TAMPA SEO

Link building is an extremely specialized skill and can be broken down into many different stages to achieve quality links.

The stages are as follows:

1. Research and Planning
Research and planning are key to any great SEO link building strategy. Although research should be an ongoing pillar of every successful SEO approach, the initial research is extremely important.

We like to start with our client’s own website to look at what backlinks they already have. From the the research extends into main competitors to see what links they have. This is achieved through extremely robust software such as Ahrefs or SEMrush. We drill down on these links to find out the DR, organic traffic, if they are a follow or nofollow and even their linkbuilding strategy over the years.

Once research is underway we review which links are worth going after to help propel you to the top of Google.

2. Prospecting

Prospecting is the process of using the information we’ve gained through research to decide whether a link it worthwhile or not. After we’ve reviewed your competitors links we gauge whether or not we want to reach out to the same websites for a link of our own. Remember, not all links are good links.

3. Outreach
Outreach is the process of contacting other similar noncompetitor websites to ask for a link back to your site. This is most successfully achieved guest posting as it’s the most mutually beneficial form of backlinking. The prospect website receives expert written, desirable content for their site or blog, while we receive a link back to your site.

We use specialized software to scrape websites and find the emails of the people in charge of the company so that when we pitch a prospect to link to us, we know we’ve reached the right person. This is achieved by formulating a quality email explaining the guest posting and why its mutually beneficial to both parties.

Content Marketing

On page content is an extremely important factor in Search Engine Optimization. In short, if you do not talk about it, you will not rank for it. This seems like common sense, but time and time again we find thin pages with little or no attention to keywords or content. A great rule of thumb is each page should contain over 1000 words as a start for an optimization campaign.

We have professional SEO certified content writers for every industry. Each page is meticulously thought out and researched. Pages are written specifically for search engines and contain keywords, keyword phrases, keyword variations and more. Each page is written in the dialect and readability Google requires.

Once the page is recognized by Google we analyze movement and update the content as necessary. For example, if we notice your company start to move up the ranks for a specific keyword within a page we will expand upon content for that keyword to try to push it to the top. This is a never ending process of researching keywords and tweaking pages. Google also likes fresh content so rewriting pages is a great way to get noticed and reevaluated by Google’s robots.

We also specialize in blogging content onsite as well as guest blogging in exchange for links. Content marketing should be a top priority for every SEO marketing campaign.

Conversion Tracking

Conversion tracking is not only a great way to review ROI, but also a great research tool for any SEO campaign. Before we get into this, let’s discuss what conversion tracking is.

What is Conversion Tracking for SEO?
Although this should be a standard procedure, we constantly take over projects that do not have conversion tracking setup. Without conversion tracking you are marketing blind meaning you do not know what is working and what is not. Essentially you could be wasting time or money on something with no ROI.

We use many different avenues for conversion tracking. Google analytics allows us to setup as many conversion goals as you would like. They are a great conversion tracking tool for online marketing. We also typically track all forms and phone calls through our call tracking software, Call Rail. This allows you to drill down your marketing like peeling layers of an onion. After a customer gets to your site, what do they do? Do they call, do they fill out a form, do they leave? Tracking conversions is a great way to understand where to put your money in marketing and when to fix on page content like better promotions or calls to action.

We use conversion tracking to determine the strength of a keyword, content on a page or even to gauge the current market.

Website Architecture

Visual Realm typically will not do SEO for a website we did not build. There are multiple reasons for this. The main reason is website architecture. If you do not code your site with the correct website architecture you could kill your Tampa SEO ranking before you even start.

Google considers multiple factors into site architecture including how pages are named, how pages are formatted, how fast a website loads, how the overall site map is formulated (which is known as siloing and other multiple factors. High ranking websites must not have broken links, confusing navigation or lack any of the title tags of header tags Google is looking for. Many of these factors including siloing allow us to add keywords into the domain structure telling Google what we want to be ranked for. This also allows us to tell search engines which pages on your site are most important and which pages to give less emphasis to.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is the act of adding links from one page of your site to another page on your site that contains relevant information. This not only keeps browsers engaged by encouraging click throughs, it also tells search engines which pages you consider the most important. Internal linking also helps increase user time on site and encourages ease of navigation as it’s a natural way for readers to browse around the site.

