Is Your Search Engine Ranking Lower Than Your Competitors?
When it comes to SEO, the best way to determine if your tactics are working is to examine your website’s ranking amongst the different search engines. Search Engines use multiple kinds of data gathered from a website and run it through their algorithms to determine just how high the page should rank. So if your website isn’t where you want it to be and your competitors are still beating you in the rankings, there could be a few easy fixes that you can implement in your online strategy. Here we will lay out a few of these issues and a few ways to fix them to better your SEO.
Correct Your Tactics
To start, you should determine the kind of SEO tactics you and your competitors are engaging in. There could be a possibility that you are utilizing Black or Grey Hat tactics, while your competitors are using White Hat tactics, resulting in a higher ranking than yours. Black Hat tactics are based on short quick results that are geared only to search engines and usually disobey search engine rules; these would include spamming, keyword stuffing and cloaking. Grey Hat tactics are right in between black and white tactics which usually surrounds duplicating content. White Hat tactics are ethical SEO techniques that produce long-lasting results. These tactics include creating quality content, proper site optimization, internal linking and link baiting. White Hat tactics might take longer to see results and require more work but in the long run will see higher rankings that will last longer.
Researching Keywords
Another thing to achieve higher rankings that your competitors might be doing is researching keywords. Keyword optimization is one of the most important aspects when it comes to successfully optimizing your website. It is important to have the right keywords targeted to your audience because keywords are what users type to find your website through search engines. There are several tools for you to utilize in researching your keywords such as Google Adwords keyword tool and other 3rd party software programs. These sites can give you an in-depth look as to which keywords generate the most traffic, how competitive they are and if they are used by your competition. Use these websites to research your keywords and use the ones that will drive in the correct traffic to your website.
Strategizing Content
Preparing and implementing a proper content marketing strategy is essential in successfully improving SEO and your rankings. Effective content is information presented in an engaging, relevant and entertaining format. Your content marketing will include all the various formats through which you are informing your viewers, such as blogging, whitepapers, videos, etc. So why is this important for SEO purposes? Your content is what drives in viewers to your website. Most viewers have stated that they are more likely to visit a site recommended to them due to its content rather than through advertisements. 18% of marketers confirmed that developing quality content was their top priority in 2013*. Having great content and ample amount is what drives viewers to your site, which is a fundamental goal. This is why it is imperative for you to strategize your content marketing and implement it properly to successfully gain the SEO results you desire. It is not enough that you have engaging content on your site, but you must also be able to share it with your audience.
Staying Social
Using social media to stay in front of your audience and share the great things you are producing is a must. If your competitors are utilizing social media twice as much as you are, it is most likely that they are ranking higher than you. In 2013, Social media budgets grew 9%, to 23% of all marketing allocations*. Marketers have found out that integrating SEO and Social Media is one of the most relevant factors in increasing your rankings and an essential part in your content marketing strategy. Social Media allows you to promote and share your website content with a broad range of users that might not be currently visiting your site. This helps build traffic and create linking to your website. By doing this, search engines are going to see your website as more relevant and content rich than other sites. This will then help lead your website to higher page rankings due to the factors that search engines use to evaluate a website.
Obtaining a high ranking with your website is no easy feat. But if you stick to these few guidelines we have laid out for you, you will put yourself in a good starting point to achieve the ranking your business needs. If you are still not sure about SEO and how to go about achieving a high ranking, contact us today. As web marketing experts, we know what to do to build a website within the search engine rankings and drive traffic into your website. Hiring a professional might just be the edge that your company needs to gain that high ranking.
For more information about web marketing and SEO, contact Blue Atlas Web Marketing to discuss how we can help you build your business in the online market.
* Source: http://blog.hubspot.com/2013-inbound-marketing-stats-charts
