Search Engine Marketing, SEO
SEO: The importance of on-page optimization.
In our last blog post we talked about the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), specifically, the importance of planning for it during your next website redesign project. In the article, we just touched on the elements of SEO, but want to take a deeper dive into those elements to help you improve the findability and usability of your website.
SEO elements can be broken down into two areas: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. This article will focus on on-page SEO – and next month’s article on off-page — let’s get started.
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO is all the elements you apply to your website to improve its organic search engine result rankings. Elements include front-end content and backend metadata (the codes and tags that comprise front-end content). On-page SEO is the first step to getting your site found and creating the ultimate user experience.
Every SEO project should begin with thorough keyword research. If your site is dependent on ranking for certain keywords – this step should not be skipped — page keywords and phrases should drive front-end content and metadata, but remember, it is important to always write with the customer in mind.
Front-end on-page SEO elements
A good infographic for on-page SEO is “The Perfectly Optimized Page” by SEO Moz. We’ve broken down the elements below and explained them in greater detail.
Metadata Elements
Each page on your site should have unique and page relevant metadata elements — the elements are discussed below.
Title Tag: Title tags are what display in your site’s search snippet and browser tabs. Title tags directly affect a searcher’s decision to click-through to your site. One of the most important aspects of a title tag is that it is descriptive and relevant to the page content where the searcher will land. Keywords and keyword phrases should be front-loaded in your tag whenever possible. For example, if we are creating a title tag for our User Testing page, we’d create it as, Website User Testing – Pump Marketing Solutions. To avoid Title tag truncation by search engines, they should not exceed 60 characters.
Page Description Tag: The page description is not a search engine ranking element per se, but it is important. The Description tag appears below the Title tag in your site’s search snippet – like the Title tag, it directly affects a searcher’s propensity to click-through to your site. In essence, it is the text that drives qualified traffic to your site. A well-written description makes searchers want to learn more about your product or service. Using keywords in a page description helps create relevancy between a searcher’s search terms, and will appear bolded in the snippet. An Important note to remember when crafting a page description is that it must be highly relevant to corresponding page content. If page content does not match snippet content, the searcher will immediately leave your site (in analytic terms, this is call a bounce). When sites have high bounce rates, search engines deduce that searchers did not find the content relevant to the snippet, which can affect how they rank your pages. To avoid truncation, page descriptions should not exceed 160 characters, but note, the description in the example is only 156 characters and is truncated by nine characters. A good rule of thumb is to try and keep descriptions to 150 characters and keep the most critical information first.
URL and link structures: A well-structured URL and hyperlink is short and descriptive and should include keywords to show page relevancy. When well-structured page URLs and information hyperlinks are copied in to other sites and directories, they provide easy to recognize site and page identification. When structuring hyperlinks, on the back-end use the “href” tag as the text that displays on the page as opposed to the complete link.
Image Alt Tags: Image Alt tags identify images for search engines and visually impaired site visitors. If your image fails to load, Alt tags provide a text description of the image that should be displayed.
Page Content
Web pages should always be written with your customer in mind — they should be of value and contain content that is designed to inform, entice, and/or educate your audience. Research tells us the keywords customers use most, and it is these keywords that should appear strategically throughout your web page. Each page should also contain at least one image and one link to another page on your site or an authoritative third-party site. Page layout should flow in a way that leads the customer to take some action that is based on a page goal — meaning, the action you want site visitors to take.
Page Headings & Subheadings
Pages should be structured with headings and subheading that are wrapped in H tags — H tags are metadata that wrap the headings and subheadings to help search engines understand page content, flow, and relevancy. On the front end, headings and subheading call attention to content sections and help site visitors quickly understand page content.
H tags (H1-H6):
- The most important tag is the H1 tag — every page on your site should contain one and only one H1 tag. The H1 tag generally appears at the top of each page and provides a description of page content and whenever possible, should contain a page relevant keyword. The page’s main heading helps provide relevance to the searcher who has clicked on your search snippet.