Search Intent

One of the largest updates to the 2019 Google algorithm was a shift to focus heavily on search intent. Search intent is defined as the “ultimate goal” of the person using a search engine. This essentially ends the era of keyword stuffing in hopes of helping browsers find real answers more quickly and effectively.

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. Google is a business and although they are the front runner, they compete against all other search engines of past, present and future. They update their algorithm to consistently provide the best, most favorable results to their users so people continue to use them.

Google uses “robots” or “spiders” to crawl websites, not humans. These robots are programmed to consider many factors when it comes to ranking a website for desired keywords and phrases. This is what us Tampa SEO companies call SERPS or Search Engine Results Pages.

For example, if someone searches “Tampa SEO Company” what exactly is that user looking for? Most likely they are looking for a company that specializes in SEO in the Tampa area. The new update makes it so pages with real content rank for keywords like this, rather than pages that use keyword stuffing or other “black hat” SEO techniques of the past. The main goal of search engines is to provide the results their users are looking for.

Website Speed

Due to the rise of the mobile phone, Google has put an emphasis on websites loading fast. Quick load time also improves browser on page time and click through rate. These are all things Google takes into consideration in its ranking algorithm.

Like we mentioned above we do not do search engine optimization campaigns for sites we didn’t build. Page speed is one of the main reasons. We increase the website speed by optimizing images, using compression code like gzip and minification, put your site on a CDN (content delivery network) like Cloudflare, defer loading of scripts that should not load that top of the site, avoid the use of inline code, minimize redirects, add expiring headers and caching the site.

Our goal is to make your website load in under 2 seconds.

Average Time on Page

Another part of Google’s ranking algorithm is what happens when a visitor gets to your site. Did they stay and read the whole page? Did they leave before it loaded? Did they bounce to another page or even just leave the site completely?

These are all important factors the search engine robots look at. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. On page time means a user is finding what they are looking for. They are engaged. This goes back to “search intent” where Google and other search engines are trying to provide the best possible results to their browsers. Longer on page time to a search engine spider means the visitor is happy with what they’ve found on the page.

Name Address Phone (NAP)

Directory submission has been a long time trick for helping people find your business on the internet. Directories like Yelp, Google My Business, Whitepages, Manta and LinkedIn are common places people search for local businesses.  There are thousands more of directories just like these where you can claim or submit your business to help it get found and rank.

But, what if you move? What if your business phone or even the name changes? Over time, especially with businesses that have experienced growth, changes in employees or marketing firms, etc these directories can become outdated with incorrect information. This is where Google’s NAP comes in.

The Google Name, Address, Phone update requires this information to be exactly the same across the internet. That means the directories you submitted to 10 years ago when you first started your business, before you moved 3x and lost the passwords need to be updated with the newest Name, Address, and Phone.

Not only does Google penalize you for incorrect listing across the internet, they will dock you for minor differences in the listing like the word drive on some and dr. on others. When they say “exactly the same” they mean it!

Part of a Tampa SEO campaign with Visual Realm is making sure your NAP checks out. We also look to build roughly 80-100 citations per location to help aid in local SEO.

Reputation Management

Your online reputation is a ranking factor as well as a psychological factor for any potential customer for your company. Would you eat at a restaurant that had 1 star or pay top dollar for a 1 star hotel? Most of us would say no. Online sources are estimating over 85% of people read reviews before purchasing, visiting or contacting a business.

Not only could a poor reputation drive potential customers away but the same goes with Google. Throughout this page we’ve talked about search intent and how search engines strive to provide the best results to their users. Google does not like to recommend a business with poor reviews because it wants its browsers to be happy with the results it provides.

This is where reputation management comes in.  We build a program to gain more 5 star reviews on multiple different platforms and even respond to each and every review you receive. Responding to reviews helps customers see both sides of the story, helps search engines understand how you engage with your customers as well as is a great place to add keywords for SEO.

SEO’s misconception

One of the biggest problems in the SEO industry is that every single web design and marketing company on the planet will claim they do SEO. Heck, Godaddy offers SEO plans starting at $6.99 a month. Do you really think that is going to work? There isn’t a magical SEO button you press and poof ranking #1 on search results. It takes a ton of time and dedication to get your site to rank. Even still people think installing Yoast SEO on their website and again their website will rank for their desired keywords. I wish it was that easy but it really isnt. Back when we started in 2005 it was much simpler, you could write good title tag, meta description and put in meta keywords and you could start ranking. Over the past decade the SEO world has completely changed.