Multiply Sales & Grow Your Revenue!

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, but what exactly does that mean? SEO is focused on bringing in website traffic through search result rankings organically (naturally), without paying for the traffic through ads. It’s important to develop a strong SEO strategy because the main source for website traffic is search. In fact, Backlinko states that “60% of all traffic on the web starts with a Google search”. The main goal behind incorporating SEO in your marketing strategy is to increase the number of quality visitors to a website through search result rankings, while keeping up with the algorithm changes and updates of Google

When you think of SEO, you might think it’s complicated because you don’t quite understand how it works and what specific tactics come into play. However, SEO is pretty simple when you look at it from a strategic level. The four key pillars of SEO that earned experts should always remember include the following:

Technical SEO: This is where you should start when it comes to your SEO strategy. Analyzing your website’s technical SEO will help you understand how well your content and keywords can be crawled, indexed, and explored by a search engine.
On-Page SEO: This pillar has a bit of a crossover with the first pillar, as you want to make sure your content is well-structured on your technically optimized site. Once you have analyzed the current status of your content, you can then begin to apply optimizations through keyword research to make it even better.
Off-Page SEO: Off-page SEO is also known as authority building or link building. Incorporating links on your site allows Google to better understand how relevant and reliable your content is, allowing you to generate strong organic rankings. The late Eric Ward (a.k.a Link Mosses) described link building in just a few words, “connect what should be connected” by creating content that is deserving of trustworthy links.
Content: If there’s one thing you probably already know about SEO, it’s that content is king. Creating valuable and consistent content on your site allows searchers to get their questions answered and fulfill their query goal.

Although SEO and PPC are very different approaches within digital marketing, they work together to achieve the ultimate search engine marketing (SEM) strategy: SEO + PPC = SEM. Like we mentioned above, SEO is a natural way to improve your rankings and overall visibility to searchers and search engines by using organic content. On the other hand, PPC (pay-per-click) allows marketers to bid on the chance to show their ads in SERP, right when people are looking for a specific offer. With that being said, the main difference between the two is that traffic from SEO is free and traffic from PPC costs money (organic listings in Google vs. paid listings in Google). At IMI, our digital marketing expertise ranges from Earned Media to Paid Media, depending on the strategy that you’re looking to create. Understand how we approach quarterly strategies for our clients!

When looking at any marketing deliverable or strategy, anyone buying on for a service is always wondering how long it will take to see results. It’s important to remember and express to clients in the beginning that SEO is a long term investment, and can eventually be your biggest traffic driver if you give it the time it deserves. SEO requires ongoing attention and is definitely not a one time thing. Your SEO strategy takes time, planning, and readjusting to achieve and maintain search rankings, ROI, and overall traffic growth. Whether you’re redesigning your site to be more SEO friendly or your updating your target keywords, each and every change you make can affect your SEO efforts by showing quantifiable results.

When it comes to content, there are two general types. There is content with the purpose of putting readers into the funnel and then there’s broad content. Now let’s break it down. Content such as product pages, longform content, and white papers is content with a specific purpose in mind. You want readers to understand what your business is about, so they can continue moving down the buyer funnel to eventually purchase what you’re selling. This is what the client wants to hear. They want a clear plan for how content creation will make them money and how it will affect their ROI. This type of content is a necessary factor for SEO, but all in all, specific product content just doesn’t get shared. Google must be factored into the strategy.

On the other hand, there is broad content, better known as blogging. This is the stuff that the audience interacts with and the type of writing that helps Google better understand where your site should be placed in SERP. When creating content, whether that’s an infographic to help boost SEO, a blog, or even a video, you should adjust your mindset to position yourself within reader’s point of view. What will grab the reader’s attention? What type of content will make my website more searchable? What are the questions that the readers need answers to? What type of content is most likely to get shared? Once you find what your audience is looking for, it’s time to infuse your writing with SEO, specifically keyword research (which we will dive into a little later).

Ultimate purpose of content: Blogging allows your website to rank higher in Google SERPs, therefore increasing your visibility and traffic by reaching your target audience during the discovery phase in an overall effort to increase your business revenue.