3 Pieces of the SEO Pie: Going Back for Seconds

Introduction

Our latest video on the 3 Pieces of the SEO Pie explain the three main components that go into a successful SEO campaign. If you’ve seen the video, you might remember that links, content, and site architecture were the three components we covered, with links making up more than two-thirds of the pie. Today, we’ll go back for seconds and talk about how you can improve each of the three in more detail. Let’s go ahead and get started.

Links 

Inbound links, or online PR, make up the long-term strategy in an SEO campaign. Links tell search engines and humans about how the Internet is connected, and they have a lot of weight in Google’s ranking factors. We discussed the most powerful ways to get links in the video: create content pieces that will help your customer base and solicit them to highly authoritative, relevant online publications.

You can obtain links in other ways, too. For example, you can submit your business to online directories, which provide listing information to potential customers looking for the service you provide. These directory submissions also show up in search engine result pages (SERPs), and they’re one of the most effective ways to increase your online equity. Some common directories include Yelp!, CitySearch, and InsiderPages. Remember not to pay for links. Google and other search engines consider “paid-for” links as spam, which ultimately result in penalties.

Content

On-page/on-site content tells your customers and search engines about what your business does. These are the words, images, and other elements that make up your website, and it’s important to give potential customers and search engines something to read when they come to your site. In the video, we talked about the importance of blogging for business to promote your products and services. Also, blogging gives search engines a reason to frequently visit and index your website.

We covered a lot of what makes up on-page/on-site content in the video, so we thought we’d expand a little further into your content that exists on other websites. It’s important to be social across multiple networks such as Google+, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more. Sharing your content in a social online environment increases your chances of being found in other places. Also, you may want to consider some relevant blog commenting. For instance, if you own a flower shop in St. Louis, it would be beneficial to do some blog commenting on blogs related to flowers, arrangements, gardening, etc. This way, you can attract the attention of those who are already interested in your product or service. Plus, you may get a link that points to your site for commenting on another blog. 

Architecture

The last component we covered in the video talked about the role that site architecture plays in your website. These are the highly technical, nitty-gritty, behind-the-scenes look into how search engines view your website. Things like sitemaps, navigation, robots.txt files, and HTML tags can be grouped into this category. Often, this may be the most pertinent issue regarding whether or not your site is being index or ranked by search engines. You may want to pull aside a web developer or someone who can help you understand the subject matter of this section.

What else can you do to improve the architecture of your site? Well, there are many things that go into this category, and you can always reference some previous blog posts on the importance of meta tags or optimizing images for SEO. Nevertheless, you can do a few basic things to ensure your site is getting indexed. First, in the Chrome Internet browser, go to your settings, then advanced settings, then privacy, and then content settings. Here, you will be able to turn off Javascript. Go ahead and turn off Javascript and refresh your website’s homepage. Then, ask yourself whether or not you’re seeing all of the navigational links. Do they work? What is missing? When you turn off Javascript, you see a website a lot like a search engine robot would see it. Avoid Flash or Javascript when building your website. Trust us.

Conclusion

As always, we encourage y’all to leave some comments below. We understand that this information can be a little overwhelming, so feel free to ask questions and get involved in the learning process. Or, you can always contact us if you see a fit between your business and our services.