Search Engine Optimization

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s a way to increase the number of visitors to your website by ensuring that it ranks well in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords.

For example, if your company is selling blue jeans online, you’d want your website to appear on the first page of the search results when people search for “blue jeans” or “buy blue jeans.”

There are several ways to ensure that your site ranks highly in the SERPs. One of the best ways is to put links to your site on other websites. That’s called building a backlink profile.

Another great way to ensure that your site ranks well is to start a blog and post quality, shareable content on a regular basis. That’s called content marketing.

It’s also important to ensure that your site is properly optimized for the various search engines. That’s called “onsite SEO” and typically requires the aid of a tool that crawls all over your site looking for problems that the search engine bots might encounter.

At Spark Visibility, we’ll put all of our available resources to work to ensure that your site ranks as high in the SERPs as possible.

If you have reached this article, you probably Googled “How do I SEO my WordPress Site?” or something along those lines. We are here to give you 5 actionable tips that you can start implementing now if you have a WordPress site and want to start gaining visibility using Search Engine Optimization.

Before taking any steps to optimize your site, check that your visibility settings are configured in a way that allows search engines to crawl an index your site. You can do this by going to Settings> Reading>Search Engine Visibility, unticking the box and clicking “save changes.”

Once we are sure our site is actually being crawled, we can start implementing SEO strategies that will have your WP site moving up the search results rankings.

1. Change the default permalink
WP’s permalink is an odd code that looks somewhat like this: ?p=[id]. This doesn’t really tell search engines anything about your site, or the page itself. There are two ways of improving this.

The first one is substituting the default link with the page or post´s name. The second one is using relevant keywords as the link.

How do you go about doing this?

You can edit the permalink by going to Settings > Permalinks. You can go with several options, but “Post Name” is the standard.

If you want to use relevant keywords instead, you can edit the permalink manually right before publishing a post or page.

2. Install an SEO Plugin
There are different plugins available that will help you optimize your WP site. The most popular ones are All-in-One SEO-Pack and Yoast. They are both effective in helping you optimize your site, even if you have no knowledge of SEO when you first start. You can use both to optimize each post that you publish, but Yoast has certain features such as content analysis, SEO scoring, and focus keyword that make it easier for SEO beginners. Additionally, Yoast will create an XML map automatically, which brings us to our next point.

3. XML sitemap: a must have
In a nutshell, the XML sitemap is what tells Google all it needs to know about your website and all its pages. The XML sitemap lists all the content of your site, and it makes it easier for Google to find and index it. If you want to check out what your site´s map looks like, all you need to do is type your site’s URL followed by /sitemap_index.xml.

4. Use rel=”canonical”
You should enable this tag as soon as you install the SEO plugin of your choice. Using this tag for all the pages on your website will help search engines determine what the original URL of the content on your blog is, eliminating duplicate content issues.

5. Improve your site’s loading speed

SEO services allow your organization to objectively find measurable actions that make it easier for your website to convert. Often, the number of actions is vast enough to require a highly specialized group of people to execute them effectively. These can include lead generation, running targeted advertisements, providing measurement and sales tools, building sales channels to reach new customers, and the creation of content and design specifically directed at your target audience.

In spite of a popularity surge in recent years, many people are still reluctant to hire SEO services. The most common reasons they blurt out when asked are associated with the perceived size of their own operations. There is a common misconception that only big companies need or can afford to invest on SEO services. But this myth is easily debunked by just pointing out some hard-data-based facts.

We like to say that SEO is the great market equalizer. You might not have the marketing resources of a multi-billion-dollar corporation, but you can certainly create relevant content and expertly crafted strategies that will put you on top of local searches without having to go bankrupt trying to outbid your competitors. That´s why size does not matter in the end, as long as you understand what your audience wants and how to rub Google the right way.

Most people do not realize this, but SEO is not a pay-to-win industry. SEO services are a combination of highly specialized web design tools with expert marketing coaching.

The internet was certainly a blessing for small businesses. It opened channels that allowed them to reach customers they would have never dreamed of. However, like any other tool ever invented, you have to know how to use it if you want to benefit from it.

Most business owners have already taken the first step in the right direction: they have created a website that showcases their products and provides a channel for customers to reach them. But this is not enough. Not by a long shot.

Before a website starts generating even a single visit, it must be found. This means that it should comply with certain objective and subjective parameters. Some of these parameters are explicitly laid out by search engines, while others fall in the realm of human behavior studies.

For example, a website must be properly coded so Google can correctly index it. It must also be organized in such a way Google robots crawl it efficiently. Proper layout, rich content, and smooth loads are among the aspects that search engines assess in order to deem a page worth their users´ time.

