BoostOne, Author at Boost One SEO | Page 7 of 17
Young people work in modern office.

How to Create SEO-Focused Pages for IT Companies

HOW TO CREATE SEO-FOCUSED PAGES FOR IT COMPANIES

The demand for IT companies is growing, and industry growth is chasing after that demand. That means there are a lot of companies competing for the same pool of business. To be effective in securing that business, an IT company must stand out. This is best achieved by having a strong online presence, which means strong SEO tactics must be used so your website will rank well under relevant search terms on Google.

However, strong SEO starts with a good website. There are certain elements of a well-built website, such as:

  • A relevant domain that isn’t too long
  • Hosting that enables fast site speed
  • A content management system that allows for easy and fast editing (i.e., WordPress)
  • Testimonials and links to positive company reviews
  • Social media buttons that allow visitors to share content
  • A visually pleasing design that is easy to follow
  • An open path to being able to sign up for services or make contact
  • Fresh content that keeps visitors up-to-date on the business and industry
  • Evidence that there are actual people behind the website because IT websites can seem very “mechanical”

If you have these key components in place, you have laid a good foundation for a site that can be properly optimized for search engines.

Getting Your IT Company Website to Rank Well

To make sure your great IT company website ranks well, you want to start with placing internal links throughout your content that link to other pages on the site. Navigation doesn’t begin and end with the menus on the website. You can map out how you want the pages to link and then go to the site pages and create the hyperlinks.

Basically, you want to think of your website as a filing cabinet. When you are creating pages, make sure your keyword is in your URL. For example: example.com/mykeyword/. The content management system you are using may automatically do this for you when you create the page title. That’s why it’s important to make sure keywords are in the page title. If you are using subdomains, don’t split content into subdomains when it can be split into sub-folders.

Also, add keywords to your meta title and meta description. Keywords have a lot of SEO juice when they are used properly throughout the website. Just make sure you don’t use them too much. One relevant keyword per page with semantic keywords naturally placed in the text will make Google happy.

Avoid Common SEO Issues

There are some things that can happen that can confuse search engines. If a search engine becomes confused, it can work against you. For instance, you don’t want orphaned content on your site that the search engine can’t find. You could have a magnificent piece of text, but no internal link leading to it could leave it hanging high and dry. You also want to avoid content that can only be found through a site search. This is because Google isn’t going to use the search function to find pieces of content that may not have any other doorway leading to it.

You also want to avoid overly flashy effects. Videos can be great, but not in excess. You don’t exactly want a video to be a focal point since not everyone wants to wait for a video to find out what they need to know. Video should be an optional supplement. The same applies to audio files.

If you’re a fan of frames, you want to avoid those as well. Frames can be problematic when a search engine crawls your website. It can be confusing because the frame contains information from another website. This could easily be interpreted as duplicate content.

Another thing to note: although Google has gotten better at reading AJAX pages, you want to use it sparingly. Content can become obscured if AJAX is everywhere.

Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

Mobile-friendliness is key since more people are using their mobile devices to conduct searches. We are no longer in the computer-first age. When a site is optimized for search engines, the mobile layout needs to be equally considered. Search engine results for mobile can be different than the results shown to someone on a computer. This is because the search landscape is somewhat different for mobile users than it is for computer users. You want to rank well for both. Responsive web design is no longer enough, so you should pay extra attention to mobile design.

Grab Your Audience

Overall, you will rank well when everything is done well. Both humans and search engines should have a good idea of what your IT company’s website is about. If they’re confused, they will leave as soon as they arrive at the site. That is why you must think of the website as the foundation and the SEO as the beautiful house that attracts your target audience.

Need help optimizing your company website for search engines?
Click Here to Book a Free 20-Minute Consultation With One of Our Experts

Read More
BoostOne June 21, 2019 0 Comments
Male realtor handshaking clients after successful negotiations in office

How to Build an SEO Strategy That Dominates the Insurance Market

HOW TO BUILD AN SEO STRATEGY THAT DOMINATES THE INSURANCE MARKET

Insurance companies have a unique set of goals to achieve through their websites. With so many companies out there, the competition is very stiff. The websites have quote tools, quote comparison options, and even package information. What you have to do is get the attention of your audience and convince them to ask you for a quote or use the tools on your site so you can convert them into customers. To get them there, you must have a strong SEO strategy, or they may not find your insurance website in the first place.

Preparing to Build a Strong Insurance Website SEO Strategy

SEO will give you a great edge when competing with other insurance companies. If your insurance SEO is done right, you can win the war for traffic and outperform your competitors. This means properly utilizing highly competitive insurance-related keywords on your website and even outside of it.

To prepare for building a strong SEO strategy, you must do the keyword research. This can be done using the Google Keyword Planner. You can also check out the related keywords in Google when you perform a relevant search to see what people are looking for.

Once you have your keywords, you need to map out your content so you know where it is going to go. Make sure there is no duplicate content and that the topics are as diverse as possible. Even a related topic can lead to accidental duplication. When determining what content is needed, think of the questions that customers frequently ask. Write blog posts and articles relating to those frequently asked questions. People come to insurance websites for answers, so give your visitors what they’re looking for.

Crafting an SEO Strategy for Your Insurance Website

Once you have mapped out the content, it’s time to write it and integrate it into your website. However, make sure that the content isn’t the only thing you lean on. An effective SEO strategy has many moving parts. Link to authoritative websites in some places throughout your content, but don’t do it too much. You must also make sure your pages are linked to each other. Internal linking is an important part of ensuring search engines index every nook and cranny of your website.

