Search Engine Optimization: Making Your Website Work for You

Your ideal customer should find you on the web quickly, and making your web pages more readily available to be indexed and ranked by search engines is what Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is all about. Your website is your biggest marketing tool, and should be attracting measurable amounts of new business and new customers. If it isn’t, then SEO is one of the best ways to get it working for you.

At WSI, we have the tools and expertise to help make sure your web content is seen by the most qualified buyers for your unique business.

Here are some of the key SEO services that we offer:

• In-depth keyword analysis
• On-page & off-page content and tag optimization
• Internet business plan consulting
• Linking strategy (both internal and external)
• Local geographic optimization
• SEO for Social Media profiles

Your Unique Internet Business Plan

Having a clear view of your company’s goals is a big part of search engine optimization. Every business has unique challenges and differentiators, and knowing yours helps WSI develop a custom-fitted Internet Business Plan.

To find the best way to make your web presence work for your business, we sit down with you to talk about your overall business goals. Once we have a clear picture of your organization and how you want it to grow, we can help you apply those goals strategically to the Internet.

The Truth about Keywords: Be Specific

What is it that makes you different? At WSI, we make sure your keywords are highly targeted to your business. That’s what makes our In-depth keyword analysis so powerful.

Many people think that it’s best to use the most popular search terms as keywords... but that is just not the case.

For example, take a very broad term such as "sports." There are millions of websites out there that will be competing against you for the term “sports.” However, narrowing down to "baseball," keeps you from having to compete against football, tennis and swimming websites.

But this can be taken even further. By specifying "Oriole’s baseball," then you’ve eliminated all other baseball teams as your competition.

Our keyword analysis not only focuses on your company’s specialty, but ranks your keywords for optimal placement to boost your search engine performance.

It’s All About Content

Whether you’re doing your own web design, or you’ve hired a web developer to help you, there are certain things that need to be in place in order for your page to be properly optimized.

First and foremost, your page content should read well to your customer. The written portions of your website are vital to its success and should be optimized for customer readability as well as search engines.

Keywords are important, but unless they are expertly crafted into content that appeals to your reader, your pages won’t get read. We often work with website copywriting experts to ensure that your content has the highest possible appeal to your potential market.

On-page optimization factors

In addition to the way your website content is written to attract customers, other on-page items like page titles, graphic images, paragraph headings and links at the bottom of the page need to have strategic keywords in place.

WSI helps with this by determining the best keywords and phrases for your business to target your particular niche. We also determine the best use of those keywords in the visual areas of your website.

Off-page optimization factors

These are things that your reader doesn’t see on your webpage, such as the html or other programming source code, and the areas within that code called title, description and keyword metatags. They also need to be populated with the correct keywords for your business.

For graphics, which cannot be read by search engines, another important code area is the "alt" tag. These tags should also be optimized with descriptive keywords so that search engines can "read" the graphics on a page.

Each page of your website is indexed separately by the search engines, so we make sure each page is optimized correctly for its content. Your “home” page may not be the page that gets brought up when someone is searching for your particular service—so it’s important that each page stand on its own, with key phrases in the correct places. You never know where a potential customer will land when he’s searching for your product or service, so matching optimization is important.

Can You Optimize for Local Searches?

Absolutely! If you’re a landscaper or a builder, home remodeler or some other business that’s tied to certain geographic area, local optimization helps clients in your area find you.

Think about it—in today’s world, where do people go FIRST when they want information on any subject, even local businesses? The Internet! If you want to be found online when they’re searching, you need to include keywords such as your state and locality in your keyword list in strategic places on your website.

Local optimization is one of our specialties, because we work exclusively with clients in Maryland and Delaware.

When should I think about doing SEO in my development process if I’m a new business?

Ideally, the search engine optimization process should start before the website build process begins.

Talk with an internet consultant or a search engine expert first to determine what is needed. Once you have a written list, take it with you when you talk to your web developer and make sure those things are in place. You should also find out if you have access to either change those items or include them in your maintenance agreement.

It’s never too late...

But even if you already have a website, it’s never too late to go in and re-optimize it for better performance. Call today and get a FREE WSI Webscan Competitive Report for your website to see where you stack up against your competitors.