SEO Consultant / Dallas SEO Blog / Page 2

How Long Will It Take For My Site To Rank?

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This is the most common question we get. Unfortunately it’s a tough one to answer without knowing all the facts about your business and current website. There is no hard answer that will cover every business because your business is unique, your market is unique, your website is unique, your competition is unique.
Graph of a Website Climbing the RankingsBut if I had to give an answer:
It generally takes two to three months for most websites to rank for their target keywords that are currently not ranking well. That being said, here are a few factors that will shorten or lengthen that time:

  • How long has your website been live?
  • How many geographic areas are you targeting?
  • How many competitors do you have in your markets?
  • How are your competitors doing in those markets?
  • What’s the current state of your site’s Technical SEO?
  • How much effort do/can you put into your SEO strategy?

…and a few other factors.

The only way to get this question answered with any certainty is have an SEO Consultant review all these factors. Fortunately we do that for free – technical site audit, competitor research, market research for your services, etc.

SEO Budget

We all know you get what you pay for. Getting your site to rank in the top spots for your keywords takes effort. IF it was easy everyone would be at the top. But they really wouldn’t be cause there’s only one top spot…

SEO, and more encompassing, digital marketing, is a long term strategy of content, links, technical aspects, social media, third party posting and over 200 other factors Google looks at when deciding where to rank your site. Of course some factors weight heavier than others and those areas of SEO is where to start when ranking your website.

Technical SEO Rankings

If Google can’t read your site or if your site is presenting information in an unorganized factor you’re not going to rank so that’s where we start. We look at things like on-page errors, canonical tags, 4xx and 3xx issues, etc etc etc… Once those are corrected we can move to on page factors.

URL Structure

Your URL structure is the basic road map and hierarchy of your site. It helps Google understand the relationship between pages. For example if you sell dresses, shoes and belts in different colors and sizes you’d want to make sure Google understands there are levels to your products. Such as /dresses/red/ or /shoes/athletic/white.

Content

Next comes content – Your content should reflect the URL structure, so in the examples above the content would be about red dresses (not blue or black or dresses in general) and white athletic shoes.

Interlinking

Linking from one page to another reinforces the linked page’s purpose and should be the same as the URL structure and content. You’d want to mention you also sell little black dresses and link to the black dresses page.

Putting it all together

You can probably imagine how confusing this can get once you add up all the variations or products or services with URLs, linking, content and other factors. The best place to start is with your home page and slowly work your way through your site focusing on higher priority products, services or information.

Where to Start?

Simply put – Call one of our SEO Consultants in Garland and we’ll give you a site evaluation for free with no obligation. We’ll spend time explaining what you need to do to get your site ranked better. You can do it yourself just like you can change your own oil or patch your roof. You may be great at it or you may decide it’s more cost effective to let a professional handle the details…

How Does ADA and SEO Relate to One Another?

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We all know (I hope) that the Americans with Disabilities Act is all about allowing disabled people access to otherwise unaccessible things. Typically this means wheelchair ranks and braille in elevators, but there’s a digital aspect to the ADA requirements for your website. What about your website? How do ADA and SEO relate?

Accessibility is Key to SEO

ADA and SEOOf course it is! One large part of SEO is to make your website user friendly, understandable and easy to navigate. Google made these rules and didn’t only consider people who can see and hear perfectly. They considered the 25% of Americans who can’t as well.
And so should you
First of all you’re actually discriminating against people who can’t see or hear. You may even get sued over your website’s lack of ADA compliance.

Secondly and arguably equally as important is you’re losing business! if 20-30% of your website visitors who wanted your service couldn’t find out how to contact you you’re missing a huge segment of revenue.

OK – I need ADA and SEO Help. Now What

Glad you see the light! First of all, let us give you a few website audit. We’ll tell you everything that is not ADA compliant as well as any other website optimizations recommended to help your site and business. Yep. It’s that easy – just let us know your url and a few days later you’ll have answers.

You can also Check your website for ADA compliance yourself with some online tools. Albeit they are incomplete and can’t tell you exactly what to fix but it’s an easy place to start. Keep in mind these tools only uncover about 50% of potential ada and seo issues on your website. A manual review by a WCAG 2.0 specialist is highly recommended.

There are Other Areas of ADA and SEO Intermingling

A lot of SEO is focusing on Mobile as such ADA SEO should as well. Consider how someone with limited vision works a website on a phone. They will likely zoom in to see small text. Can your mobile site zoom enough? Do you even know? What about video? If someone can’t hear well you need to allow for captions or at least a transcript. There are so many areas that ADA and SEO are basically one in the same. Give a Dallas SEO Consultant a call and we’ll spend all the time you need explaining it.

For more information visit SEJ’s Beginners Guide to ADA Compliance for Websites

SEO for Startups

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SEO for StartupsIf you just started a business you’re probably considering digital marketing options and SEO for Startups to get things rolling. As you should, but new businesses, specifically new websites, need a different SEO strategy than establishes companies and websites.

WHY?

Website Domain Authority

No matter how awesome your business is; no matter how great your products or services are no matter how awesome your customer service is: Your website authority is literally zero. That’s not a knock on your business it’s just how it works. A brand new website likely won’t even appear in Google search results for weeks if not months no matter how well optimized it is. You’re the new kid on the block and haven’t proven yourself to the search engines yet.

Link Profile

Similar to your domain authority, you don’t have any inbound links other than whatever you added to your social media accounts. No one knows about you so they can’t link to you even if they wanted to. It’s important to start link building as soon as possible.