But even if your page is properly indexed, there is still a lot to do if you want people to know your website even exists. It is a known fact that 75% of users never go past the first page of searches. So if your page is not among the top 10 results for any given search, you might as well not have one.

SEO specialist is a term we can use for both, a person or company, whose expertise is focused on Search Engine Optimization and subjects related to it.

Initially, the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was used exclusively to refer to those strategies used to positively influence the visibility of content (websites, profiles, videos, etc.) on the results pages from sites like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Nowadays, it has become more of a blanket term, adopted by the industry to describe not only Search Engine Optimization proper but many other tangential online marketing approaches that can be implemented toward the same goal.

Thus, an SEO specialist is someone who has acquired – through study and experience – a number of skills that allows them to effectively devise, implement, and supervise SEO and digital marketing solutions. Ensuring their client’s online content is displayed more prominently on search engines result pages.

From a technical standpoint, there are a few things considered vital for an SEO specialist to do their job right.

It goes without saying that a close understanding of the inner workings of search engines and search algorithms is an essential building block for any SEO specialist. Beyond that, at least some knowledge of coding and programming becomes a huge plus that increases their effectiveness.

Even if they aren’t programmers or designers per se, understanding how pages are put together, and how their different component’s attributes directly affect the overall site’s visibility, is one of those nuances that SEO specialists are uniquely equipped to take advantage of.

Now, beyond technical knowledge, there are also a number of skills and insights that elevate someone who merely knows about SEO, to the ranks of an SEO specialist. These falls mostly on the human side of things.

Skills like having good problem-solving skills, organization, being adept at analysis, and being able to conduct adaptable decision-making processes are also integral components of SEO specialists.

You need to keep in mind that doing Search Engine Optimization is very much a technical art, which combines the precise know-how of computer technology, with an intimate understanding of how people interact with it. For those reasons, most SEO specialists tend to be equal parts engineers and humanists in their way of thinking.

Lastly, an effective SEO specialist needs also to be an effective marketer.

When it is all said and done, Search Engine Optimization is all about effectively connecting content with people. Be it creators and viewers, nonprofits with backers, or companies with potential customers. Which means that a solid grasp of marketing techniques (and keeping up with the latest social trends) also fall under the purview of a competent SEO specialist.

Being a knowledgeable nexus of these different disciplines is necessary to be able to implement the technical strategies SEO specialist develop on paper, in a way that is both efficient and effective in the real world.

SEO Experts are professionals who help webmasters increase the amount of organic traffic to their website. An SEO expert analyzes the search trends, keyword search volumes, competitor data, incoming/outgoing links, content, meta tags, URL structure and monitors the overall site activity via tools like: Google Search Console, Bing Webmasters and Other known tools. 
They provide expert guidance to business owners looking to increase organic search traffic to their website.

The field of SEO is expanding and everyday we are witnessing new changes in the search algorithms.
An SEO expert must always keep up with such changes and catch up on the search behavior trends in order to provide the best services to the clients.

A reputable search engine optimization company will provide you with a monthly report. The contents of that report will depend on the nature of your business.

If you’re running an e-commerce site, you can expect to see a report that shows you conversions. On the other hand, if you’re running a “newsy” website, your report will focus more on traffic trends.

As a rule of thumb, though, SEO firms provide reports that show how well your site ranks for keywords related to your business and keyword growth over time, changes to rank over time, traffic patterns, and goal reports.

An SEO company like ours? A hell of a lot, actually.

But before getting into the nitty-gritty of it all, it’s best to get the basics out of the way. As there are still plenty of business owners out there without a clear picture of what SEO actually is.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and refers to the discipline of establishing, increasing, and enhancing your company’s online presence to increase revenue. What this “online presence” is, varies from company to company. Yet it usually revolves around optimizing a primary website or platform, and branches out from there.

It takes merely a glance to some updated SEO stats to get a clear picture of the potential impact SEO holds for most businesses. After all, it isn’t a coincidence that over 60% of marketers have “improving SEO” and growing their organic presence as their top marketing priority.

The online business arena is just that relevant, with global retail eCommerce sales projected to reach $4.5 trillion within a year and a half. And the best way for a business to tap into that massive pool of potential revenue? You guessed it, by having a legitimate, powerful, and effective SEO firm like ours by their side.

You need a legitimate firm to avoid those so-called “SEO gurus” that make a living conning unwary businesses. At best, they eat up your budget delivering zero results. At worst, they engage in black-hat strategies that end up hurting your online presence – and business – until someone like us comes around to fix their mistakes.

