IT SEO Tips & Tricks from your Atlanta IT Support Provider
IT SEO Tips & Tricks can be very helpful to your company. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is necessary for any business that seeks to attract new clients. Interestingly, business-to-business (b to b) companies have largely moved away from traditional print media advertising to investing in their digital presence. Likewise, brick-and-mortar stores are closing at alarming rates as consumers shift to online shopping. Clearly, these businesses have learned the best prospects are those who are actively looking for their services online. And they are right!
Google is the Ruler of the Internet
The first thing you need to understand is that you are at the mercy of the Google giant. Unfortunately, you won’t rank well if they don’t like your writing style, keywords, topics, or other SEO factors. Over time they have developed a sophisticated set of algorithms. However, those algorithms change daily. Therefore, your ranking can change just as fast. For this reason, it is best to partner with an SEO expert.
IT SEO Tips & Tricks #1: Content, Content, Content
Think of SEO as your online real estate. However, instead of focusing on location, you should focus on content, content, content! Indeed, the fresher content, the better you will rank. Interestingly, the greater the competition, the more you have to post.
However, Google is all about popularity. Similar to high school, where the popular kids get all the attention, so do popular websites. Therefore, Google will rank you higher if they see your readers like your content and continue to go back for more. For this reason, the focus of your content should be on the reader, not Google.
IT SEO Tips & Tricks #2: Writing Style
Interestingly, Google is very picky about the writing style. Subsequently, they want you to write at a reading level an 8th grader can understand. For example, they have a long list of rules that includes:
- Active Sentences – Google hates passive sentences and will ding you for it.
- Transition Words – Transition words are words like “therefore,” “also,” “Consequently,” and others at the beginning of the sentences. Google believes these words make it much easier on the reader, and you have to use them in at least 30% of your sentences.
- Use Short Sentences – Keep it simple. Make sure your sentences are less than 20 words.
- Write Conversationally – Don’t write your post like a textbook. Instead, make it attractive to your reader as if you were talking directly to them.
- Headings – Google only wants you to have one H1 (main header) and multiple H2’s, H3’s, and H4’s titles. This is how you break up your paragraphs into headings and subheadings.
- Paragraphs – Make sure you have no more than 150 words in a paragraph and no more than 300 words in a section.
Following the rules above will help with your rankings and entice your readings to come back for more.
IT SEO Tips & Tricks #3: Keywords
Now that you have good content, it’s time to start advertising it with keywords. Specifically, a keyword is one to four words that describe the content.
Long & Short-tailed Keywords
If you are just now starting your SEO efforts, you should begin with long-tailed keywords. Long-tailed keywords use four words to describe your article. However, you can use short-tailed keywords (one word) if you are well established in SEO or have little competition.
- Short-Tailed = Shoes
- Medium-Tailed = Running Shoes
- Long-Tailed = Lightweight Road Running Shoes
Additionally, each page requires a different keyword. For instance, you cannot use “shoes” more than one time on the website. However, you can use variance to cover the same topic in multiple pages or posts such as “running shoes,” “lightweight running shoes,” or “lightweight road running shoes.”
Keyword Placement
Once you have your keyword, you need to place it throughout the paragraphs and headers. However, it is essential not to overuse the keywords. Generally speaking, no more once every 100-150 words and two out of three headings. Otherwise, it’s too spammy, and Google will ding you for it.
Next, you need to include the keyword in the title, meta description, slug, and embed it into the alt image. Of course, these steps make it easy for Google bots to scan your content which affects your ranking.
IT SEO Tips & Tricks #4: Backlinking
Remember what I said earlier about your website’s popularity score? Backlinking helps. Subsequently, Google wants to see that other popular sites like your content. However, the number of backlinks is highly controversial. Interestingly, some say you need ten backlinks a day, which seems impossible for a small business. Others claim the volume of competition affects backlinking. For example, low competition shows 40-50 backlinks is ok. Alternatively, high competition requires 90+ backlinks.
Unfortunately, backlinking is usually the most challenging part of SEO. Generally, it is a full-time job as it involves the following:
- Popular Blogs – offer to write content for popular blogs in your industry in exchange for a backlink to your website.
- (This is content on top of what you are writing for your own blog.)
- Podcasts – Offer to be a speaker on a popular podcast and asking for backlinks to your website.
- Yext – Make sure all your information is accurate across multiple directories. Note: Yext Hitchhikers has over 100 hours of training to learn how to use their tool and be an active part of the Yext community.
- Directories – Personally, sign up for like-minded directories. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of research and time, and many of them charge.
- Membership Organizations – Join membership organizations and make sure your company website has a link on its website. Of course, this costs money too!
- Google My Business – This is a free service that allows you to maintain your Google information online, including address, hours of operation, reviews, services, and more.
- Publications – Featured articles on popular sites and press releases go a long way to attracting business. Unfortunately, this costs money as well.
In addition, you will need a backlink to every post if you want it to rank. Therefore, if you are doing 1-2 posts per week, then you need just as many backlinks, if not more. Moreover, due to the overwhelming amount of work involved in backlinking, most companies choose to outsource this function. Social Media Posting and Your SEO
IT SEO Tips & Tricks #5: Technical
Google ranks your website on security, speed, mobile-friendly, sitemaps, and structured data markup. Therefore, at a minimum, you need an SSL certificate and a responsive website.
In addition, you need to guard against broken links and duplicate content.
Another thing you need to do is track the website’s traffic so that you can be vigilant when your rankings slips or your traffic slows down. Great tools for this include Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
Summary
SEO is hard work, and the Google algorithms are constantly changing. Therefore, once you finally get it down, it could change. For this reason, many companies turn to professional SEO services to maintain their website, write content, provide backlinks, research the competition and keywords, and more. Moreover, professional SEO services stay up-to-date on the latest Google announcements and analyze the trends, so you get the most out of your website.
IT Tips and Tricks- help from your Atlanta IT Support Company
Innovative Network Systems, Inc. and our SEO business partners provide a range of technical, on-page, off-page SEO services. Most importantly, you can pick and choose the exact services you want. For example, if you just want to write the content, we can take care of everything else. We will even give you guidance on SEO. Most importantly, we provide monthly reports on your progress. We offer complete IT support packages for clients in the Marietta and Metro Atlanta GA area with no internal IT and a la carte customized packages for small IT departments. Also, every client gets personalized service with a Customer Support Manager (CSM) who serves as their primary point of contact for questions, needs, and project management. Most importantly, we only charge the client for the exact service and level they need. No more, no less. You can contact us here, or call 770-387-2424, Option 2, for more information.
About the Author
Deborah Frazier is the author of IT Outsourcing Secrets – A Small Business Guide to Compare IT Support Companies. With nearly 20-years’ experience consulting small and medium-sized businesses on their IT support needs, she brings a wealth of knowledge to INSI as Head of Marketing and Sales. If you like this article and would like to get notified when a new article is posted, click here.
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