What Is SEO? How To Drive Millions Of Visitors & Dollars

What is SEO (search engine optimization)? And how does it help my business grow?

SEO is a marketing practice with the goal of gaining more organic search engine traffic to your website. This search traffic is different than paid traffic by means of Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or another platform.

Search engine optimization focuses on ranking higher for keywords on Google by improving your online presence so humans and search engines can read your content better.

Depending on your background, that may be too technical for you.

Here’s a simpler explanation.

Say a mom planning a birthday party for her 6-year-old son this weekend visits Google.com, types in “catering company”, and clicks search. The top search result (which gets the most traffic and sales) is the website best optimized for search engines.

She’s in a rush because her 10-month-old baby is crying in the background, so she clicks the first result that pops up. The company looks credible and has the chicken fingers and fries she was looking for, so she enters her credit card information and books the order for 30 people for this Saturday.

Why did the mom choose that catering company and not its competitors when they all have chicken fingers and fries that taste the exact same?

That catering company only got the business because they showed up as the first result on Google for “catering company”.

They’re not the best company. They don’t offer a higher-quality food than their competitors.

They just ranked first on Google—where it matters most. Examples like this is where you see consistent SEO ROI.

Why SEO Is Important For Your Business

Millions Of People Search For An Item On Google And Then Click An Amazon Link. Amazon Is Using The Power Of Seo To Grow Their Business.

Let’s break down the online landscape for you. There are over 320 million people in the US.

With that number in mind, get this:

More than 50% of Americans prefer to shop online
96% of Americans with Internet access have bought something online
80% of online shoppers have made an online purchase in the past month alone

You’d have to out-of-your-mind crazy to dismiss the fact that billions of dollars are spent by online consumers every year.

But these online consumers aren’t logging into their computer and automatically being taken to your business website. It doesn’t work that way.

Here’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play.

Did you know that 93% of online experiences start with a search engine?

Are you aware that the top search result has an average click-through rate of 33%, while over 60% of the clicks go to the top three website results?

What about the fact that Google received 77% of search engine traffic?

These statistics are all true and make it crystal clear that it’s in the best interest of your business to appear on the first page of Google and as close to the top as possible.

In other words, the game is to get your website on the first page of Google or bust.

But why bust when your business can swim in profits?

Who Is This SEO Guide For?

So, you want $100,000 worth of website traffic? You want to become THE authority in your industry for the service or product you sell?

You’re in the right place. Let’s keep going!

This tactical list of action steps is for any business owner, marketer, or professional blogger who wants to improve their website traffic and produce more revenue.

It’s for the individual who gets fired up thinking about the rich opportunity in receiving 1,000, 10,000, and 50,000 new visits to their website every month. Knowing there’s big money coming from that traffic.

Nothing is stopping your company from having a record year when you execute the SEO tactics you’re about to read. Since we’ve done it ourselves, we feel safe promising this!

Why Did We Write This Guide?

Running a business is difficult. No one in their right mind would say it’s an easy job.

And a common business owner has a million things on their plate to juggle, so SEO is often something that falls to the wayside.

At Robben Media, we argue search engine optimization always deserves a seat at the table of your most important business objectives.

That motivation pushed us to pull together our best SEO tips to help you out.

We want this guide to be your golden ticket that both allows you to crush it with search engine marketing and take your business growth to a new level.

Utilize On-Site & Off-Site SEO

Effective SEO is broken down into two subcategories: on-site SEO and off-site SEO. Follow this checklist to rank higher and gain more traffic from search engines.

Keywords

Successful SEO all starts with finding relevant keywords you want your business website to rank for.

This means identifying the search terms your ideal customer types in Google so you can make adjustments to your website (this will come up throughout this checklist) to rank for that term.

The goal is to find specific keyword phrases, not one general word, and aim to rank for those. This is a key feature of on-site SEO.

For example, a math tutoring company should not try to rank for the word “math” since that’s too general and unclear what the customer is looking for.