- H2 through H6 tags are typically used to title subsections under the H1 tag on each page. Each page can contain more than one H2-H6 tag. Think of your web page like a book, the book’s title would be an H1 tag, and each chapter would be an H2 tag. If chapters require subsections, they would be titled with H3, H4, H5, & H6 tags.
Other On-Page Elements
- Social Sharing is becoming a more and more important factor in search engine rankings — if your content is good enough to share, then it must be significant and relevant.
- Page load time does not directly impact search rankings. However, slow page load times (and image load time) provide a bad user experience, and you run the risk of site visitors quickly bouncing off the site.
- Mobile Readiness is a key Google mobile search engine ranking factor. You can test your site’s pages mobile-readiness using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. One way to ensure mobile-readiness is to build your site on a responsive platform. This ensures your site renders correctly on all devices.
Summary
On-page optimization is about creating a great user experience while ensuring search engine comprehension. For the user, your site should be easily navigatable, and web page layout should be structured so site visitors can quickly find the information they need. Page content should be meaningful and relevant and written with a purpose. For search engines, the necessary SEO elements should be applied for optimal search engine rankings.
When you combine the user experience with SEO best practices, optimization occurs — as with any process or product, when even one part is defective, performance suffers or fails entirely.
Need help with any of the above on-page SEO elements? Give us a call, 360.834.2780, or send us an email — we’d love to help.
Search Engine Marketing, SEO, Site navigation, Strategy
Thinking about a website update? Don’t forget about SEO.
We are asked the same question time and time again from clients, “we just went through a site redesign and our Google Analytics stats are down — what happened?”
We usually come back with the question, “was search engine optimization part of your redesign project?” The answer usually is, “our web design firm said they performed SEO on our site.” But what we’ve learned is that typically means they simply filled in some basic metadata and that was it — far from the rigor SEO requires.
Unless search engine optimization is part of your project plan, it won’t get completed, or if it does, as we mentioned above, it is very limited. The problem with limited SEO is like building a pump or valve with missing or flawed components — the end or produced product is flawed.
What a lot of companies don’t realize is that SEO is a roadmap for search engines. It tells your site’s story and how to navigate it can be indexed and ranked for a spot on a search results page. In a nutshell, SEO is what drives visitors to your site and helps them easily find what they need.
If you’re not familiar with SEO, a basic breakdown of the elements are listed below. Our next series of blog articles will look at each element in greater depth, so you understand why it is important and best practices to apply it to your site.
SEO Elements
- Keyword research: understanding the search terms potential customers use to find your products and services.
- Backend data (metadata): applying keyword optimized information to the site’s backend code that meets search engine indexing and ranking factors.
- Sitemap submission: determining if your sitemap is correctly submitted to the search engines to ensure they understand how to navigate the site.
- Front-end content: ensuring each web page follows the rules of a well-optimized page (both from a customer and search engine standpoint).
- Internal linking: does your site’s internal linking follow a logical path and does it help educate and drive customers to conversion.
- External linking: determining how well your site utilizes external links from authoritative sites.
- Optimizing for local search: If local search is important to your business, determining how well the site is optimized for local search.
Need SEO planning before or after your website update or redesign project? We’d love to help. Give us a call at 360.834.2780 or send us an email at info@pumpmarketingsolutions.com to get started today.
Search Engine Marketing, SEO
Qualified leads
Don’t forget about your own backyard.
Pump distribution is a competitive business — not only are you competing with other distributors, but also with catalog houses and in some cases, the manufacturer.
So how do you reach those highly qualified, potential leads that reside within your region or territory? Local search engine optimization (LSEO). LSEO is something a lot of industrial companies overlook when they go through standard search engine optimization (SEO) activities. Your own backyard is the best place to target the most qualified leads.
There are a few things you can start doing today to help those within your region find your site.
- Local On-Page SEO: Adding location keywords to a relevant web page title tags, header tags, page URLs if possible, and page content.
