What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine‘s unpaid results – often referred to as “natural,” “organic,” or “earned” results (wikipedia). Simply put, SEO is a service that helps drive more traffic to your website. This traffic can be from search engines, other websites, directories, etc. The greater the amount of online traffic you receive, the higher your potential is for making higher volume conversion and sales. SEO is a process, it is not a onetime action, it should be part of your ongoing marketing strategy. SEO is a process of constant revision, monitoring, and improvement that is geared at placing your website at, or near the top of the various search engine’s results page.

Guarantees

Beware of SEO and web design companies that claim to “guarantee” search engine rankings. This should be a red flag for you. Literally, no one can guarantee any rankings except search engines developers (ie. Google), as only they know the exact algorithm of how their organic ranking system works.

Legitimate SEO services can only predict rankings based on their previous experience. Only paid advertisements with search engines can be guaranteed a certain ranking.

Why do I need SEO for my website?

93% of online experiences begin with a Search Engine

You want to increase the exposure of your business in Calgary or another location, and you’re aware that internet is one of the most effective and affordable platforms to do so. One of the most effective practices in reaching your target audience is through Search Engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.

In Canada, over 80% of web searches are through Google

Most people use their preferred search engine when they are looking for a product or service on the internet. According to studies, the vast majority of internet users do their research through Google’s search engine. This means that you must have a good presence on Google in Calgary, or you’re missing out on huge sales opportunities.

75% of online users never scroll past the first page of Google results

If you’re not towards the top of search engine results, this marketing channel is not very helpful. We can provide you with many reasons why your website and business needs SEO, but for these reasons alone, you can see why your brand presence needs an SEO strategy to produce positive search engine results. What are the next steps? Contact Graphic Structure in Calgary today, and we will provide a Free Search Engine Optimization Evaluation.

Graphic Structure’s ON-SITE SEO Process

• researching the most searchable keywords in your space
• adjust/change all the meta titles
• change all the meta descriptions
• modifying content/wording
• installing analytics in order to have metrics
• optimize links
• creating sitemaps
• submit sitemaps to search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo)
• monitoring how your keywords are doing in the search engine rankings
• make modifications based on analytic results
• repeat process periodically

Contact Graphic Structure today, for Calgary Search Engine Optimization for your website.

OFF-SITE SEO Strategy

There are several factors that we know search engines such as Google look at when determining how relevant and important a website is. A couple of the most important are quality content and quality links. Building quality content and creating links on your website falls under ON-SITE SEO, creating links to your website is OFF-SITE SEO.

If there are no links pointing to your website, it tells search engines that your site is not important. This is why it is important to have links from quality sites point to your site. These links could be from blogs, press releases, business directories, social media, and industry related sites.

It can be advantageous to pay for links that point to your site, as long as you can verify that the site is relevant, reputable, and the placement of the link is prevalent. Just like you would buy an ad on a website. It is equally important to NEVER pay someone (link brokers) for automated link building. Link brokers cannot give you any good links. All their links are already devalued by Google – because it is against Google’s webmaster guidelines to use their practices.

Other OFF-SITE SEO related services we provide are creating Social Media pages for your business, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and web advertising. These items all have an impact on how many customers find you on the internet.

We can help you with your OFF-SITE SEO. Contact Graphic Structure to develop an SEO strategy.