The Ultimate SEO Agency Guide For Companies & Brands

Introduction To Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is a practice that’s been around for 25 plus years.  With major search engines including Google, Yahoo, and Bing/Microsoft becoming the top places for commerce and growth for brands, one’s ability to rank organically and get free traffic to their websites is a level of currency that you can’t put a dollar figure on.

Growing organic search engine traffic to your website is one thing.  But getting your desired traffic for the keywords that has the highest commercial intent for your brand and your business is another process that requires patience, an understanding of what the search engines want, knowing your competition, and showcasing your business as having the most authority and relevance via the keywords searchers are typing into the search engines.

In this guide, we will break down SEO  into seven (7) areas:

• Fundamentals Of SEO
• On-Page SEO
• Technical SEO
• Local SEO
• Competitor Analysis
• Content Marketing
• Link Building, Marketing & Promotion

As you read through this SEO Company Guide, remember that SEO is about feeding the search engines what they want, giving searchers what they want, providing a good user experience for the searchers, and ensuring your website and its content is being given a thumbs up by other websites, otherwise known as backlinks.

There are advanced aspects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) we discuss in this guide, but if you are a local or national brand owner or even a marketing director, you will know what to look for and how to hold other SEO Agency Companies accountable whether you are outsourcing the SEO Company work or doing it in-house.

Key Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

 

Before we get into the more tactical areas of search engine optimization (SEO), we wanted to break it down to a sheer marketing level.

 

Don’t skip this section.  The rest doesn’t matter if you don’t understand SEO at the core level of marketing and consumer behavior.  The four points below is vital to being effective and excelling at SEO.

 

SEO = Answering Questions & Providing Value

 

If the goal with SEO is to optimize your website for search engines, the unspoken objective is to optimize your website for people, searchers and what they need answers to.   Nothing is more frustrating for a consumer who visits a website that doesn’t find what they need or worse off doesn’t get answers to the key questions they needed answers for.

 

Remember that when a searcher visits Google, Yahoo, or Bing, they are only spending 60 seconds or less on one of those search engines.  So, it becomes even more critical to ensure your website is optimized to the user and providing answers to questions centered around the searcher.  Here are some tips we suggest for brands to make both search engines and people happy after visiting your website:

• • Build out landing pages full of information
  • Consider all the questions centered around the search query
  • Break up the content to create a good user experience (bullet points, design elements, video, images, etc.)
  • Ensure the search query (keywords) is in fact peppered throughout the website and landing pages

We will discuss more of this in future sections of the SEO agency guide, but building websites based on value and user experience will inherently land you in better graces with consumers.

 

E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness & Trustworthiness)

 

Showcasing your expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness is how you build a mindset of maintaining a great website and content for searchers.  It’s not enough to put up a website and let the world know you exist. Or create a blog post with 3 tips.  You need to show your expertise and have it shine through your content.

 

A pro tip is searching via your top keywords, and seeing what your competition is saying on their websites.  Are their websites thin on content?  Are they answering questions you didn’t think about originally?  Is their menu navigation easier for consumers to locate information?  Are the websites filled with helpful videos?  This will help generate ideas to showcase your expertise and authority in your space.

 

Another pro tip we often do is performing an actual search for the keyword and seeing what additional questions and terms people who searched for that original term asked about. For the world of geofencing marketing, we identified people also looked for information on costs, types of geofencing, geofencing competitors, etc.  See example below on the additional questions Google provided that people are also looking for answering on.

 

 

 

Keyword Research Proficiency

 

This deserves an entire course by itself. We did a video on conducting keyword research here.  We perform keyword research for both SEO and Paid Ads for Google and Microsoft Ads.  There are a number of tools you can tap into, but conducting keyword research prior to any SEO is critical.  It typically starts with the seed keywords you believe your brand is relevant to, but those seed keywords can help sprout many other terms that are tangentially relevant to your original terms you had in mind.

