With my profession comes with it a lot of questions about how to optimize websites, social media, get boosted on social media, and why it all matters.  It’s all part of the job, especially when Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be so very complicated to understand.

Since it’s constantly changing in order to avoid allowing people to learn the system and therefore perfect it, it’s not something that people can master by sticking some code in a website and walking away with perfect results.  It’s a whole process that requires good content, good keywords, and–most importantly–consistency.

I began getting certified in various forms of content marketing and SEO and reading all the SEO books I could find.  This was the beginning of a borderline obsession of content-based SEO for helping businesses get boosted in search engines and become an expert in their field by providing value to their customers and visitors.

Part of SEO is being relevant and consistent with the content you’re posting on your website and social media.  This was changed because Google found that when SEO first began and coding could be done on the backend of websites, companies were coding in popular keywords such as “Florida vacations” or “trip to Italy,” when in reality it was a website for a very popular male enhancement pill.  People trying to go to Disneyworld were in for a rude awakening…hopefully their kids weren’t in the room.

Google’s credibility as a search engine was in jeopardy, so they decided to make it more difficult to rank and more important to be relevant.  To prove relevancy, you must have relevant keywords, update your site frequently, have visitors stay on your site for a fairly extended amount of time (the thinking behind this is that if people stay on your website for a while, it must have been what they were looking for), and content that is similar to what your business and website is supposed to be.

Blogs help all of this.  Here’s how:

• Blogs help keep visitors on your website for an extended amount of time.  When people go to your website to read your blogs, they stay on it for at least a few minutes reading your blog.  Sometimes they even browse around to find out more about your business and its relevance to the blog they’re reading.
• Blogs help incorporate keywords to your website.  When you’re writing about “Ways to Relax in Chicago” as a massage therapist in the Chicago area, you’re not only incorporating a location keyword, but you’re also associating massage therapy with relaxation, which can help people find you when searching later.
• The frequency of blog posting (every week or every other week, typically…unless you’re like me and blog for other people all the time and much more sparingly for yourself) helps your website be updated frequently, so when search engine crawlers (think of them like little robotic bugs crawling through your website and scoping things out to go back and report to said search engine) come through, they see that while your website was relevant back in 2014, it’s still relevant for the same keywords now.
• They also help you provide quality content and value for your visitors.  Good content is never punished for SEO purposes!
• You can put backlinks to some of your other content or social media throughout the blog, which helps establish authority.  It’s also helpful when you add in links to authoritative websites.  For example, if you are writing a blog about FB Ads, you can stick in the link to Facebook Products, which helps you establish authority by connecting yourself with a quality website.

The fact is, yes, search engines can (and definitely will) punish you by bumping you down for over-linking with websites that aren’t relevant to your content (no spamming!), slow website performance, too many keywords, incorrect coding on the backend, and so, so many other things, but they will never punish good content.  Focus on providing value to your visitors, and you’ll be sweetly rewarded…with some bumps up on search engines.

It’s also important to remember that getting organic SEO will not happen overnight, but it’s worth it.  Putting in the time and effort (and staying consistent) to get quality content out there to customer and potential customers will get you results, and it will help you be seen as an even more reliable company!  Keep going, and share what you love!

If you need help navigating the world of organic SEO, content marketing, or blogging (Yeah, we know…it’s a lot to take in.  We literally do this every day, and there’s still so much to learn.), or if you just don’t have the time to stay consistent with creating valuable content, contact us at Pro-Assist, LLC!  We have a variety of packages available that include social media marketing, blogging, analyses/consultations, website editing/basic design, copywriting, and more!