You can also use the following checklists to help you ensure your insurance website is competitive.

For on-page SEO:

  • Have a keyword in your page title
  • Make sure there are headings tags throughout (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
  • Keep track of the website’s bounce rate to see what percentage of users are leaving quickly
  • Create a sitemap and submit it to Google
  • Necessary duplicate content should have canonical tags

In addition to your on-page SEO, get some high-ranking websites to link to you. Don’t create a bunch of links yourself because that can look spammy. People used to go to directories and create inbound links to their websites in order to add some “link juice.” Google catches on to tactics like this. If they see a tactic as spammy, it gets classified as a black hat SEO move that you just want to stay away from. Sure, there are times you are going to create links to your site, particularly when you list with sites like Yelp. However, you don’t want to go and create a hundred links in a week. It’s best if it happens naturally.

One way to encourage organic links is to create a blog. If you provide people with valuable content on a regular basis, they are more likely to share the website. The topics should be interesting because visitors won’t share boring content or content they’ve seen before.

The Power of Social Media

You also want to make sure you use social media. Put social media share buttons on your website so your pages and blog posts can be shared. You want your content shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and wherever else your visitors want to spread it around. It’s much easier for them when they have buttons, especially when accessing your website from their mobile devices.

In the meantime, make full use of your own social media accounts. When there’s an update, let your followers know about it. When a new blog post is posted, share it. Not only does posting updates, deals, valuable tidbits of information, and blog posts keep your audience informed, but you encourage your audience to share the information. This can grow your following over time. A larger following means more shares. More shares mean more business. Overall, everything you do on your website and off of it fits together like a puzzle. You just have to make sure you create a plan, document the plan, and follow it. Skipping a step or not doing everything in a specific order can have a negative impact on your SEO efforts.

Need help with your website SEO? Click here to get a FREE SEO Analysis

Read More
BoostOne May 8, 2019 0 Comments
real estate concept, property value diagram, with a man in background typing on computer, buy a house

6 Most Important SEO Ranking Factors for Real Estate Websites

6 MOST IMPORTANT SEO RANKING FACTORS FOR REAL ESTATE WEBSITES

Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t only about content with relevant keywords. Although this aspect of SEO carries a lot of weight, more goes into a strong SEO strategy for real estate websites. When you want results, you must look deeper into the website at components like the URL, social media utilization, organic backlinks, and the overall structure of the website. It doesn’t even stop there, which is why it’s important to know the following list of important ranking factors for real estate websites.

On-Page SEO for Real Estate

On-page SEO is where you will utilize your keywords. You need to have keywords in the content but also in the title tag and meta description. You can also use keywords in the alt tags of images. This is called “image optimization,” and it’s important because search engines can’t see images. Search engines rely on alt tags to properly index an image.

Search engine algorithms also prefer fresh content. This can be achieved by updating content as needed and posting regular blog posts to the website. As you refresh content and post new content, it is good to make sure you link internally to other pages on the website. This creates a hierarchy that visitors and search engines can follow.

The Website’s URL

It is good to have a keyword in the URL. This is an on-page SEO strategy that’s important. To do that, make sure the “slug” after the .com in the URL is the page title. If the page title contains the keyword, you’re in business. This sends a positive signal to Google.

Outbound Links

Another important element of on-page SEO is the outbound links. Find an authoritative source and link to it. It’s a way to send a user to another site to learn more about a subject. Why do you want to do this? It’s because it’s a Google trust factor. Make sure these links are used in moderation because too many can hurt your own PageRank. Diminished PageRank hurts your real estate website’s search visibility.

Off-Page SEO for Real Estate

Off-page SEO involves tactics that are carried out outside of the website. Obtaining inbound links is a good strategy because they show that other websites have trust in your website. However, you want to make sure that these links are acquired organically. Registering with business directories can hurt you more than help you. This has made the directory an obsolete link-building tactic. Think about quality over quantity when it comes to links. As a real estate website, many of your links will happen naturally because people will share property listings from your website. Most of these shares occur over social media.

Social Media

When using social media to give your real estate business an online boost, don’t rely on just Facebook. Make sure you have a Google My Business page, engage on Twitter, use Instagram, and make an impact in the world of social media so people will share your content. Shared content means more traffic. More traffic translates into a better ranking.

Real Estate Website Structure

Of course, the website coding needs to be clean. A good web designer will ensure there isn’t a lot of “junk” in the code that can bog down the website. A good web designer will also make sure you have a sitemap that helps search engines index all website pages. There are also some trust factors that must be included. Some of those factors include:

  • A thorough “About Us” page
  • Social media accounts that are active
  • A domain name that is at least two years old (this comes with time)
  • Whois info (website registration) that matches your contact info
  • Check incoming links occasionally to make sure they are trustworthy so you can eliminate those that aren’t
  • Not too many outbound links throughout the site
  • A mobile-optimized website so it can be viewed on any device
  • A domestic server
  • Google Search Console integration (verification counts)

These aren’t all the trust factors, but they are very relevant to real estate websites and should be taken into consideration.

SEO Checklist

If you really want to dive deep into SEO for your real estate website, you can look at an SEO checklist. The list has approximately 200 items that include everything from domain length to duplicate content on the same website. If you can hit as many of those points as possible on your website, with those described in this article being those you want to target first, then you can greatly improve your website’s ranking.

Looking for help with your real estate websites SEO? Click here to get a FREE SEO Analysis of your website!

Read More
BoostOne April 5, 2019 0 Comments