There’s no doubt that search engine optimization marketing (SEO) is vital for a business’s success, as evidenced by the surge in growth that many SEO firms are experiencing. More than half (61%) of global Internet users research a product online before investing. This means that if a business wants to access this massive audience, they need to maintain an optimized, online presence.
Yet, many businesses are still hesitant about it, because they don’t fully understand how organic search optimization works. While some are okay assuming that these firms wave a wand to magically increase SEO rankings, others aren’t so trusting. They want to know what they’re paying for.
The key to understanding what an SEO firm does is to understand what factors search engines take into account when ranking sites. To help you get a better understanding of this exciting, marketing strategy, here are a few of the most important factors that contribute to SEO rankings.
Content.
Obviously, a website’s content is going to be a huge SEO ranking factor. Imagine if the top result for your search yielded a website written in broken English that simply repeated your keywords over and over again, offering nothing of use to you?
Search engines want high-quality, relevant, up-to-date website–all of which are determined by a site’s content. They keywords woven in to the site’s text help determine relevancy, and the frequency at which a site is updated through blogs or news pages help search engines determine whether the site has the most up-to-date information.
HTML and Architecture.
While it’s certainly possible for a business owner to run a blog themselves and handle the content aspect of their SEO ranking, handling the site’s HTML and architecture is something entirely different. It’s a highly technical, complicated aspect. SEO rankings are affected by meta data, headers, HTML structure, crawl rates, duplicate content, site speed, URL simplicity, and mobile compatibility–all of which can be deftly handled by an SEO marketing company.
Off-Page Factors.
Believe it or not, the website alone doesn’t determine its SEO ranking. Links and trust are the two most important off-site factors. Links to and from other websites help create more access points for both users and search engines. The more links, the more accessible it is, which means more traffic. Link authority, site history, and site identity also influence SEO rankings by improving the trust factor.
These are just a few of the most important SEO ranking factors. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments!