What to Know about SEO

–Caitlin Sherman, Junior Copywriter

I’m filling in for Dave this week while he’s traveling to all corners of the Commonwealth.

While writing this edition of the Weekly Report, I searched at least a dozen different topics on Google. And with each search, I found thousands of pages worth of relevant blogs and websites, fighting to stand out and get my cursor’s coveted “click.” In the end, only a handful of articles were lucky enough to get the click thanks to their quippy headlines and page placement.

When writing blog or website content, there’s one thing you need to keep in mind — search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services relating to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. I thought I’d share some of the findings with you:

On average, Google processes over 8.5 billion searches per day. It’s THE place people go when they want to know…anything. With what seems like endless search results, it’s important to craft your content carefully to ensure it’s seen by the right people. SEO is a cost-effective way to reach your audience and can ensure that your marketing strategies match the new buying behavior. It’s a fact that 60% of people research a brand online before making a purchase, and SEO helps to build trust and transparency for your brand. #TheMoreYouKnow 

If you’re looking to optimize your blog or web content, here are five helpful tips to improve your SEO ranking:

1.  Publishing relevant, quality content. You can boost your ranking by using a specific keyword phrase for each authoritative content page on your website.
2. Update your content regularly. This is one of the best indicators of whether your site is relevant or not, so make edits when needed. What you don’t want to do is set it and forget it, remember? 
3. Focus on your title and description metadata. Title metadata is responsible for your site’s headline within search engine results and is the most important metadata on your page. Description metadata should give people a concise and appealing description of what the specific page on your site is about.
4. Create accessible content. Use descriptive links by linking keywords to add value to readers who require the use of screen readers. Alt tags, or alternative text descriptions, allow search engines to locate your page, which is crucial on its own, but especially so for those who use screen readers or text-only browsers.
5. Develop an SEO strategy. We can help.