You need a powerful, established firm that commands the resources necessary for your company to carve a place among competitors with a head start in the online arena.

But above all, you need an effective SEO company, able to deliver results instead of empty promises.

When it comes to search optimization, it often takes more than just throwing money at the problems to get the desired outcome. Optimization is a highly experimental, tailored process that very rarely works the same way for two different companies. It requires actual know-how combined with flexible strategies and skills.

An effective SEO firm is one that’s clever enough, nimble enough, and adaptable enough to consistently put you in front of your audience and have them convert – Which is the “secret” behind our success.

We are not afraid to say this: We’ve cracked the code by developing a methodology and frameworks that let us consistently deliver results to our clients, adapting to the particulars of each niche.

Good SEO agencies are staffed with experienced marketers, designers, content writers and SEO specialists who are also assertive enough to be part of the decision-making process.

This first thing an SEO agency must do is to understand what conversion means to the client. Some just want to increase their sales in Ebay or Amazon. Others want their restaurant to be among the top picks when people perform a local search on Google. Still others just want to outperform Wikipedia in searches related to certain topics for academic or promotional purposes.

Still, even when the client knows what their organization should be pursuing, it is common to see them overextending their reach and trying to employ every marketing channel they know of and then some. This often causes an incontrollable bleeding of resources, and many don´t even know where their money is going until it is too late.

A true SEO agency will always try to understand the client´s goals. Then they will gather information about their audience and the promotion channels they are using. The next step is to identify the most efficient channels based on the kind of interaction they want their visitors to have with their product and what channels are the most effective with that specific audience.

Once the right channels have been identified, your SEO agency will set your campaign goals.

One of the biggest mistakes many marketers make is to only set long term goals. This creates a colossal problem in the long run as these goals are difficult to modify without making the client feel the campaign was a whole waste of their time and money. It also makes the decision-making process more difficult. Search engines have imposed a faster-than-light culture in the marketing industry. This makes it difficult to wait for feedback from clients to make the myriads of changes or small tweaks needed to keep a website in good standings with search engines.

A good SEO agency will only set short term goals that can be readily measured and can have observable impact on the variables the client needs to improve. This allows more flexibility when designing strategies, and gives more leeway to those in charge of designing the campaign or creating the content as they do not have to wait until the campaign is finished to see whether their efforts had the intended impact or not.

This articulated approach should always be accompanied by regular progress reports to show the client how their money is being used and that their investment is working for them.

But this constant process of tweaking and refinement should also be coordinated so everyone knows what the current goals are, what strategies other departments are implementing and how their own tasks will impact the work of others and the overall results.

Here is where the cohesive aspects of a well-coordinated SEO agency come into play. We have seen many teams with awesome players in their rooster, and we have also been witness to their equally spectacular demise. Why is that? Mostly because SEO is a team sport. It does not matter if you have all the best players under the same roof if everyone is just doing his thing and clocking out at five o´clock. There must be a careful planning process so everyone knows what their team mates need. For example, you can have the best graphic designers but still deliver a mediocre website if the content does not match what your writers are trying to convey with it. And this problem gets worse if there is no general marketing strategy and specific goals set for each department.

There are several ways that SEO firms improve your website’s rank in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

First, they’ll conduct a site audit to find things that are preventing your site from ranking well. Then, they’ll fix those problems, usually with on-site SEO.

Next, SEO companies use a tool like SEMRush to research keywords relevant to your brand. Then, they’ll optimize your site for those keywords.

Finally, they’ll build a backlink profile so other sites are passing PageRank to your own website, and build a strategy using content marketing, social media, PPC, and other factors to continuously boost your rank.

SEO consulting is performed by a team of SEO professionals who are contracted to optimize one or more websites for the search engines.

Typically, SEO consultants build backlink profiles, handle onsite SEO, recommend content marketing strategies, review analytics, and track results. A great SEO team will also provide reports that show you how well their optimization efforts are working.

At Spark Visibility, we’re proud of the fact that we were named the #1 SEO company in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada by Clutch.co. We were also named the #1 SEO company in California for three years in a row.

We have a proven track record of working with our clients to ensure maximum online visibility. Our process of optimizing websites for search engine results has been carefully refined over the past 10 years of providing outstanding service to our clients.

Let us put that experience to work for you so that you can build brand-name awareness online and watch your sales skyrocket.

SEO is important because it keeps the search results fair. … Users trust search engines, and achieving a top spot in search engine rankings signals to searchers that your site is a credible source. The higher you rank in results pages, the more clicks and traffic your site will generate.

