What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of taking one’s web site and making it more visible in search engines; this is done through a variety of methods, strategies and tactics. Generally, in an ongoing SEO/SEM campaign Best Rank will perform on page technical optimization, e.g. building organic keywords into your website, and off page optimization, e.g. link building, social media, local search engine optimization, etc.
Best Rank’s mission is to optimize your website so that we drive quality, relevant traffic to your business. We offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services for small to medium sized businesses that are serious about attaining the Best Rank possible on the major search engines: Google, Yahoo, and MSN. We are also now offering video production / search optimization for customers who want to take advantage of the growing trend from video sites like youtube.
Search Engine Optimization is an Ongoing Process
Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process that requires carefully thought out methodologies and consistent execution in order to generate value for your business. SEO is not a one time shot, meaning you cannot pay somebody a certain amount of money one month and expect to achieve best rankings on the major search engines month after month from here on out. Why is this?
SEO results are based on the amount of effort/work that goes into an internet marketing campaign. The more effort put in, the better the results you will see. If work stops on your search optimization, then your web site’s search engine appeal becomes stagnant and your competition begins to catch up!
Businesses will always compete - New and existing competitors will likely hire SEO companies to take their web presence to the top on a regular basis. Will you? If company A gets to the top of the search results but then stops its SEO campaign, then company B has a chance to jump ahead of company A.
How does Best Rank Perform Search Engine Optimization?
Best Rank uses the idea that search engines follow people by looking at their searching behavior (which type of content people prefer to read) from using which sets of keyword(s) - and so it is typically the case that natural, unique content will generate interest among your target audience. With that said, it is a best practice for your web presence to have unique, compelling and relevant content that corresponds to your keywords and marketing message - because search engines love this. Best Rank takes this into account when developing your website and optimizing your campaign for your keywords and marketing message.
Based on our clients’ needs, our SEO services include, but are not limited to:
Keyword Targeting
Keyword Targeting is the process of finding which set of keywords are the most effective at bringing up your website’s content on search engines. As a general rule of thumb, a shorter set of key words is very broad and very competitive, e.g. “toys” will bring up 543,000,000 results on Google, many people in the toy business target this keyword by default. But a longer, more specific set of keywords, e.g. “inexpensive kid toys in San Diego”, is less competitive and easier to optimize for. As another general rule: shorter key word searchers are shoppers and longer keyword searches are buyers - so we try and get our clients as many “buyers” as possible by optimizing for a specific set(s) of key words.
Link Building
“Back” links are hyperlinks that point to your website from other, 3rd party websites. Links, pointing at your website, can be thought of as “votes” for your site. So, in theory, the more “votes” you have, the higher your site will appear in the rankings. Now, you don’t want a bunch of bad votes (links) from spam sites; this will not help you, in fact, it may hurt your site. Quality links are they key to attaining the Best Rank possible in the major search engines. Not only do you need quality links, but you also need relevant links. If you run a website about bicycles, then it doesn’t make sense to have a bunch of links from roofing contractors; that’s not relevant. It would make sense to have links from other bike stores, bike tire manufacturers, or even blogs about bikes.
Part of our link building campaign for each client is to evaluate your competitors to see where they stand. If a competitor has 1000 links and you only have 50, then we can better understand what it’s going to take to eclipse them in the rankings. We use your competition as a baseline in determining how far we need to take your site; we don’t just want to beat your competition, we want to crush them! Our link building campaigns are designed to do just that…crush the competition.
Social Media Optimization (SMO)
Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a fairly new concept. SMO is the practice of making your site easier to link to from social sites (YouTube, Digg, etc…) and other sources. This can include social bookmarking, RSS Feeds, submitting content to social sites, and many other methods.
Writing Website Content
It is a known fact that quality content plays a large role in determining how effective your SEO campaign performs. Content needs to be:
Unique
High Quality
Easy to read for human visitors
Easy to read for search engine “spiders” which “crawl” your site
Plump with your targeted keywords
You don’t need to hire a virtual assistant service in order to get good content. Best Rank can integrate SEO friendly content into your website from the very beginning. If you already have content on your site, then we can evaluate it for the criteria listed above and tweak as necessary. To properly outfit your site with keyword rich content, we use proprietary software which analyzes all of your pages and shows us where the holes are. We then adjust the content to include your keywords (for the search engines) and to read naturally (for human visitors)
Directory Submission
We approach directory submissions with caution. Many SEO companies will submit your site to every directory under the sun just to get links and to show you that they are actually working. Well, submitting to every directory is fairly easy and it’s free…so, where’s the value in that? We submit your site to strategically targeted, quality directories that will HELP your site, not harm it like blanketed directory submission. Best Rank maintains a database of hundreds of the most popular, high-traffic directories and we will submit your site to those that are relevant to your business and keyword strategy.
We also submit your site to directories in increments, not all at once. The reason for this is that if one day you don’t have any links and then the next day you have 100 directory links, then the search engines could view this as spam and actually penalize your site. We submit your site in a natural looking manner so that it isn’t flagged by the search engines.
Tag Optimization - Title, Meta, and Heading
There is much debate about whether or not Title, Meta and Heading tags are even important in today’s SEO market. We can tell you that they ARE important and should be taken seriously. Technical SEO is not completely dead, search engines still look at both Title and Heading tags very closely to get a good idea of what the site is about. Meta tags are less important than they used to be, but why take the chance? We believe that every little thing counts when getting your site the Best Rank possible, even the Meta tags.
We offer custom tag optimization for your entire site. We will go through your site and ensure that every page has the proper keyword targeted Title, Meta, and Heading tags. We will make the tags look natural to both search engines and humans so as not to get your site penalized for spammy practices.
Ethical SEO and why we practice it
There are many search engine optimization companies today that will use aggressive tricks and tactics, also known as “black hat SEO”, that can get your website banned or penalized by search engines; we don’t use these techniques! These tactics include but are not limited to: placing invisible text/content onto your web page(s), META and TITLE tag keyword stuffing, submitting your site to link farms and using Javascript redirects to fool search engines into seeing something different than what people see. Our goal is to create total value for your business through increased, targeted and consistent quality traffic. Unethical search engine optimization practices are not part of our policy and we will not risk our clients’ brand for short term gains in traffic. We use search engine optimization techniques such as developing original, high quality content, search engine friendly web site design and effective link building campaigns. Contact the San Diego SEO service that can take your web site visibility to the top!
SEO is a long-term investment!
SEO is not a one-month task that can catapult your site to the top of Google. Rather it is a long-term, strategic initiative that takes time, investment, and expertise. Sure, sometimes we see brand new sites ranking at the top for various keyword terms, but that is not typical. Generally speaking, with a good SEO campaign implemented into your site, you will see results in 3-5 months. With that being said, we have some clients who have seen significant results in 1-2 weeks. There are many factors which come into play when improving rankings, some of which are (but not limited to):
Age of domain (website)
Competition for targeted keywords
Number of quality links pointing at your site
On-page, technical optimization
Structure of website
All of these things are crucial to your site achieving increased rankings. If your site has none of these factors, then it will take longer to see improvements. So, seeing improvement is not an exact science, but given enough time we have never failed to significantly improve the rankings for our clients. Call us today for a free consultation. We also offer SEO training services and pay per click management.