But they should aim their efforts at “math help” or “after school math tutoring” to reach a relevant audience who is likely to visit their website and be compelled to buy from them.

The way you rank for keywords is by writing long-form blog posts around the topic and knowing where to place your SEO keyword on your site.

Page Title

The title tag signals the title of a website page to search engines like Google.

It also is the first impression humans will read and use to decide on whether they’re going to click to your website or scroll past it.

Titles best optimized for SEO will include the keyword they want to rank for in the title and use emotional words that are enticing for a interested customers to click.

Shoot for a 60 character title or less, any longer and it might get cut off on search engine results and diminish performance.

Below, in blue text, is how your page title will appear on a Google search. (Notice our solid second-place ranking for this keyword!)

Meta Description

In simple words, meta descriptions are the words that show up under your page title in a search engine result. (See the image below.)

The best meta descriptions look like this. They summarize the page, contain the keyword the particular page is trying to rank for, and persuade relevant readers to click to read more with crafty writing.

Your meta description, shown below in a Google search, needs to be shorter than 160 characters.

This Is Where The Meta Description Shows In Google.

Image Optimization

You’ll increase the odds your website ranks higher for a keyword when you add a relevant image to your page and title it the keyword you want to rank for.

Images also make the visitor experience better for your customers, which keeps them on your site longer and gives them a longer opportunity to buy from you.

Example: A chemical cleaning company’s SEO improves when they title their image “chemical-cleaning-supplies.jpg”, which contains the keyword “chemical cleaning supplies” they want to rank for. This is a major improvement compared to leaving the image titled “DSCN1872310.jpg” or not titled at all.

Image Alt Text

The alt text communicates the appearance of an image on a page for visually impaired Internet users and search engines to better understand the image.

The alt text is done through HTML code or adding text to in a WordPress text box after uploading a new image.

To rank your images and pages higher, write alt text that specifically describes the image and possibly includes your keyword.

Alt Text Improves Your Seo And Site Accessibility.

Mobile Friendly, Responsive

Mobile is running the world right now and will continue to through 2020 and beyond.

That’s why if your website isn’t very compatible for people looking you up on their phones, they’ll quickly leave your site. Then you will get dinged in search results for not keeping people on your site for longer.

Most WordPress themes include a mobile friendly, responsive design.

If you’re not on WordPress, consider moving your site there. Or hire a web developer to get your site to look just as good on mobile as it does on desktop.

Site Speed

How fast does your website load? If it’s not fast then your SEO is suffering.

Faster page load times result in better search rankings, more customers staying on your site, and higher website related sales.

Admittedly this is technical speak. However to improve site speed, you need to compress files, optimize image sizes, use caching, Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.

You can discover how fast your desktop and mobile site speed is by putting your website through Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Google will give you recommendations on how to improve your speed.

Follow those, and you’re good to go!

URL

Depending what your website runs on (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, etc.), the default URL structure (permalink) for the pages you publish can harm your search engine performance.

Pages best optimized for search will look like robbenmedia.com/insert-keyword-here and not robbenmedia.com/p?34xh62.

For best results, only include the keyword you want to rank for in the back end of the URL. Do not make the mistake of including the entire page title.

You can make it easier by selecting post name as the permalink structure in WordPress.

Valuable Content

Though not at the top of this checklist, spectacular content is the number one contributor for getting thousands of interested leads to go from their search engine to your website.

The goal of Google and other search engines is to send the most valuable content to the top of the search results.

By writing long (ideally 2,000 words plus), in- depth, and valuable pages and blog posts, you give your website a significantly better chance to rank higher.

It Takes Hard Work To Provide Serious Value To People.

Internal Linking

Linking one page of your site to another page of your site is beneficial for SEO because it helps people click more pages.

These links give ranking power to the linked page. And helps organize your site for search crawl bots.

Don’t overdo it, but it sometimes helps to make the words in the link match the keyword of the page that’s being linked to.