Our SEO company has a process that is heavily integrated with social media marketing. Following onsite search engine optimization and external link building, Spark Visibility will use social media optimization and social media marketing to build further external links and grow the authority of your online presence. Blogging is also a critical part of this strategy, and the Spark Visibility team will make sure all of your online assets are working together to maximize effectiveness. Overall, in the world Internet marketing a good, honest company is hard to come by. You can rest assured that Spark Visibility will provide excellent service. Contact us today to get started by clicking on the button below. It can’t hurt to at least have a conversation about your needs, right?

• Getting ranked number one makes all the difference. 42% of searchers click on the top-ranking listing. 8% click the second-ranking. The CTR continues to drop from there.
• 77% of searchers will select organic over a paid listing in the Google search engine results. Furthermore, when searching, 67% select organic search when buying a product.
• The average cost of search engine optimization in the US is between 2,500 and 5,000 per month or per project.
• In most cases search engine optimization beats PPC and social media marketing in lead generation.
• A study by Forrester from 2006 found that 93% of all internet traffic comes from a search engine.
• Google controls 64.42% of the search market while Microsoft achieved 30.01% of the U.S. search market share in March — 14.32% from Bing.com and 15.69% from Yahoo Search.
• 75% of users do not scroll past the first page of search engine results.
• 81% of businesses consider their blog to be one of their most important SEO assets.
• Tens of billions of voice searches occur every month when looking across all devices. Currently many SEO companies are trying to optimize for them. It is estimated that roughly 50% of searches will be made via voice by 2020. 
• In a study recently conducted by Search Engine Journal, SEO leads had a 14.6% close rate while outbound marketing leads had a 1.7% close rate.
• 40% of adults new use voice search every day.
• Voice searches on Google are up 35 times in 2019 over 2008.

It’s a global economy. That’s especially true in the Information Age.

If you want to reach people in a different country who speak a different language, your website needs International SEO.

Effectively, International SEO is the same as geo-targeting. If you’re selling blue jeans for $20 each to U.S. customers, you’ll want to show customers from the U.K. how much those jeans cost in British pounds. For customers in France, you’ll not only want to convert the price into Euros, but you’ll also want to translate the product descriptions into French.

When you work with us, we’ll put our team of International SEO experts to work so that your website is properly structured for a global audience. Then, we’ll make sure that it’s properly optimized for the customers in all the countries that you’re targeting.

In addition to that, we’ll also build backlinks from region-specific websites to give your site more authority.

Finally, we’ll write the necessary code to ensure that search engines in various countries index your website.

There’s a lot of content online – Video tutorials, guides, articles, podcasts, books, – that you can use to learn Search Engine Optimization and SEO techniques with varying degrees of technical depth and challenge. SEO is a broad discipline that encompasses several other branches of knowledge, and along the way, you’ll pick up insights on topics ranging from tech and marketing, all the way up to psychology and effective communication.

As for the best way to learn SEO, you’ll probably want to figure out what it is you are trying to accomplish first.

Do you want to learn SEO as a profession? Or maybe you just want a basic understanding to be able to communicate with your team better? Do you have a more practical/results-oriented goal in mind?

Depending on the answer, some avenues might be better than others. Let’s go over some of them to figure out which one suits your needs best.

Learning SEO as a Profession: Books are probably your best source of reliable, comprehensive knowledge. Reading in-depth texts on SEO gives you a deep understanding of the ins-and-outs of the industry, covering the nuances that other mediums might just gloss over.

Depending on your current level of knowledge, introductory-level texts are best. Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies by Bruce Clay and The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization by Eric Enge are two great ones to get you started.

Don’t be discouraged by the “For Dummies” brand. This book is very approachable and an excellent starting point for everyone. The Art of SEO is written by one of the giants of the industry and serves as a great crash course on the history and landscape on the subject.

Learning SEO for effective communication: One of the main challenges of hiring a digital marketing agency or an SEO consultant to take over your content’s SEO is taking a back seat and let others decide upon your business’ content.

However, just by learning the basics terms and getting a sense of what each strategy is about you can become a part of the conversation productively.

Keep a journal and jot down unknown words and strategy names as they come up. Later, do a simple google search on them and pick up the basics of what they are about. Just by doing this simple task you’ll get a solid understanding of what’s going on, and will be able to pitch in and steer the process much more efficiently. It’s all about using the expertise of your SEO assets to the fullest.

Learning SEO Practically: Lastly, a lot of people want to learn SEO basics in a practical manner, to improve their online content as soon as possible.

