buckets of seo to rank on google

There are 3.5 billion searches a day on Google, which means there are probably hundreds of people searching for what your business is selling right now. We can all agree that it’s important for your business to be found by new customers.

After all, it’s a lot easier for your business to grow if people are calling you and not the other way around. If you can show up in Google’s top results page, then you have unlimited access to all those customers searching for a solution to their problem.

In this article, I’m going to reveal my 3 buckets of Search Engine Optimization and how you can use it to bring you new customers, daily.

Bucket 1: Technical SEO

When looking for a home you want a sturdy foundation and a well-built wood frame, right? Just like it’s important to have good home infrastructure, it’s important to have a proper website infrastructure. Every day Google is looking at trillions of websites and a good way to make your website stand out is to make it easy for Google to read.

For example, when you search for “marketing companies Wilmington” there are 13.3 million websites that Google thinks are relevant!

So, it’s no surprise that Google is going to prefer (and reward) websites that are built properly.

Google sees your website a bit differently than you and I. We look at the images and text displayed; however, Google sees your website in code.

If your pages are code-messy, built without logic, and unorganized Google isn’t going to recommend your website to searchers because it’s difficult to understand.

To ensure your website’s infrastructure is correctly built, here is a short checklist you can run through:

  • Sign up for Google Search Console. This gives you direct insight into how Google sees your website and helps troubleshoot any problems.
  • Test your website on the Mobile-Friendly and PageSpeed test. These tools help you determine if your site loads quickly and is friendly to browse on mobile phones.
  • Write Meta Title & Descriptions to describe what each page is about. More information.

The goal of Technical SEO is to make sure you’re correctly presenting your website to Google. By doing so you can boost your rankings by simply cleaning-house.

Bucket 2: Writing Content

Imagine your website as a book and each website page as a chapter. How long will your chapters be? Do your chapters contain helpful information or is it all fluff?

Well, Google reads your website content like a book. It looks at all the text on each page and determines if that page is worthy of satisfying a searchers’ problem, question, or query. So, if your website has little or unhelpful information then Google’s not going to show it to its users.

For example, if I search Google for “dental implants in Wilmington,” the websites that show are from Wilmington dentists that have the most helpful content about dental implants.

Google isn’t a local in your town and it certainly doesn’t know which dentist provides the best care. It only looks at the dental websites in your area and ranks them based off how well that website’s content answers the searcher’s query. The website that speaks most clearly about what dental implants are, why I need them, and why their practice is the place to get them from, is the one that will rank the highest.

Here’s a quick checklist to check if your website has the content needed to rank. [for a more intensive list click here]

  • If you want to rank for the word “coffee” use like-words in your content. (ex. mugs, caffeine, Starbucks)
  • Answer the who, what, where, when, why, and how’s of your page. (ex. For a page about dental implants talk about who needs them, what are they, etc.)
  • Make your page headline pack-a-punch. Write an eye-catching headline to entice website visitors to read your whole page.

Pro Tip: When you make a website page think about what searches you want your page to show up for. For example, when writing a page about implants, it’s likely people will search “dental implants in Wilmington” to then find your page. That’s called a focus keyword, so include it a few times on that page.

But don’t be fooled, this does not mean that your website needs to contain monotoned, dry content to appease Google crawling it. You have to remember who is calling your business, the person on your website, not Google. So your content needs to be a mix of containing the keyword you want to rank for as well as providing the information needed to make someone pick up the phone and call your business.

Bucket 3: Building Backlinks

Google has many signals it looks at when determining what websites to rank when a search is performed.

That being said, sometimes having a technically sound website and writing content isn’t enough to rank. When that’s the case I urge you to look into building backlinks.

Don’t know what a backlink is? Well, I’m sure you’ve seen them in the wild.

A “backlink” is the name for when a website, that isn’t yours, links to your website. In the example above, Redfin wrote an article about servicing HVAC systems and in their content they linked to one of our client’s sites: www.carolinacomfortair.com.

This earned Carolina Comfort Air a backlink. The more backlinks a website receives the more Google sees that website a leader in its industry.

Earning backlinks is the last step when optimizing your website because sometimes you can rank your website by completing the first two buckets (technical SEO & content). However, when you’ve completed those and you’re still not ranking, it’s smart to invest resources into a strong backlink campaign.

There are many ways to earn backlinks (view a complete list) but know that if you’re consistent and patient, it’s a sure way to boost rankings on an already optimized website.

In Closing

Use these SEO buckets by first starting at the top and working down. Do your due diligence and fix your website’s technical problems, then write helpful, engaging content, and lastly, earn backlinks.

However, be warned, optimizing your website to rank is not as simple as checking off the “to-dos” I gave above. SEO is more of a science — adding and tweaking the right ingredients to customize a strategy for your website.

If you can’t wait to get your website ranked for your product or service then contact us and we’ll build you a website and take care of all the SEO for you.