HOW TO GET ON THE FIRST PAGE OF GOOGLE – YOUR QUICK SEO GUIDE

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can sometimes be a confusing, intangible, and colossal project to navigate and many clients come to us not sure where to start. So that’s why we want to give you a quick, down and dirty guide to SEO so you feel confident about how it works and what you need to do to get on the first page of Google.

WHAT IS SEO? HOW IS IT DIFFERENT THAN GOOGLE ADS?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. There are three main elements that support the practice:

Quality of traffic = Quality leads. You can attract all the visitors in the world, but if they’re coming to your site because Google tells them you’re a resource for wedding photography when really you’re a small business selling gold bracelets, that is not quality traffic. Instead, you want to attract visitors who are genuinely interested in products that you offer.

Quantity of traffic. Once you have the right people clicking through from those search engine results pages (SERPs), more traffic is better.

Organic results. Ads make up a significant portion of many SERPs. Organic traffic is any traffic that you don’t have to pay for.

Think of SEO and Google Ads like Real Estate

SEO (organic search) is an amazing compliment to paid Google Ads (paid search) to get on the first page of Google. You can think of online marketing as you would real estate.

When you own a home, you need to do day-to-day maintenance to take care of your house and protect your investment. Think of your website as a purchased house and SEO as the required maintenance. Whatever remodeling and maintenance are done on your website through SEO is yours to keep and helps protect your investment.

Investing in Google Ads is like renting an awesome apartment in the heart of downtown. It’s convenient and easy – right down the street from all the cool bars – but because of its prime location, it’s at the top of your budget. And once your lease is over, it’s gone. You don’t have any equity in it so you never actually “own” anything. 

Even though Google Ads help get you to the top of Google’s SERP, they have that silly little “Ad” symbol next to them which makes it slightly less trustworthy to your potential customer. Nonetheless, you only pay when people click, not just when they’re viewed, which helps!

SEO builds your brand, builds your community, gives you tons of content to post and repurpose, and shows you as a trusted source in the industry. The best practice to execute SEO is strategic, keyword-focused blog writing. A single piece of content can turn into 5 Instagram posts, an infographic, a few Facebook posts, quote graphics, etc.

TOP 3 THINGS GOOGLE LOOKS FOR IN SEO

For a website to be found organically on Google, Google looks for 3 main qualities:

Frequency: Your website must be updated with NEW content regularly (at least once a week, ideally more).

Relevancy: You are updating your website with keywords and topics that your audience cares about. Nolia Roots is subscribed to a service that helps us curate the exact keywords utilized by your target audience so we can develop content around those topics. 

We can also note any long-tail keywords that help with SEO even more. For example, we might find that there’s a high volume of people in this area that search for “gold and pearl dangle bracelet” instead of just “gold bracelet.” In that case, we’ll include the long-tail keyword “gold and pearl dangle bracelet” in our content to increase our SEO.

Popularity: Is it being shared on social media and beyond?

Have questions? Email us below!