- Citations: One of the main search engine ranking factors for local search is the number of citations a company has. A citation is any place on the web that displays your company’s name, address, and phone number (NAP). The most important thing to know about citations is that it is imperative for NAPs to appear correctly and consistently across all citations. Citation consistency allows search engines to trust location information. Citations should include photos and categories when available. To get started, locate and optimize existing citations, claim and optimize unclaimed citations, and uncover opportunities for new citations. Www.moz.com/local is a great way to get started.
- Google My Business: Google is still the number one search engine so it is important to take advantage of Google’s free tools that help give your business an edge on search results page. By claiming your Google My Business page, Google puts your company’s info on Search, Maps, and Google+ to help customers find you on any device. Get started today at www.google.com/business.
- Local Reviews: Google+ is a great way to build product and service reviews on the web. If you are hesitant about starting a blog on your company website, Google+ is a great format to get started. If you have a blog, you can post your articles on Google+ to help broaden your articles reach and grow your potential customer base. You can use Google+ to showcase your products and services with images and video.
So what are you waiting for? Get started on your Local Search Engine Optimization today and capture that business that is right in your own backyard. If you need help getting started or some guidance, don’t hesitate to give us a call, 360.834.2780.
Messaging, SEO, User Testing
The changing pump distributor landscape.
Past Reality
Pre-internet pump distributors enjoyed a captive market for the brands they sold in their region. Word got around, and their business grew with help from field sales reps and local tradeshows. The competition was local and easily identified.
Manufacturers would help distributors promote their products by offering generous product discounts and co-op advertising dollars. The only criteria for obtaining a good discount and some of those ad dollars were simple, carry a large amount of stock. A distributors value was in their ability to service their territory, build relationships, and provide quick shipping. Tradeshows had high attendance rates that generated a lot of new leads and placing print ads in industry publications helped spread the word.
Current Reality
Manufacturer’s budgets declined, which meant co-op advertising money went away. Manufacturers decided that the product discounts distributors received was more than enough incentive to promote their products. However, the generous discounts now became more structured and based on many criteria. At the same time, distributors were cutting back on the amount of inventory they carried to lower costs. Without large stocking orders, generous product discounts were in jeopardy. Tradeshows started becoming more expensive to attend, and tradeshow attendance began to decline, which meant fewer new leads for the expense. And customers stopped relying on industry publications for new product information.
Then there was this thing emerging called the internet, which further changed everything. Online pump distributors began infringing on what were once protected territories causing the competition to increase and become more complex. Customers are now using the internet to learn about new products.
For the distributor, communicating value suddenly became critical – but many smaller distributorships lacked the branding and messaging expertise to clearly communicate their value to an online audience.
Future Reality
So how in this new landscape can distributors communicate their value to local customers and broaden their reach? Here are a few good rules to follow:
- Know your customers. How do they view your website? Does your site provide them with the information they need buy your products?
- Know the value you bring and promote those values with clear and concise messaging on your website. For example, talk about the following points focusing on the benefit to the customer:
- Know the value you bring and promote those values with clear and concise messaging on your website. For example, talk about the following points focusing on the benefit to the customer:
- Local presence
- Repair service
- Immediate delivery
- Personal visits to evaluate the job
- Field service
- Equipment and skills to minimize costs
- Incorporate case studies on your site to showcase your expertise.
- Humanize your site. Show your product and fluid system experts using photos, profiles, and contact information.
- Describe your competitive advantage — what do you have to offer that the competition does not?
- If obtaining local business is important, ensure you do the following:
- Adjust web content and meta data (backend content) with localization in mind. An example is tagging installation photos with product brand and location.
- Register with local search services at ensure you use a consistent company name, address, and phone number for all listings.
Your website must become your primary promotion tool, and it must quickly, clearly, and concisely communicate your value.
Analytics, Keywords, SEO
Keyword Optimization
A couple of weeks ago we talked about the importance of user testing. User testing allows you to see your site through the eyes of the people that matter the most, site visitors. But if you aren’t driving traffic to your site, website improvements won’t matter. This is why keyword research and how you use keywords is so important to the searchability of your site.
