SEO Ranking Method Decrypted
A brief Glimpse into our ranking methodology
There are over 200 factors that Google’s search engine ranking algorithm takes into account when placing a website in the search results. These factors vary slightly from search engine to search engine.
Not all of these factors hold the same weight in ranking your business’s website.
The best SEO agencies will prioritize the most important factors first and move down the list from there.
Audit Analysis
Our process begins with a deep and thorough analysis of your website and current online presence.
We review your website, social profiles, citations and all websites currently linking to your business’s website.
By starting with a deep analysis SEO audit we are able to identify any problems that are currently holding your website back. We then start off by resolving those problems.
Otherwise, no matter the amount of work that is done, your website will never rank in the top positions.
These kinds of problems, also known as penalties, are extremely common for websites that have had SEO performed on them previously. Many internet marketers will use risky strategies attempting to rank a website as quickly as possible instead of using safe long-term SEO strategies.
Quite often these strategies do not work at all, but if they do, the results are short-lived and more times than not, end up leaving the website worse off than before.
By addressing these issues in the beginning, a tremendous amount of work and money can be saved in the ranking process.
Unfortunately, this step is too often bypassed or not effectively done, and rankings are severely delayed or never happen.
Competition Analysis
Our next step is to review what Google is already favoring in the search results for the search term you’re wanting your business to rank for.
By reviewing the top ranking websites, Google is giving us insight into what it wants from the websites that it is putting in the top positions.
This helps us identify the top optimization items we need to focus on out of Google’s ranking factors.
On Page SEO
The next step will be to optimize your website. Also known as on-page SEO.
This process entails optimizing your website itself making it highly relevant to Google’s algorithm for the search terms you are wanting to rank your business for.
Some of the areas we optimize are:
- Meta titles
- Meta descriptions
- Keyword density
- LSI keyword placement
- Inner page URLs
- Inner linking
- Mobile optimization
- Site load time
- HTTPS
As we adjust your website we always keep your prospects and website visitors in mind. Good on-page SEO strikes a symmetrical balance between designing content for a human and a machine.
If your website’s content does not relate or draw in your prospects you will fail to convert your website visitors.
Search engine rankings without strong prospect conversions will do you very little good.
Social And Citation Optimization
The next step in the process will be to optimize your social properties and business citations.
Your social properties include website’s like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the like.
By optimizing your social profiles, you can rank these pages at times and also create a clear social image of your business when prospects discover you through your various social profiles.
Your business citations include your business listing on websites that clearly display your business name, address, and phone number.
Websites like Yelp, YP.com, Manta, and many other web directories are considered business citations.
Google uses the information it finds on these website citations to create a brand image of your business.
The more accurate and consistent the information it finds, the better it will be for your local SEO rankings. (What is local SEO?)
So it’s critically that each individual citation that exists on the web have accurate information on it.
This step can be extremely time-consuming as every one of your business’s web citations must be manually reviewed and all incorrect information fixed.
Building Website’s Authority And Trust
The next step will include building up your website’s authority and trust.
This happens through building strong links to your website from safe and relevant websites.
There are multiple ways these are built, but it’s critical all links created to your website are safe and intentional.
Back in the early days of search engines, you could generate millions of spammy links to a website and get the website to rank. These tactics no longer work, and will actually cause your business’s website to get penalized and lose all rankings and make it extremely difficult to rank in the future.
The problem is cheap, spammy, and low-quality link building is a commonly used practice by cheap SEO services.
You want to make sure you avoid these at all cost.
During this step, any links built to your business’s website are of the highest quality.