 

Often we see brands want to rank for keywords that consumers are NOT even searching for.  Or even worse, SEO agencies will claim they ranked you for keywords with low commercial intent or low search volume because there really isn’t a lot of SEO competition for those terms.  So when you think the SEO company is doing a good job and you’re getting traffic, the truth is those keywords are not translating into calls, booked appointments, leads or sales. Some of our favorite tools for keyword research include:

1. • Google Keyword Planner – Utilize Google’s own Keyword Planner to discover keywords, get search volume data, and generate keyword ideas. It’s part of Google Ads and is free to use.
   • SEMrush – SEMrush is a versatile SEO tool that offers robust keyword research features, including competitor analysis, keyword difficulty, and related keyword suggestions.
   • Ahrefs – Ahrefs provides comprehensive keyword research capabilities, including search volume, keyword difficulty, and the ability to explore competitor keywords and backlinks.
   • Moz Keyword Explorer – Moz’s Keyword Explorer offers insights into keyword difficulty, search volume, and click-through rates. It also provides valuable suggestions for related and long-tail keywords.
   • Ubersuggest – Ubersuggest is a free tool that provides keyword suggestions, search volume, and competition data. It also offers insights into content ideas and competitor analysis.
   • AnswerThePublic – AnswerThePublic visualizes search query data to provide content ideas and keyword suggestions based on user questions and phrases.
   • KeywordTool.io – KeywordTool.io helps you discover long-tail keywords by generating autocomplete suggestions from various search engines, including Google, Bing, and YouTube.
   • SpyFu – SpyFu allows you to spy on your competitors’ keywords, ad strategies, and ranking history. It provides valuable insights for refining your own keyword strategy.
   • Long Tail Pro – Long Tail Pro specializes in finding long-tail keywords, helping you identify less competitive and more specific search terms.
   • Google Trends – Google Trends shows the popularity of search terms over time, helping you identify trending topics and seasonality in search behavior.
   • Keyword Surfer (Chrome Extension) – Keyword Surfer is a handy Chrome extension that provides search volume and keyword suggestions directly in the Google search bar.

Our tool of choice is Keyword Surfer, which is a free Chrome extension.  But whichever tool you decide to utilize, keyword research is a critical fundamental first step in effective SEO Company strategy.

 

Your Customer Journey Research

 

The final key area in SEO before starting any other aspects of Search Engine Optimization execution involves understanding your customer journey and getting those questions answered as they go throughout that journey.   I gave the short example of geofencing marketing, but let’s take another.

 

For example, if you are a brand in search of presentation software, that software company may want to think through the various iterations of a customer journey and what that consumer may go through before making a decision.

 

I’m taking a stab at this myself, but this is how I’d map it out:

1. • Searcher realizes his team or himself needs a more robust presentation software solution
   • Imagines all the problems that solution must solve for
   • Determines if he has the budget or funds to pay for such a software
   • Begins to research a bunch of competitors and look at key offerings
   • Wonders which presentation software providers integrations with his company’s key communication channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Monday.com or Click Up.
   • How long does it take to onboard the presentation software?
   • Wonders how much time the new software will save his team.
   • In there an app to download for both MAC and Microsoft laptops?  How about tablets?
   • How about design features?
   • Can I import old presentations into the new software with ease?
   • What learning modules a Or quick starter videos are available so our team can hit the ground running fast?

These are all BDQ’s (Buyer Decision Questions).  And if I’m a new presentation software company, I’m getting all the questions and then some above answered in creative way via my website. The more of these questions that get answered and addressed via blog content and your website, the better off you’ll be in showing that level of authority, expertise and trustworthiness.

 

If you’ve forged these fundamental principles of SEO into your game planning, the rest of this SEO agency marketing guide will make even more sense to developing an effective SEO Company Game Plan.

 

On Page Optimizations

 

In the first section, we discussed the fundamentals of SEO and how to view search engine optimization.  And maintaining a mindset of a marketer and understanding the customer experience is critical to SEO efforts.

 

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, on-page SEO remains a cornerstone for enhancing a website’s visibility in search engine results. According to an industry study conducted by Ahrefs, on-page SEO accounts for about 20% of all ranking factors. This means that optimizing your website’s meta tags, headers, content, URL structure, and other on-page elements can significantly impact your search engine rankings.  By implementing effective on-page SEO strategies, businesses can improve their rankings, attract targeted traffic, and enhance the overall user experience. Let’s delve into the top on-page SEO strategies to optimize your website for search engines.

