30
2021
Dec

Getting Google to Like You: The Four Pillars of SEO

If you’re reading this blog, that could mean one of three things: you’re a business owner who has some knowledge of SEO but could learn a little bit more about it (hell, who couldn’t), you’re someone who knows that SEO is important but don’t really have a clue what it entails and are essentially at ground zero, or you accidentally stumbled upon this article and are about to click out of it. Regardless, we’re happy to have you and think you should stick around. After reading this, we guarantee that whichever column you fit into, you’ll be clicking away with some pretty hefty knowledge about how to improve your website’s SEO. 

Pillars of SEO

Let’s start from the beginning. 

What is SEO? Well, it’s a bit complicated. To make it simple, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is a combination of many different strategies to help your website rank organically on different search engines– but mostly just Google. Google’s algorithm uses over 200 ranking factors to determine which results it will display when a search is made. Things such as relevancy to search, website speed, website authority– the list quite literally goes on, and on, and on.

In layman’s terms? SEO is simply trying to get Google to trust you and your website. 

So why is SEO such a big deal? 

Well, the goal of any business owner is to increase sales– and for a website, that translates to digital traffic. The more Google trusts you, the better visibility you get in Google searches (this is called page rank) driving more traffic. The more traffic you’re drawing to your site, the higher your chances are of boosting your sales and profits.. This will increase the traffic flow to your site and, say it with me, will increase your chances of boosting sales and profits. 

Still on the same page?

SEO is the most important way to draw traffic to your website in today’s day and age. But getting Google to like you is much easier said than done. SEO has hundreds of parts to it, but to make it a bit more manageable, we’ve broken it up into the four easy to understand categories: structure, content, citations/listings, and modern technology. 

Alrighty, let’s move on.

SEO Pillar #1: Structure

The first of the four pillars we’ll cover is the structure of your website. 

The main components of your site’s structure are the title (meta title), headlines (H1, H2, etc.), alternate text for images (ALT tags), and meta descriptions. While these are all handled on the back end of your website, the words you use in these spots will tell Google what your site is about. How you appear on search engine result pages, or SERPs, all depend on your word choice.

You want to be using keywords that are important and associated with your brand as well as the search terms your customers actually use. This way, when Google is searching the internet for the best results for someone’s search, they can accurately take into account what your site is about in order to determine if it is appropriate to be displayed as a result.

I’m sure you’ve seen all kinds of websites that display the word “home” as the title of their homepage (or maybe you’re doing this now). However, if the brand is not about houses, then using the word “home” can qualify them for searches that do not match their business. 

What’s worse, without the proper keywords, your site could even show up on SERPs that have nothing to do with the user’s search. 

I know Google seems super smart, but it actually needs a lot of our help. By properly structuring your site, you’ll be helping Google help you.

SEO Pillar #2: Content 

Your website’s content is the bread and butter in which Google eats. Without content, your website would be nothing–literally. With that being said, the reason we chose content as part of the main components of SEO is not just about having it on your website, but updating it. By updating your content regularly, you are telling Google that your business is alive and well, and should still be chosen to show up on SERPs.

SEO Content

Think of it like a teacher and students. 

If a teacher is teaching a lesson and asks a question, who’s he more likely to call on: a student who has their hand raised or a student that doesn’t. He’ll want to call on the student that has their hand raised (unless you had mean teachers), since they’re indicating they know the answer. 

Google’s job is to answer the questions of the internet and is always looking for websites that raise their hands with the latest and most relevant information. To show Google that your hand is raised, update your content regularly, post on Social Media, and get engagement (like reviews) from your customers.

Still keeping up? Great, let’s move on.

SEO Pillar #3: Backlinks & Reviews

Onto our third pillar of SEO: Backlinks and Reviews. 

The efforts for this pillar are offsite and encapsulates two very important concepts. Let’s first focus on backlinks, which also include all of your brand’s listings and links from external sources out on the internet. This is important because Google ranks websites that have more, high quality backlinks higher on SERPs. 

But wait, what makes a link high or low quality? Aren’t they all the same?

No, not all links are created equal.

You see, the difference between a high and low quality link all depends on the reputation of the site linking to you. For example, if a New York Times article talks about your business and provides a link to your website, then it is a high quality link (Google loves these). 

Many naive business owners might know the importance of links to their site, however they might not be aware of the importance of the quality of those backlinks.

Unfortunately, it’s very common for SEO companies to take advantage of clients’ ignorance in this sense– bad marketers that sell you services with decade-old tactics. 

Think of it like this: a business owner hires someone to stick flyers on windshields of cars to increase sales. Rather than going to popular shopping centers, this person puts them on cars in a junkyard– completely pointless. When he goes back to the business owner, he can technically say he “handed them all out” but ultimately all he did was litter and waste the business owner’s time and money.

The secondary foundational aspect of this pillar is reviews. Reviews are not only an opportunity to have a high quality listing for your brand, but they do wonders for Page Rank as well as customer service. Garnering reviews on sites such as Google, Yelp and TripAdvisor, may help your business show up higher in local organic searches. Additionally, responding to both positive and negative reviews builds a sense of trust from outside customers and loyalty with returning ones.

Backlinks and reviews of value are not easy, but they start with you. Your membership listing with your Chamber of Commerce, your directory entry in your trade organization website, and your relationship with partners and your local community are all helpful citations that you have to work for.  No marketer can do that for you.

When getting started, an easy place to start is using an internet listing service. We provide one in our 360 plan.

SEO Pillar #4: Technology

For our final pillar, we’ve come to technology. Which, in all honesty, encompasses many things. Which in all honesty, encompasses many things. It includes all of the minor items that aren’t intuitive and too technical to be offered by most SEO companies, but when taken together, add up to big value. It includes a variety of key metrics such as the speed of your website, the kind of sitemap you submit to Google Search Console, the availability of structured data, mobile friendliness, and an HTTPS secure certificate, to name a few. 

Almost all of these components need to be updated regularly. Some more regularly than others. 

SEO Technology

Another key component to our technology pillar includes keeping up with the evolving internet standards. Much like everything in the technology industry, if you don’t evolve, you’ll fall behind. This includes utilizing newer modalities, image formats, and security features, and experiences to show Google you’re still there.

One that is popular right now is voice search. You know when you ask Siri (or Google Assistant) the time a certain store closes, or what a restaurant’s phone number is? That is using voice search. And it gets technical to be able to be recognized by Siri, Alexa, and other voice recognition devices.

Takeaway

So why is this all important?

SEO is what digital traffic revolves around today, and getting more informed on it will ultimately help you and your business succeed. 

All of these play into SEO which helps you rank on SERPs organically

Why does that matter?

The more Google likes you, the higher you rank organically. The higher you rank organically, the less you need to spend on advertising and the more effective your digital advertising will be. 

In future blog posts, we’ll be taking a deeper look at each of the four pillars we talked about today in order to get an even better understanding of SEO.  If you want to dive deeper, enjoy one of our classic articles: SEO for Engineers.

To learn more about our SEO services, contact us on our website or give us a call at (805) 481-0118.