Budget

Most startups are on a tight budget and most of that typically goes to the core of the business, product development, etc. Very little usually ends up in the SEO for Startups bucket. If you don’t have or choose not to put much cash into your marketing efforts they won’t get anywhere anytime soon.

How to get Rankings as a New Business?

It will potentially take years to rank well for generic terms related to your company, so what can you do to get rankings immediately?

As with any content strategy it needs to start with keyword research. However, you shouldn’t go after the big terms just yet – There are many other businesses that already rank for those and it’ll take a long time for you to get there. Start with low volume but easy to rank topics. Start writing about a new study or some interesting fact about your products.

Give one of our Dallas SEO Consultants call and we’ll explain all the ins and outs of keyword research. Free of charge…

Online Advertising Advantages and Disadvantages

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Considering Online Advertising?

Online advertising and marketing is an ever growing field. More and more people are turning to Google and other search engines to find products, services and information. Even to the point of asking their phone a question expecting an immediate answer. This article will discuss online advertising advantages and disadvantages. Hint there aren’t many disadvantages…
online advertising advantages and disadvantages

Overview

First of all, as we all know Google, Amazon, Facebook are some of the big players in this space. They make their money primarily through Paid Search (PPC) but alot of their business relies on Organic SEO. They don’t get paid directly but good organic results keep their users coming back and give them a higher chance of using their paid services.

What’s Included in Online Advertising?

THere are over 200 signals that Google uses to rank a website or page. Most of them have minor affect but there are a few that can do a lot for your site:

  • Content – Unique informative with photos and videos
  • Link Building – Using your content to get links from other sites
  • Techn ical SEO

    • – Making sure the site works properly and is telling Google accurate information (this is very in depth…)

These are the top three areas of online advertising to focus on but there are many many more that need to be on par if you want your site to rank well.

Advantages of Online Advertising

It’s all but a requirement for any business to succeed. If done correctly it gets you in front of your target market – people in your area that are looking for your product or service. That’s the biggest advantage – compared to traditional advertising, online advertising can better target your customers and save your ad spend for other things. Along with a targeted audience you can also target your messaging to whatever demographic you’re looking for.

In addition the results are nearly immediate. If you launch a new page on your site or PPC campaign you will see some sort of results very quickly. Traditional advertising usually takes time to produce and implement.

Other advantages of online advertising:

  • Increase overall brand awareness
  • Better response rate
  • Reach a wider range of customers
  • Faster results
  • Minimize your competition
  • Long-term exposure
  • Add a personal touch
  • Increase trust with your potential customers

Disadvantages

There really aren’t any… But we can discuss this further in a free consultation with one of our Dallas SEO Consultants.

Link Building Basics

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What is Link Building?

In short, link building is convincing other websites to add a link from their site to yours. Ideally these links would use your brand or a specific service you offer as opposed to “click here”, “website”, or some other generic phrase.

Why Is Link Building Important?

link building basicsEvery link to your site from another is basically a vote for your site to be ranked better. Essentially third-party links are saying “Hey everyone, check out this other site.” Some links are more valuable than others and some may even hurt you. That’s why you need a qualified Dallas Link Building Service to advise you. For example, a link from a high quality site like an online newspaper or government agency is sure to boost your rankings. However, there are other sites that offer free links for a link back to their site. This is called reciprocal linking and does your site and business little good if not cause a penalty.

How Can I get More Links to My Site?

The best way to get links to your site is to write unique content that’s useful to potential site visitors. If you write great content, potentially supplemented with images, info graphics and videos, there’s a better chance other people will want to share your content. After writing content, share it yourself where ever you can – social media, third party publishing sites, etc.

Other ways of getting links to your site are to simply ask others. That probably won’t work, or at least not work well or often. You can also get your product or service in from of influencers who might review your stuff and send a link to your site / product page.

Internal Link Building

Internal link building (links from one page on your site to another) can also help your individual pages to rank better. This is because links to your other pages with proper anchor text will help Google understand what that page is about.

There’s also proper silo structure and other factors that affect how powerful your link profile is but that’s for another article…

Of course it’s always best to talk to a Dallas SEO Consultant before attempting to get links to your site. We happen to offer free advice, so give us a call or email for in depth information.

How to Write SEO Optimized Content for Your Web Site

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content-optimizationAfter diligently finding all the correct keywords you should be focusing on, it’s time to write content for your site based on those keywords. You know what people are searching for as it related to your business so you can now use that info to tailor your content towards those search phrases. This is one of many ways Google understands what your page and site are about.
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The Basics of SEO

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What is SEO?Since you found our site, I’m sure you know how important search engine optimization (SEO) is as a source of traffic that can be converted to sales. But what is SEO? SEO is sometimes called natural or organic search. SEO requires making changes to your web site that prove its authority and relevance to search engines like Google Yahoo and Bing. The purpose of SEO is to get your site ranked well for search terms related to your business and increase the number of customers that click through search results to land on your site.
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What is a Silo Structure (And Why Should You Care)?

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A silo framework or structure is a deeper type of site architecture that is more logically arranged. The ordered collections are figured out by topics and also subtopics; topically appropriate content ought to be structurally near to other topically appropriate material. Silos are basically a way to separate your site content into classifications.

The even more topically relevant content you cover in a silo, the a lot more topically pertinent your site will remain in the eyes of Google. If you cover all of the significant search queries that individuals utilize when looking for a subject– as well as your website appears as well as is clicked for these queries– then you are the finest result, duration.

silo structure 1
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