 

Keyword Research and Placement

 

We discussed this a great deal in the fundamentals section above, but lets begin with thorough keyword research to identify relevant terms for your content.  You must place primary keywords strategically in your page’s title, meta description, headers (H1, H2), and throughout the content.

 

You don’t want your content to sound robotic or feel like it was solely written for search engines. Elect for natural integration to maintain readability.  What this means is find the balance between forcing keywords in your copy while ensuring you pick the right ones so you begin to rank higher for those keywords.

 

Optimize Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

 

Write captivating title tags that accurately reflect your content and include target keywords. Those target keywords must be included in your title tags and meta descriptions.  It’s the core means in which search engines determine what your content is about.

 

So you must craft concise and engaging meta descriptions that encourage clicks by providing a brief overview of your page’s content while incorporating the main keywords centered around that page and its content.

 

Header Tags (H1, H2, H3) for Content Structure

 

It is also recommended to use header tags (H1, H2, H3) to structure your content logically.  Search engines look at H Tags as added signals to what your content is about, so having intriguing keyword rich H Tags that make sense will improve search traffic and readability of your website and content.

 

Header tags not only make your content more readable but also help search engines understand the hierarchy and importance of different sections.  It also is helpful for readers as they go through your content.

 

URL Optimization

 

Create clean and SEO-friendly URLs that include relevant keywords. We suggest avoiding lengthy or convoluted URLs.  So URL’s that are full sentences are not advised.  Instead, you should opt for short, descriptive URLs that give users and search engines a clear idea of the page’s content.

 

But just as important is adding your primary keywords in the url of your pages so its add an additional layer of relevance to both the user and the search engines.

 

Image Optimization

 

Did you know that Google can index images and tell what those images are about?  Well, search engines like Google can, and it remains how you create the proper naming for the images.

 

Optimize images by using descriptive file names and including relevant alt image text. So creating a 3 – 6 word phrase to describe your image will allow it to rank better, but more importantly add relevancy to your content pages.  This not only improves accessibility but also provides an opportunity to include additional keywords relevant to your website.

 

 

Internal Linking

 

Incorporate internal links to connect relevant pages within your website. Internal linking improves navigation, distributes link authority, and helps search engines understand the structure of your site.  Internal linking also helps pass link juice (ranking opportunities) for other pages on your website.

 

We won’t even discuss anchor text distribution as that too is important is passing keyword relevance specific to your url’s you’re interlinking, but at minimum, you must interlink your landing pages and blog posts with proper anchor text.

 

User-Friendly URL Structure

 

Maintain a user-friendly URL structure that reflects the hierarchy of your site. Clear and intuitive URLs contribute to a positive user experience and are favored by search engines.

 

On Page SEO Optimization is a lengthy process that requires auditing an entire website, conducting keyword research, potentially optimizing landing pages and content blog pages, and ensuring keywords are peppered in the right places.

 

But if your website cannot be crawled, on page SEO becomes even more challenging.  So in the next section, we will discuss the aspects of technical SEO.

 

 

On page SEO remains the cornerstones and building blocks to any good SEO strategy.  Most agencies and brand start here before moving over to technical SEO and ensuring your website can in fact be crawled.

 

Technical SEO….Is Your Site Fast & Crawlable?

 

Now that we discussed On Page SEO For Companies, we must now ensure your website can be crawled by the search engines.

 

According to a survey conducted by SEMrush, technical SEO accounts for approximately 28% of all ranking factors. This highlights the significance of ensuring that your website’s technical aspects are optimized to drive organic search traffic and improve search engine rankings.

 

Technical SEO is the process of ensuring your website can be crawled and the technical aspects of your website are aligned with what makes the search engines happy.  Technical SEO principles include website speed, crawlability, indexation, duplicate content kept to a minimum, schema mark up and more.

 

Here are the key areas we recommend around technical SEO for brands.

 

Perform An SEO Agency Audit

 

SEO Agencies are critical in this aspect of search engine optimization for brands and website owners.  The very first thing an SEO agency will do after meeting with the brand is conducting a Search Engine Optimization audit. Within that includes on page SEO audit, content audit, keyword audit, link audit, as well as the technical SEO audit.  SEO Companies will conduct a lot of it manually, and some will utilize tools to determine the technical SEO health of your website.

