SEO Signals for Google Search = Big Win!
An NFL referee signals a touchdown above the noise of a crowd. You can’t hear the ref, but you still know what’s going on because you understand the game signals. SEO provides Google and other search engine crawlers, sometimes called spiders, with the right signals as well. These SEO signals allow your web pages to achieve higher placement on search engine results pages (SERP). It is how you score big with search engines, especially Google. That is the goal of SEO. A higher ranking or position on a search engine translates into more website traffic, and more traffic equals a higher ROI.
Ever-changing SEO Ranking Factors
But SEO is challenging. There are more than 200+ ever-changing SEO ranking factors that signal Google search algorithms to elevate certain webpages to appear in the top positions on search engine results pages. Notice that I said webpages and not websites. Search engines do not read a website like a human — they are reading for signals to figure out what a webpage is all about. For SEO success, each webpage on your website must be optimized separately with the right signals. This includes optimizing blog posts or articles as well. The signals or SEO ranking factors are driven by proper SEO processes including Technical SEO, On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO (backlinking).
Technical SEO
The main goal of technical SEO is to make it easy for those Google search engine crawlers or spiders to access, crawl, interpret and index webpages on websites. Webpages need to be secure, display 404 error messages and have fast page load speeds. Avoiding code bloat and establishing a proper page hierarchy are important, too.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO involves optimizing individual web pages with specific keywords or key phrases used by target audiences when searching for products or services. Content on these specific pages must be ironclad with focus keywords in page titles, headlines, body copy, meta tags, alt tags or image tags. The length of copy and keyword density matters, and so does avoiding duplicate content. Lastly, strategically placed internal links are an important part of on-page SEO.
Off-Page SEO
Websites need to reference links from other external authoritative websites to boost rankings on search engines. Often called “quality backlinks,” these links act as a vote of trust by Google search algorithms. An important Google ranking factor called E.A.T., which stands for Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness, plays an important role too and is directly related to off-site SEO. Google ranks web pages that demonstrate expertise and authority on a particular subject.
High-performing SEO uses the right signals to drive your web strategy and your overall digital marketing strategy, or what we like to call your digital ecosystem. If Organic SEO is a marketing priority for you, AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising can get you started with a free SEO Audit.
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