Keywords play two different roles. First, they allow you to optimize your site with content relevant to the user and second, to the search engines. For the user, that is content about your products and services optimized with words that the user would enter into a search engine to find a company like yours. Search engines use elaborate programming algorithms to find and display web pages with content that is relevant to the searchers search terms. So if your site is not optimized for the best keywords (search terms) for your business, the search engine will not find and place your relevant web pages well on a search results page.
When we are first approached, the conversation usually goes something like this. “We have hundreds of keywords and keyword phrases listed within our site, but we don’t rank well for any of those words and phrases, except when our company or product name is used.” What gives? Can you help us?
We start any optimization project by asking the following four questions to gain an understanding of why they were not ranking well.
First, are they using the right keywords? And are they using words that extend beyond just branded keywords (words with the company or product name in them), which is a common trap industrial companies fall into — focusing just on branded keywords. The problem with branded keywords is that unless the searcher is already a customer or is someone who knows about your products, they won’t perform a search using your branded keywords. You need to focus on words and phrases that searchers use. The most important search engine optimization activity is conducting keyword research. You must drill down deep to determine if searches for popular words apply to your specific market and target audience. It is also valuable to know just how difficult it is to rank high for those keywords, and what supporting words and phrases can be used to to drive even more qualified leads to your site.
Second, is the site optimized for keywords (search) on both the front end and backend. Each web page should have a primary keyword focus (on one main idea, product, or service). Page content (front end) should use that primary keyword, along with supporting keywords (we call these secondary and tertiary keywords). And, metadata (backend) should also incorporate keywords.
Third, are they providing content that addresses customer issues and solves their problems? Most industrial companies claim to be solution providers, but their content does not always support this claim. A lot of websites are feature heavy, sometimes bypassing benefits altogether. When creating content, ask yourself, “why would the customer care?” If you can answer that question, your content will be deeper and more relevant, which is a big search engine ranking factor. Focusing content on customer needs and issues also helps you produce new and fresh content, another search engine ranking factor.
Fourth, do you analyze your site’s search and visitor data on a monthly basis?
After doing the appropriate research, we make sure we understand the overall goal of the website. For industrial companies, this is almost always lead or sales generation. Armed with this information, we then can develop a project plan to optimize the site.
Typically, the project plan includes slightly reworking the front end, even adding a few new web pages to ensure each page is focused on one topic and then keyword optimizing that content. And, updating backend metadata by giving each web page unique and relevant keyword optimized page titles, descriptions, H tags, and Alt tags.
Search engine optimization is a long term strategy. It can take months to improve your search engine results page rankings, but with a little due diligence and consistently monitoring the site’s performance, you will begin to see change and start gaining a competitive advantage.
Analytics, Keywords, SEO, Strategy
10 questions you should be able to answer about your website.
If you are like us, you are probably hounded by Internet marketers like us (not to give all of us marketers a bad name) telling you that that your website is not living up to it’s potential. What do they know that you don’t? And how do they know that it’s not meeting your expectations if they don’t even know your website goals?
Most industrial manufacturers’ and distributors’ websites are informational sites designed to inform and educate target audiences, and website goals tend to lean towards lead generation. Does your site meet the needs of customer expectations for information and are you driving them to conversion? Here are 10 questions you should ask to determine if your site is living up to its potential.
- Are our website goals in sync with our overall business goals?
- Are our goals measurable?
- Do we have tools in place to track our goals?
- Do we understand how to interpret and analyze the data to drive improvements?
- Is our website easy to navigate?
- Do we have the content site visitors want and expect to make informed decisions or that drives them to take our desired action (fill out a lead form or call us)?
- Is our site visually appealing and does site imagery support content and messaging?
- Does the site meet structural requirements to ensure optimal performance?
- Is our site properly optimized to be found and indexed by search engines?
- Do we know the search terms people use to research our products and services?
How did you do? If not so good, the good news is that it doesn’t take a lot of money or time to get your site living up to its full potential.
