If you’ve seen our previous post, What is SEO?, you’ll know that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s all about getting your website to appear in the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) – because that’s one of the ways new clients find out about your business.
You’ll also know there are lots of on-site ways you can help make your website ‘SEO friendly’ – or optimized for search.
You can use:
- A premium theme
- Appropriate text tags – H1, H2, H3 etc.
- Keywords correctly
If you have no idea what I’m on about, head on over to What is SEO? Take your time, I’ll wait ☺
All up to speed? Excellent!
Now, once you’ve optimized your site as best you can, the next area needing attention is how your site links to the rest of the internet… and how the rest of the internet links to your site.
Off-site SEO optimization
We jokingly refer to the links between your site and others as providing ‘Google Juice’ – and the more Google Juice you have, the more likely it is your site will appear in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
These links are called ‘backlinks’ or ‘citations.’ In the same way you might include a link to an external site in a blog post, external sites can include a link back to your site.
What are citations?
Citations are super important for your local SEO. A citation is a place where your business is listed AS a business. Citations show your name, address, phone number or your service area, all listed out in one place, so that people can get from there to your website.
You get citations by registering your business with local business directories such as The Better Business Bureau. You can also get them if you’re a member of any dog training organizations with business directories for members. Get as many as you can because every single one counts! The more places you have your details listed, the better it is for your off-site SEO.
Everyday backlinks
In addition to having your business listed as a citation, it pays to get as many related websites as possible to mention your business, with a link to your website. These are known as ‘backlinks.’
Backlinks are usually content or contextual links, and ideally, the words used for the link should be words that are helpful from a search engine’s perspective.
But be warned! Backlinks are only useful if they come from high quality, relevant websites. Paying someone to create heaps of backlinks to spammy sites will do you no good – and may actively harm your SEO ranking.
Typical ways to get genuine backlinks include:
- Being mentioned in local online media outlets
- Writing guest posts for other relevant sites
- Being referenced by local businesses
- Getting listed in local business directories
This is why spending time building relationships with other businesses pays dividends. Every backlink you get – especially from a reputable site – is adding to your Google Juice. And the more Google Juice you have, the more likely it is your site will show up at the top of the SERPs.
You can spend literally years chasing backlinks and creating citations, but did you know there is another, quicker way to boost your off-site SEO?
Introducing your Google Business Profile (GBP).
Your Google Business Profile can play a big role in making sure that your website comes up in Google search results – and it can actually come up in addition to, or instead of, your website. These days, with the use of AI in search results, more and more emphasis is being put on your Google Business Profile… it should be considered a critical part of your overall lead growth strategy.
How to optimize your GBP
The very best thing you can do for your GBP is encourage your clients to leave reviews on it. The more reviews you have, the better, but a good initial goal is to get the first 25. Then, be sure to respond to every one of them. Google doesn’t just ‘like’ you having reviews, it also ‘wants’ you to be interacting with your reviewers in a meaningful way.
The second biggest way to boost your GBP is to ensure you’ve filled in ALL the fields, including the Q and A section. Unfortunately, GBP isn’t ‘set and forget.’ While it’s less high maintenance than your facebook or instagram account, you still need to keep it up to date by posting to it and changing out images now and again. You can find out more about getting the best out of GBP in our Local SEO for dog trainers post.
Monitoring success
And finally, once you’ve tweaked and optimized as much as you can, you’ll want to track your success.
The two big tools that we recommend for monitoring SEO success are Google Analytics and Google Search Console. These tools will help you decide what’s working and what’s not – so you can focus your efforts in the most useful areas.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics shows your website traffic stats, including who’s using your website and how they’re using it. It’ll show you how people are getting to your website, including how many people are coming from Google Search.
If you do Google advertising, it’ll also differentiate people who click on paid ads to come to your website versus people doing organic search – typing keywords into Google and having you appear in their results. (SEO is all about organic search!)
Google Search Console
The other tool that’s worth installing and setting up is Google Search Console. Google Search Console is a little bit more ‘techie’ and it’s not super business owner friendly… But, that said, it can still be a great tool.
Google Search Console shows you how many searches have been done for the keywords where you appear in the SERPs. It can show you information on how many times in a month your website is coming up in Google Search even when people aren’t clicking on it, and how likely people are to click on your content in those search results.
One of the biggest mistakes people make around SEO is they Google themselves, or their business, and then look at where their business is listed in the search engine results.
But… Google knows it’s you.
It’s trying to show you the content that is most likely to be useful for you as an individual. So, it ranks your own content higher when you are the one searching for it than if somebody who doesn’t know you searches for those terms. So, searching for yourself doesn’t give you a true indication of how well your SEO efforts are working because your search results are inherently biased.
This is why GSC can be so useful. It can show you more reliable data on how your sites is actually ranking.
That, in a nutshell, is everything you ever needed to know about SEO and how to appear at the top of SERPs. If it seems all a bit overwhelming, don’t panic. SEO optimization can be tackled one bite at a time – you don’t have to learn it all in one weekend!
Remember, every step you take towards SEO optimization moves you closer to your overall goal of getting your site to appear at the top of the SERPs – and gaining you more clients.
This post first appeared on clickandrepeat.com