 

These are some of our favorite tools, but again these require a deep understanding of technical SEO:

1. • Google Search Console – Google’s own tool provides valuable insights into your website’s performance, indexing status, and search queries. It’s an essential starting point for any SEO audit.  And it’s in fact a requirement by most SEO Agencies including Propellant Media.
   • SEMrush – SEMrush is a comprehensive SEO suite offering site audit capabilities. It provides detailed reports on issues affecting your site’s health, backlink profile, and on-page SEO.
   • Ahrefs – Ahrefs is known for its robust backlink analysis, but it also includes a Site Audit tool that helps identify SEO issues, monitor site health, and improve overall performance.
   • Moz Pro – Moz’s Site Crawl tool is part of Moz Pro, offering insights into on-page SEO issues, crawlability, and site performance. It provides actionable recommendations for improvement.
   • Screaming Frog SEO Spider – This desktop-based tool crawls websites to identify common SEO issues such as broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags. It’s particularly useful for technical SEO audits
   • Sitebulb – Sitebulb is an SEO auditing tool that provides in-depth reports on technical SEO issues, content quality, and site performance. It’s known for its user-friendly interface.
   • DeepCrawl – DeepCrawl is a cloud-based website crawler that offers insights into technical SEO issues, duplicate content, and site structure. It’s suitable for large and complex websites.
   • Raven Tools – Raven Tools includes a Site Auditor that analyzes your website for SEO issues, providing clear reports and recommendations for improvement.
   • Woorank – Woorank is a website review tool that assesses on-page and technical SEO elements, providing a score and actionable recommendations for optimization.
   • Majestic SEO – While primarily known for backlink analysis, Majestic also offers a Site Explorer tool that provides insights into your website’s structure, link profile, and overall health.

Speed Up Your Website….It’s A Ranking Factor

 

Ever conducted a Google search, visited a website, but upon visiting it took over 15 seconds for the page to load?  That’s an eternity for most people.  That’s all about user experience and ensuring searchers can find the answers to their questions seamlessly and quickly.

 

According to recent data from Google, the average mobile webpage takes around 15 seconds to load. However, research shows that 53% of mobile users will abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Therefore, having a fast-loading website is essential for delivering a positive user experience and reducing bounce rates. So if Google is paying attention to page speed load times, they are factoring it into how high you should rank for certain keywords.  Here are the top page speed load factors:

• • Images and Videos – Are the file sizes too big?
  • Server Speed – Do you have a fast server?
  • CMS Platform – Is your CMS platform underperforming?
  • JavaScript and CSS – Is CSS or Javascript slowing down your landing pages?

To determine your page speed and other insights, below are a list of tools to consider:

• • Google PageSpeed Insights – Google’s PageSpeed Insights provides a detailed analysis of your website’s performance on both desktop and mobile devices. It offers suggestions for improvement and assigns a score based on various performance metrics.
  • GTmetrix – GTmetrix analyzes your website’s loading speed and provides a comprehensive report with actionable recommendations. It includes metrics such as PageSpeed Score, YSlow Score, and fully loaded time.
  • Pingdom Website Speed Test – Pingdom offers a user-friendly speed test tool that provides insights into your website’s performance, including load time, page size, and the number of requests. It also allows you to test from different geographic locations.
  • WebPageTest – WebPageTest allows you to test your website’s performance from different browsers and locations. It provides a detailed breakdown of loading times, requests, and suggestions for improvement.
  • Lighthouse (Chrome DevTools) – Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. It’s integrated into Chrome DevTools and provides audits for performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, SEO, and more.
  • YSlow – YSlow is a browser extension that analyzes web pages and
  • PageSpeed Ninja – PageSpeed Ninja is an online tool that analyzes your website’s performance and provides recommendations for optimization. It offers a simple and intuitive interface.

