What does a single page on your website contain? What does it say? What is your purpose to having this page? What are your page’s keywords? Search engine searches operate on keywords. Keywords are vital to being found on search engines. Let us give you an example.

There was just a hail storm and it damaged my home’s roof. I need a roofer to repair my roof. I go to Google and search roofers near 17745. I find many roofing companies online that are close to where I live.

How did Google find all these roofing companies? One phrase: SEO keywords. There is a process that search engines use in order to find what a Google searcher is looking for. The keywords in the example above were “roofers” and “17745.” Google uses those two keywords to search the 1 billion web pages that exist on the world wide web. Using search engines SEO processes, helps search engines deliver the web pages that the searcher is seeking in a quick and efficient way.

It’s great to have a website! It’s wonderful to have a Facebook page! But, if you don’t have SEO strategies setup on your website, or any social media account, you may not be found in organic search results by your potential or current customers. If you have a business that offers roofing services, but on your website it doesn’t say the word “roof” there is a really good chance Google or any search engine, will not show your website when someone searches roofing companies near me. Nor will it be shown if you don’t have your address listed on your website.

Now that you might be thinking, “Oh my gosh. This a lot of work.” Let us help you break it down even further.

Web Page Titles

Every web page on your website needs to have a title that briefly describes the information that a customer will find on that page. If the page is about your business, organization, or your portfolio, the page should probably be called “About Us” or “About Me.” The title is of course, at your desecration. Just try to think about what someone might search to find your about page.

Keywords

Create keywords for each page to drive search engine results. If it’s an About Us page, your primary keyword(s) will be “about us” and your secondary keyword should be what your company does. Using roofing as an example, the word roofing should be your secondary keyword and “about us” would be your primary. Make sure those two keywords appear somewhere on this page.

Then, think about what other information could help drive search engine results to this page. Try not to get off the topic of the message and point of the page.

Ask some of your current clients if you may list them on your website to use as examples of your projects. If you list them on your website and someone searches for that business or organization, there is a good chance your company will be shown in the search engine results.

There are many ways to get found through keywords, you just have to be a bit creative.

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions are another way search engines find what a searcher is looking for on the internet. Search engines sift through the billion web pages on the World Wide Web by looking at Title Tags and Meta Descriptions first before anything else on your website. It’s how search engines deliver fast results to searchers. If a search engine finds what the searcher is searching for in your Title Tag or Meta Description, your page will show up before any other web page that does not have a Title Tag or Meta Description or proper keywords in their Title Tags and Meta Descriptions.

Title Tags

Title Tags should include the primary keyword of the page. If the page is called About Us, the primary keyword of the page is about us.

Example Title Tag for About Us page: About Us | Name of Business

Meta Descriptions

Meta Descriptions are used as an introduction to each individual web page. Meta Descriptions should be no more than 156 characters. Try to get as close to 156 characters without being too wordy. Descriptions should include primary and secondary keywords and a call-to-action. Good calls-to-actions for meta descriptions are Learn more, See how, Sign up now, etc.

Example Meta Description for About Us page: Learn about us as we offer quality roofing services to residential and commercial facilities in the Montgomery, Chester, Bucks, and Philadelphia counties.

PRO TIP! About Us (your primary keyword) needs to also appear in the URL of the web page to create a better quality score of the web page.

PRO TIP! A quality score is what search engines use to rank your website pages. Many factors going into quality scoring.

Citations? Why does this conjure up memories of writing the dreaded research papers in high school and citing your sources? Because this too is important! Examples of citation pages include Google My Business, Yelp, and Yellow Pages. These pages have been created to replace the phone book. Citation pages are usually the first pages people see when they use search engines. Citation pages list a business’s name, address, telephone number, email address, website URL, hours, industry, and basic information regarding the business. Users of citation pages can also leave reviews of businesses and provides a place for feedback for businesses.

Some of these pages are automatically created for you, but it is up to you to claim these pages and add your business details and information. Many citation pages are free to claim, but have upgrading options as well. You can find local businesses like us to claim them for you as well, however, you can do this yourself if you put the time into it. Please note, there are thousands of different citation pages out there and you do not need claim them all. Below are the top citation pages you can claim for your business. Be leery of the pages you must pay for. Begin with the ones that give you an option to create a free account.

• Google My Business
• Yelp
• Bing Maps
• Yellow Pages
• Insider Pages
• Super Pages
• Facebook

Facebook has place holder pages as well. When people check-in to a business but the business does not have a Facebook page, Facebook auto-generates a place holder page for this business. This too is consider a citation page and needs to be claimed as well.

Your business information may not be accurate on any citation page until you claim the page as your own.

Do not forget to review these regularly and communicate with your reviewers! Especially if you should ever receive a sub-par review on a product or service.

Blogging is for the every day writer, the person interested in sharing an idea, but who does not want to spend time writing a 1,500 page peer-reviewed book or journal. It is Robby of Robby Western Apparel wanting to introduce a new product. It is Jane of Jane’s Horse World explaining the difference between an English saddle and a Western saddle. It is your very own public relations platform. Blogs can be informal, yet conversational.

Blogging is important to SEO because it is how you continuously add content to your website. You have an about us page, services page, and a contact us page, but how do you tell others about what your business does for social responsibility or inform your customers of what promotions you have coming soon? Blogging or News pages are the way to share this information. It also helps to create more keywords on your website that can be found by search engines.

Learn how to begin blogging and what topics to start with.

Reaching out to third-party websites are a great way to be found online. If your local Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Organizations, local well-known bloggers, or even visitor centers have links on their website to local businesses and/or organizations, reach out to them and get your website URL on their website. Your local Chamber of Commerce might have more web traffic to their site then you might have to your new site and it could help generate more leads to your website. Getting others to link to your website will help drive traffic to your website providing more opportunity to drive SEO. Think outside of the box here.