What is SEO? By now, if you are a subscriber to our blog or attended one of our many seminars or courses, you can answer this question in a few sentences. For the sake of any new readers or those looking for beginner guides, we will describe what SEO means to us, Plush Global Media, today in 2016.
Search engine optimization is NOT a stand alone entity. Many assume that it only involves the process of optimizing a website for the search engines. Using keywords, content, and meta data to get the attention needed to start ranking. Although some of these points do in fact help push your site onto Google’s radar, we’ve discovered that SEO today, should be treated like a tree. Therefore there are many branches of search engine optimization, and we like to encompass all of them by referring to it as online marketing.
Today, SEO looks beyond keywords, and metadata – ask yourself a few questions:
If you were to practice optimization today or implement those practices, where would you start? Would you focus on content? How about metadata, tags and headings? Which strategy best describes SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? You can see exactly where we are going with this line of questioning. The fact is modern SEO involves strategies, several of them that are all aimed at getting results. Each strategy can stand alone, but it’s only when we combine elements that results really begin to take shape.
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For example, a content strategy might work for a while, but eventually it will take more to boost your brand and gain visibility. Let’s not forget about customer relationships or building sturdy B2B relationships. Today, optimization done right can gain you valuable insights, and helps increase customer engagement. But most of all, SEO can help you build trust online around your brand, and at the end of the day, building trust online matters the most.
Combining SEO Elements and Signals
Search Engine Land (SEJ), created this incredible SEO Periodic Table, and have recently updated it to reflect last years findings. As marketers, we must constantly evolve with search engine optimization, and online marketing in general. We understand that at any moment, Google can shake things up, making our jobs more of an upward battle. But, the upward battle is the challenge, and once we understand what makes Google’s algorithm tick, we can implement awesome strategies for our clients.
We’re not saying we know Google’s secret sauce, of course not. But we agree with Search Engine Land when they treat SEO like a very intricate science. This new updated Search engine optimization Periodic table features some of the best elements of SEO, and combines together what works best, and what might get you penalized. This is based on interpretation of Google’s ranking factors, of which there are over 200.
How Does SEO Help?
Here is what we know, based on previous years of experimenting – Search engines like Google, reward pages with the right combination of ranking factors or signals. Today so much has changed online including online marketing, sales funnels, conversions and even the search engine giant themselves. More Google products are being pushed into our marketing spheres that enable us to better measure our sites success.
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Today, optimization is about ensuring your content, and other on page factors generate the right type of signals. The chart from SEJ, takes a look at these signals, and summarizes the major factors you should be focusing on to successfully rank in the search engines.