Image and Video SEO

 

There are plenty of videos and how to ensure image and video SEO are in order.  But here are the key tips we have:

• • Add optimized keywords to both the alt image tag and file title of the image
  • Ensure the image is not a large file size over 500 kb’s
  • Ensure the image is relevant to the content and the page
  • Ensure it can in fact be indexed

There is a lot more to Technical SEO than these points, but this is a good starting place to determining how to implement effective technical SEO for companies and webmasters.

 

Local SEO (Ranking Locally In Map Listings & More)

 

Local SEO includes a combination of showing up in local Map packs as well as locally and organically in the general search listings in local geographic regions.

 

According to a study conducted by Moz, Google My Business signals are the most influential factor for local pack rankings, accounting for around 25% of the total ranking factors. These signals include proximity of the business to the searcher’s location, the relevance of the business category, and the prominence of the business (determined by factors like number of reviews and ratings). This indicates the importance of optimizing your Google My Business listing and ensuring that it is accurate, complete, and frequently updated.

 

Any business with local intent has the ability to show up locally ranging from restaurants and lawyers to hospitals and retailers.  Compared to an ecommerce that can sell nationally, an online publication with national reach or a B2B software technology brand that may have clients nationally, local SEO is its own process of execution for local brands.

 

There are a number of local signals to consider when attempting to rank locally for keywords. We will go through both the philosophy around them as well as the most important signals to focus on.

 

 

Local Intent Keywords

 

Google and other search engines have done a fascinating job distinguishing between the intent of a searcher and the SERPs that those search engines want to populate for searchers.  Take the term “personal injury lawyer.”   Most people are not performing a search for a PI attorney in Chicago if that searcher lives in Atlanta…unless they add the word Chicago to the search query.   So Google and other search engines will mostly show brands in Chicago who are PI Attorneys.

 

 

So, as a local brand, adding your city and state based keywords to your website and key landing pages will most times greatly impact your search engine rankings and local map listing rankings as well.

 

 

Google My Business (GMB)

 

First step is optimizing your Google My Business listing.  All businesses with local intent can claim their listing.  This includes receiving a postcard sent to your commercial address to confirm you truly exist, adding a full description to your listing, identifying your service categories, images, videos and more.  Bing (Microsoft) has an equivalent called Bing Places which is very similar that you should also take advantage of.

 

Visit this link to ensure you have claimed your listings in Microsoft and Google.

 

Name Address Phone Number (NAP) Consistency

 

What adds to both relevancy and trustworthiness is how consistent your business name, address and phone number shows up in other listing websites.  Some SEO brands choose to do this work manually.  But there are websites that can help in the process including:

1. • Yext
   • Loganix
   • Moz Local
   • Uberall
   • Synup

Reviews At Scale

 

Another critical local SEO trust signal are reviews.  May not seem obvious to some, but getting Google reviews across your Google My Business listing and other top listing pages will add trustworthiness but also help you rank higher for those local terms.  Below are examples of platforms to work to make it more seamless for your customers to leave you reviews:

1. • 7ReviewTrackers – ReviewTrackers is a dedicated review management platform that helps businesses collect, manage, and analyze customer reviews from various sources, including popular review sites.
   • BirdEye – BirdEye is a comprehensive online reputation management tool that enables businesses to collect reviews, monitor social media, and gain insights into customer sentiment.
   • Trustpilot – Trustpilot is a widely recognized review platform that allows businesses to collect and showcase customer reviews. Positive Trustpilot reviews can enhance your brand’s trustworthiness.
   • Podium – Podium offers tools for managing customer reviews and online interactions. It includes features like messaging, webchat, and online review management to streamline customer communication.
   • GetFiveStars – GetFiveStars is a customer feedback and online review platform that automates the process of collecting reviews. It also helps businesses monitor and manage their online reputation.
   • Reputation.com – Reputation.com provides a comprehensive solution for online reputation management, including review monitoring, sentiment analysis, and the ability to respond to reviews from a centralized platform.

Backlinks To Your Website (Local & Relevant)

Another critical signal that will discussed in an upcoming section are links to your website.  In the world of SEO, we call it link building. But said differently, links add relevance and authority to your website.  The more links you get, the more Google determines your website as being more trustworthy and authoritative.   Think of links as votes of confidence from other websites.  And the more you get that are authoritative and relevant, the better.

