily through your website. The crawlers also look for keywords within hyperlinks, italics and bold headlines (it’s very important to choose these words wisely).
Along with links guiding bots through your site, links also play another vital SEO role.
Sites who would like to reference your site will often create a link back to your website (because you offer great content that they’d like to share). This is known as “backlinking” and is equivalent to an endorsement, which can add tremendous search engine validity to your site.
The more trustworthy and powerful the site is that’s linking to you, the better search engine results you will see. If a site like CNN creates a backlink to your site (referencing a great SEO press release, editorial article, etc) Google will perceive you as a trust-worthy, important website and your ranking will drastically improve.
The commonly used terms “link-love and link-juice” refer to the appreciation of websites who have garnered backlinks to their site – which can often lead to “reciprocal backlinking” where websites share “link-love”. As with keyphrases, however, it’s very important to practice white-hat SEO techniques and not spam the engines with too many links.
Link farms abound (websites promising great backlinks, but merely deliver spam) – so don’t fall victim to their tricks! Just as a link from a well-regarded site will improve your search ranking, links from a site in “bad neighborhoods” will damage your site’s positioning…even leading to a search engine ban in some cases.
SEO is an ever-changing industry that professionals must keep-up with on a daily basis.
SEO is not an exact science – the engines keep their algorithms incredibly secret, and we don’t always know their current strategies. Thus SEO website copywriters must continually stay up-to-date on the changes in search results, patterns and techniques.
With that said, if you adhere to their Webmaster Guidles, you WILL see results. And the great thing about search engines is that once you’ve made it to a prominent position, you tend to stay there. (And routinely updating your website with fresh SEO copywriting will help to ensure this.)
One other important aspect to note is that search engine crawlers typically only revisit a site every 90 days. Therefore, sometimes you have to wait 3 months before seeing big results. Yet, sometimes you’ll get lucky with a cache date and see a drastic ranking jump immediately. (Within two months, WordRefuge.com made it into Google’s 4th position for our most important and targeted SEO keyphrase, “Creative SEO Copywriting Services”. We received over 30,000 visitors to the site within 3 months. We also had a successful backlinking strategy that delivered fantastic results.)
Hiring an SEO website copywriter is the best way to begin your SEO campaign.
As you’ve now learned, great search engine rankings begin with a strong SEO site architecture and well-written SEO copy. At Word Refuge, we do both. By hiring a website copywriter you are setting yourself ahead of the pack – and could very well soar above your competitors on Google’s search engine results page. (Not everyone is taking advantage of SEO!)
Why hire a Word Refuge SEO copywriter?
Our website copywriters are well-established, professionals who will never sacrifice the integrity of the writing, the design, the brand image and the overall quality of the website to improve search ranking. We practice all white-hat SEO techniques and always find the right balance between keyphrases, story telling, and direct response copywriting.
The Word Refuge mission is to deliver excellent SEO search results and generate online sales with powerful direct response copywriting and creative story-telling that captivates readers and keeps them coming back. We always strive to stay current on the newest SEO techniques and technologies – in addition to taking part (and finding joy!) in the daily conversation of the online community. (Read more about how Twitter can be used to improve your Social Media Optimization efforts.)
As SEO copywriters, we love our work. We get to collaborate and work with new people everyday to determine the best approach to communicate the right message to a specific audience – it’s investigative, interesting, rewarding and fun! And we’d love to work with you too.
If you would like to see your website climbing its way up Google’s results, contact Word Refuge, Creative SEO Copywriting Services, today. Our copywriters are here to develop a powerful SEO campaign that’s perfect for your business.
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