It is a valid approach and one that has been made relatively easy due to the sheer number of DIY guides, How-To ‘s and explainer videos on the subject you can find online.

Generating quality content is the bread and butter of any SEO strategy. To write articles that are SEO friendly, you need to apply at least a few of the most common SEO strategies like keyword research, topical relevance, proper formatting, and most important of all: provide value to your audience.

The internet is built on content, and as much as we tend to put weight into the mechanical side of Search Engine Optimization, the side that considers algorithms, SERPs, and metadata, you should never forget that, at the end of the day, you are producing content for human eyes with human needs and human minds.

So, the golden rule of writing SEO friendly and relevant articles (even beyond the technical advice that follows) is never to forget who your audience is and cater to provide what they seek.

Once you know the type of content you want to base your article on, there are plenty of steps or strategies you need to take care of to have an SEO friendly piece of content when it’s all said and done.

The following list is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive, but it will, however, provide you with a more than solid starting ground to start improving the kind of content you put out (SEO-wise) seemingly overnight.

Tips to write SEO-friendly Articles:

• Figure out the topic: This is a vital step that most people take for granted. If you want a piece of content to be relevant, it has to be topical and in direct relation to your potential viewers’ interests.

You don’t need to spend weeks, or even days figuring out the topic for a single article. But there are a few significant tentpole characteristics that can dramatically improve any piece of content you produce once you figure them out. Understand who the article is for, why they will find it relevant, and the practical value of reading it will leave them with. Do this, and you’ll be on the right track even before you write word one.

• Do some Keyword Research: Doing KW research can help you on different fonts depending on the way you go about it. If you already know your topic, doing KW research will zero-in the best possible words you can use to support the content you want to produce. Let the research inform your word choices, and it will increase the overall effectiveness of the piece.

By the same token, if you have a rough idea of what you want your article to be about but don’t know how to tackle it, doing KW research around the topic might net you exciting and relevant ways to narrow down and help your creative process.

• Format Properly: Formatting is crucial in any type of internet content, and you should be aware of the kind of formatting that fits the article you want to write. Talking about the format in a vacuum is difficult at best. Much of it depends on your goals and adapting those to your audience.

For example, don’t write overly long articles for rather simple topics. And don’t do a brief, fluff piece for things your audience wants to know in depth. Depict your ideas and information in a clear and readable manner. Use fonts and words that are simple and easy to understand.

• Provide Value: Last but not least, is value.

SEO can be free, if you take care of it yourself. When we talk about SEO, we are discussing many strategies intended to feature online content more prominently on search engines results. While some of these approaches (like setting up pay-per-click ad campaigns) can require an investment in money, many other SEO practices can be implemented at no monetary cost if you learn how to do them yourself.

Do keep in mind that any SEO practice you engage with on your own require a time investment at the very least. Which, depending on your technical know-how, might end up being quite high.

Fortunately, there’s a lot of documentation online that can help you in this endeavor, and taking care of your own SEO – at least initially – will grant you a few advantages.

For one, you’ll start benefitting right from the start by improving your content until you are able to hire an agency to take it to the next level. For another, you’ll begin accumulating some knowledge on the subject, which will come in handy later down the road when you have to make strategic choices and oversee the SEO task an agency recommends for your business.

As far as the strategies themselves, here are a few of the free SEO practices we believe should be at the top of your priority list:

Market Research/Analysis: Thoroughly knowing and understanding your target audience is an essential building block of any SEO strategy. It stands to reason that it be one of the first things you should focus on before moving onto more involved tasks. In principle, doing this type of analysis might sound daunting, but as someone with intimate knowledge of your product, you are uniquely equipped to determine the info you need.

Make a profile (and keep it updated) on your content’s target audience: Age, Sex, Geographic Location, Needs related to your product. And let this profile inform and improve your other SEO strategies as you move on.

Keyword Research: Once you know who you are creating content for, you can move on to one of the big ones as far as SEO strategies go: Keyword Research. KRis all about finding out which words people use to find the type of content or product you are offering. You can use free tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to this end, and use your target audience profile to further home in those perfect keywords you can use to lead them to your online content.

Generate Content: Once you have a solid understanding of the audience you are trying to attract, and know the most popular keywords they use to find the type of content you offer, it is time to start creating quality content utilizing this information. Content comes in many shapes, and it will all depend on the type of business you have.

Someone selling on Amazon might start a blog with reviews for their products, and link back to their listings. A photographer might start an online portfolio, using the Keywords he researched on the image titles or descriptions.

Using these strategies cost you no money, and they are bound to have a positive impact on your online presence.