Local SEO is more involved than this, but these are the initial building blocks to developing a strong local SEO gameplan.

Reverse Engineer And Research Your Competition

 

We’ve discussed conducting research on your competitors throughout this guide, but it truly deserves it’s own section.

 

In most cases, you will need to research and understand who your SEO competition is.  And that’s not simply brands you compete with head to head for business, but those who rank for the keywords you want to rank for in the search engines.

 

Below is a suggested process for conducting SEO research on your competition.

 

Conduct Competitor Keyword Research

 

Use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Keyword Surfer, or Ahrefs to identify the keywords your competitors are targeting. Look for high-volume and relevant keywords that are driving traffic to their website.  And see which of those terms your competitors are ranking for.

 

Identify Your Competitors

 

Make a list of your main competitors in your industry or niche while conducting your Google searches. The best way to do this is after conducting your keyword research and understanding your top keywords you want to rank for, doing those actual searches yourself.   See what competitors are ranking for those terms (and not in Google Sponsored Ads).  But truly in the organic listings.

 

Based on that, you will then see all the brands who are ranking for your main keywords.  Visit their landing pages.  See what you like and dislike about their webpages.  This will give you more insights on how you can compete more effectively against them.

 

Analyze Competitor Websites

Visit your competitor’s website and analyze their on-page SEO elements. Pay attention to the following:

 

• Page titles and meta descriptions: Look for the keywords they are using in their page titles and meta descriptions.
• URL structure: Analyze how they optimize their URLs with keywords and maintain consistency.
• Content quality and structure: Evaluate the quality and structure of their content. Look for the use of headers, subheadings, and bullet points to enhance readability and keyword optimization.

 

After you’ve conducted your competitor research, you will far better know your SEO competition, what about their websites are and are not appealing, what keywords they’re talking about, and even what content they’re writing about.

 

Don’t take the position that simply because your competitors are writing about specific topics that you shouldn’t.  You need to compete, and the way to do that is to simply do it better than your competition at volume and at scale answering the key questions critical to potential searchers.  Remember, Google provide clear hints as to what searchers need answers to.  Take advantage of it.

 

Build Your Content Marketing Strategy

 

We’re not simply talking about your website and its product/service pages.  Those too can be important and should be part of your content marketing plan.  But we’re talking about your blog and writing helpful content that pulls in more search traffic.

 

This by far is the top means of driving SEO traffic for brands.  Even the enterprise level organizations are doing content marketing and blogging.  But there is a defined process you should go through.  Some of it is discussed in other sections of this SEO guide, but this is how we define the process.

 

Define Your Content Marketing Goals & Target Audience

 

Determine the objectives you want to achieve through content marketing (e.g., brand awareness, lead generation).  And then you must identify your target audience and understand their needs, interests, and preferences.  This part of the process will assist you with coming up with more content ideas and understanding the type of content you want to do develop based on both your target audience and your marketing objectives.

 

Conduct Thorough Keyword & Competitor Research

 

Research industry trends, competitive landscape, and audience behavior.  And identify popular topics, keywords, and content formats that resonate with your target audience. We’ve written about keyword and competitor research a few times but this will help form the foundation for your content marketing plan.

 

Create A Content Strategy

 

Set clear objectives, KPIs, and a content calendar to guide your efforts.  Determine the types of content you will create (blogs, videos, infographics, etc.) and their distribution channels (website, social media, email).  Plan for content promotion and distribution to reach your target audience effectively.

 

Develop High-Quality Content

 

Produce engaging and valuable content that addresses your target audience’s pain points and provides solutions.  Use a mix of formats (text, visuals, multimedia), storytelling techniques, and compelling headlines to capture attention.  Ensure your content is well-researched, accurate, and original.

 

Optimize Content For SEO Companies

 

Incorporate relevant keywords naturally throughout your content. Optimize meta tags, headers, and URLs to improve search engine visibility. Include internal and external links to improve website authority and user navigation.

 

Promote Your Content

 

Utilize various channels (social media, email marketing, influencer partnerships) to promote and distribute your content.  Engage with your audience through comments, shares, and likes to encourage interaction and increase reach. Consider paid advertising or content distribution platforms for wider exposure.