Sitemap Crawling

Google and other search engines have digital spiders that crawl from one link to another to better understand your website.

When you add a sitemap through a plugin on WordPress or do it yourself, you help Google rank you higher since you’ve made your website accessible to them.

Off-Site SEO Checklist

Receive links to your site
Social sharing
Social media marketing
Influencer marketing
Listings
Online reviews

Receive Links To Your Site

External links are considered by many experts as the most important ranking factor for off-site and all SEO. The term external link describes when another website links to your website.

Google views a link going back to your site as a vote of confidence to rank your domain higher.

The way you can receive them is by writing excellent content in your space worthy of being linked to. Publishing original data that others find fascinating. Guest blogging on other websites and receiving a link. And sometimes just politely asking other business owners to link back to your site.

Social Sharing

Less powerful as external links but under the same reasoning, when other people share your website on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms, not only will more people click the link and read your content, but search engines notice and will rank your website higher since they function by and large as a popularity contest.

You can influence this by adding social media sharing buttons to the sidebar of your website.

Another smart move is to write a call-to-action asking people to share this page in the conclusion of a blog post.

Why Turn Down Free Advertising From Your Readers?

Social Media Marketing

You don’t only have to rely on other people linking to and sharing your website.

You can take positive action yourself to capitalize on off-site SEO.

Placing your website domain, address, and phone number in every social media profile under your business name will give your website an extra SEO boost.

Then share links on these platforms to market your business to a broader audience.

Influencer Marketing

Be it a national celebrity or a local teenager with a large Instagram following, your off-site SEO improves when others mention your business website in a social media post, video, or a post on their website.

Paying for influencer marketing often has an excellent ROI on its own. And when it’s coupled with an SEO boost, that’s even better.

Listings

If you haven’t listed and verified your business on listings like Google, Facebook, Yelp, Bing, etc., your company is missing out. You should be capitalizing on these on easy off-site SEO opportunities.

Enter your correct business information, add pictures, and receive online reviews to show up in more relevant search terms.

Online Reviews

Online reviews on listings like Google, Facebook, and Yelp account for roughly 10% of your search rank according to Moz.

And when you consider the fact that 72% of customers have to read an online positive review before they take action, doing this becomes a top to-do list item for your business.

Politely ask your previous customers to leave a review. Give them a card to take home with them so they remember. Or incentivize them in some fashion to honestly review your business.

Get creative with it, and your local search performance will improve.

Check Your Site’s SEO

On-Site SEO Checklist

Keywords
Page title
Meta description
Image optimization
Image alt text
Mobile friendly, responsive
Site speed
URL
Valuable content
Internal linking
Sitemap crawling

Off-Site SEO Checklist

Receive links to your site
Social sharing
Social media marketing
Influencer marketing
Listings
Online reviews

SEO Wrap Up

Optimizing your website for search will drive interested leads to your business. These leads will convert into sales. And your profits will grow more than ever before.

Execute all of the on-site SEO tactics first. Then make an off-site SEO effort. And I hate to break it to you, but you’re not done after that. It’s important you continuously put in work to create an online presence that grows your business.

The word “continuously” is there for a reason. Many of the on-site SEO changes are a one time fix. But others like publishing valuable content on your website and definitely the off-site SEO work needs to remain a focus going forward for best results.

The second you take your eye off the ball is when your traffic plummets and your competitors go on an online search land grab.

Stay on the offensive with SEO and you won’t face that problem.

One last time, we have to remind you. When you do search engine marketing right, it will forever change the trajectory of your business.

When should you get started to earn that $100,000 of SEO traffic? Right now.

Want Help Getting Traffic?

If you’re going through this checklist and face some challenges or technical issues that you know you’re not equipped for, consider working with Robben Media for SEO.

We’ve built blogs that get close to 1 million page views a year. And that’s why we’re confident we can get similar results for your business website!

What are your favorite SEO tips for growing traffic?