It's of no surprise that the top source for finding company information in Canada is ... wait for it .... Search Engines, according to a May, 2014 survey by Ipsos Reid.
In fact 61% of people regard search engines as their primary method of finding company information, followed by word of mouth at 50%, company websites at 48% and social media at 46%. Interestingly the social media number is increasing quickly as more people use social networks, professional networks and blogs when checking out company info on the web.
If we then factor into this that Google is the dominant search engine with a market share of 65.70% (http://www.experian.com/marketing-services/online-trends-canada.html October 2014 data), then you'll quickly understand why we marketers have to pay serious attention to Google as a major influencer of driving traffic to your website.
In our last blog post we spoke about how important it is to choose your keywords. In fact keywords are so important they are a major corner stone of what SEO and Inbound Marketing is.
Therefore put simply, your goal is to get your keywords found by Google.
When someone searches for information about your company, what you do, or they search for a subject about your industry ... you have to be found on the first page of Google search results, or you're not a "player".
How Can You Increase Your Ranking For Those Keywords?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is about doing just that! And we focus on the Google search engine a lot.
In order to get found, you should aim to be in the top 10 on the first page of Google search results for your main keywords. It can be a slow process to move up the Google rankings, but your progress can be tracked and you can set goals accordingly.
Google Search Engine Algorithm Updates
You might have heard of some of the names given to some recent Google updates - Hummingbird, Penguin, Panda, and even Pigeon.
Each year, Google changes its search algorithm around 500–600 times. While most of these changes are very minor, Google occasionally rolls out a "major" algorithmic update (such as Google Panda and Google Penguin). A major update can have a significant impact on your search results.
As a certified Google partner and avid search marketers, we need to track and understand these Google changes in rankings, so we can adapt and improve the way we do SEO.
Today, we can report that the biggest SEO trend out there is that Google wants you to design your website and write your web content for real visitors (us humans), and not for search engines. While you should keep this principle in mind, it’s worthwhile to learn a bit more about SEO in order to better optimize your site for keywords.
Getting Started With SEO
Basically, SEO can be divided into two separate categories: On-page SEO and Off-page SEO.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to how well your website's content is presented to the search engines... and now with all the Google algorithm changes ... how human is your content?
In addition to providing great website content that is useful and relevant to your website visitors, we have found that on-page SEO can often be enhanced and improved quickly by working on these 9 technical / under-the-hood items. There is a correct protocol and a best practice about how each of these 9 items should be handled, and when you get it correct ... you're on your way to doing good SEO.
- Page Title
- Meta Description
- Headings
- Cascading Style Sheets - CSS
- Images
- Domain Information
- Moz Rank
- Google Crawl Date
- URL Structure
We''ll talk more about this subject in our next blog.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is actually more important than on-page SEO. Off-page SEO refers to your site’s overall “authority” on the web, which is determined by what other websites say about your site. Unlike on-page SEO, off-page SEO is a process that can take a long time to improve your search rankings and again, we'll cover this topic more in a future blog.
About Terry Marketing
Terry Marketing (www.terrymarketing.com) is an Inbound Marketing Agency providing Inbound Marketing Services to small and medium sized businesses. We're focused on generating traffic, leads and sales and we're experts in the Inbound Marketing, lead generation process and how to increase website traffic, leads and website conversion rates. Terry Marketing is a Hubspot Partner, a certified HootSuite Ambassador agency, and is a certified Google Partner.
David Terry is CEO of Terry Marketing and Professor of Internet Marketing at Laurentian University. He has a deep knowledge in all aspects of Inbound Marketing, the Internet and Web technologies - as well as an understanding of the importance of how branding, marketing strategy and creative execution can impact business results. You can reach him by phone at 416.204.0255 or email at: david@terrymarketing.com or visit www.terrymarketing.com