 

Measure And Analyze Results

 

Track the performance of your content marketing efforts using analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics – GA4).  Measure key metrics such as website traffic, engagement, conversion rates, and ROI. Use the data to identify what works and what needs improvement, and make data-driven decisions for future content marketing strategies.

 

 

Remember that effective content marketing requires consistent effort, quality content creation, and continuous optimization based on data and audience feedback.

 

Marketing, Link Building & Website Promotion

 

SEO Agency Companies may call it link building, but we like to call it marketing and promotion.   One’s ability to get your website and content exposure will translate into links, traffic, and exposure to your website.

 

Instead of going through the philosophy of link building and marketing your website, let us first say that the biggest ranking signal within the search engines are links.  As stated in a prior section, links are like votes of confidence.  And you can get links from websites low in domain authority and sites with higher domain authority.

 

According to a study by SEMrush, the number of referring domains (websites linking to a webpage) is a strong ranking factor correlated with higher positions in search engine results. The study analyzed over 600,000 search queries and found that, on average, the top three ranking pages had significantly more referring domains compared to pages in lower positions.

 

So for the sake of marketing, link building and website promotion, here are our quick tips for building links and promoting your website to attract more links.

 

Create High-Quality Content

 

We created an entire section around this, but there are many different forms of quality content…even down to your home page, product and service pages.

 

Develop valuable and shareable content that naturally attracts links. Content that solves problems, provides unique insights, or entertains is more likely to be linked to by other websites.

 

Guest Blogging

 

Contribute high-quality guest posts to reputable websites in your industry. This not only establishes you as an authority but also allows you to include backlinks to your own site.

 

So How do you find guest blog posts?  Perform the following samples of searches in Google that include the word “blog” being in the url and your industry being in title and several will show up:

• Healthcare Blogs: intitle:healthcare inurl:blog
• Legal Blogs: intitle:lawyer inurl:blog
• Finance Blogs:intitle:finance inurl:blog

Please note if you go down this path, don’t pick the blogs on the first page of Google as those may be more challenging to post on.  Instead, start checking page 2 and beyond.

 

Broken Link Building

 

Identify broken links on other websites, particularly those related to your content. Reach out to the website owner, inform them of the broken link, and suggest your content as a replacement.

 

Build Relationships With Other Webmasters & Partners In Your Space

 

Cultivate relationships with influencers, bloggers, and other businesses in your industry. Genuine relationships can lead to natural link opportunities.

 

As an example, our agency does not do web design or development.  So we have partners in the space we trust that outsource to.  We link to them from our website.  And they in turn link back to us.

 

Now we not suggesting you create a big link farm of partners you randomly link to, but having a few partners along with other webmasters remains an effective link building and promotional strategy for your brand.

 

Utilize Social Media

 

Share your content on social media platforms to increase its visibility. While social signals don’t directly impact SEO, increased visibility may lead to more backlinks.

 

Some of the better platforms for social media exposure includes X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

 

Leverage The Skyscraper Technique

 

This was first created by the company Backlinko.  Identify popular content in your niche, create even more valuable and comprehensive content, and then reach out to websites that linked to the original content, suggesting they link to yours.

 

The best way to accomplish this is determine what questions their content is not answering.  And you then provide everything they provide plus the gaps you find.  This tried and true technique continues to work to this day.  The big point is your content must be relevant and consist of more words than theirs in most instances.

 

That coupled with an effective link building strategy will help that content skyrocket.

 

Infographics & Visual Content

 

Create visually appealing infographics or other shareable visual content. People often link to and share visual content, providing an opportunity for natural link building.

 

Resource Pages

 

Find resource pages in your industry that list useful tools, articles, or websites. Reach out and suggest your content as a valuable addition to their resource list.

 

You can also do it in reverse.  Create a resources page that may be industry specific, thus creating content that is likable from other brands and websites.

 

Collaborate On Roundup Posts

 

This remains one of my favorite strategies.

 

Participate in or host industry roundup posts where experts in your industry share their insights on a topic or question. This can lead to natural backlinks when participants share the post.

 

This is similar to ego bait but instead you’re picking a topic or a set of topics within a theme. And you’re asking influencers who have knowledge on that topic.  They then provide answers and then once the post is complete, you share with them.  They will 8 times out of 10 share with their followers and even link to it from their website.

 

Local Citations

 

Ensure your business is listed accurately on local directories and platforms. Things all part of the local SEO strategies we laid out above, but even if you’re a national brand with national reach, building local citations in the city in which your brand was founded can be powerful.

 

Local citations can contribute to local SEO and provide valuable backlinks.  As mentioned, there are powerful platforms like Yext and Moz Local that can assist with this.

 

Ego Bait Content

 

Create content that features and praises other businesses, influencers, or experts in your industry. When you mention them, they are likely to share or link to your content.

 

The best way to accomplish this is not to ask for permission. Just do it.  And then email or ping them on social media with the link to the mention.  8 times out of ten, they will share via their social channels.

 

Contribute To Q&A Platforms

 

Participate in Q&A platforms like Quora, providing helpful answers and linking to relevant content on your website when appropriate.

 

These can be popular sites because they also tend to rank well in Google as well, thus helping generate traffic to your website in addition to backlinks.

 

Build A Useful Tool

 

At Propellant Media, we built a CPM Calculator that makes it easy for people to do CPM calculations when determining the budget and total set of impressions.  That is a useful tool that not only ranks well, but also is helpful to people.  You can view the calculator here: https://propellantmediamed.com/cpm-calculator.  It didn’t require a ton of web development resources. But continues to attract links and bring value to site visitors.

 

You have to determine what type of tool you can build that will be useful to folks, will rank well, and attract people to your website.

 

Provide Testimonials

 

Provide testimonials for products or services you’ve used. We have done this for a number of brands and partners we’ve done business with.  In return, you may receive a backlink from the company’s website

 

List Your Competitors Via A Blog Post On Your Website

 

Controversial I know.  Why would you want to write a post about your competition?  Well…in most cases searchers are conducting searches looking companies they can work with.  For Propellant Media, it was geofencing marketing.  So we created a blog post around the top 30 plus competitors doing geofencing marketing.

 

As a result, that page ranks on the first page of Google for keywords such as geofencing companies, geofencing agencies, etc..

 

If you are a local company, I would list all your local competitors.  I know it seems controversial, but just think that traffic you would not have gotten anyway.  And people who visit your website are not then going to your blog and then reading all your blog posts.  They are visiting you for the first time from the original blog posts you created.  So you might as well take advantage of that traffic, even if they consider visiting your competition.

 

Consider Adding Google Ads To Your Marketing Mix

 

I love Google Ads because it gives us insights beyond Google’s Keyword Planner.  it allows you to get traffic immediately to your website, but more importantly, you can see what keywords translating into sales, traffic and leads.

 

One of the ways that Google Ads can indirectly impact SEO is through the concept of “brand lift.” Brand lift refers to the increase in organic search traffic and brand-related searches that occur as a result of running Google Ads campaigns. According to Google, businesses that run paid search ads see an average increase of 89% in top-of-mind awareness compared to businesses that solely rely on organic search results. This means that running Google Ads can help increase brand visibility, recognition, and overall brand awareness, which can have a positive impact on organic search traffic and SEO efforts.

 

You don’t have to deploy a large budget to get started with Google Ads.  But the insights and keyword knowledge you get on day one of launching such a campaign can fuel your insights for your Search Engine Optimization efforts.

 

SEO Conclusion And Parting Thoughts

 

SEO is part of the long game.  If you didn’t spend any Monday on paid ads, direct traffic and organic are the two areas you would naturally get traffic from. So investing in SEO is critical to attracting searchers and prospects to your website.  And all of the points in this guide are part of the ranking signals that lead to increased organic traffic.

 

 

It’s not a 3-month process or 2-month process.  You are constantly evaluating your product and service pages, you’re promoting your website, you’re coming up with new ideas of services to provide and thus creating new service pages, and you’re developing new blog content….it never stops.

 

And because of that, SEO has become one of the vital areas of traffic growth and revenue increases for brands and SEO agencies even.

 

Out of everything we said, building a website and content with the searcher in mind AND consistently thinking of ways to add value to your site visitors will indirectly improve your search traffic.