SEO | Shawn the SEO Geek

Picking the Best SEO Keywords for a Law Firm

As an SEO firm, and specializing in SEO Services for Lawyers we understand that the legal industry is highly competitive, which is why it’s crucial for lawyers and law firms to optimize their online presence and use the right keywords to attract potential clients and increase their website traffic. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the best SEO keywords for lawyers and provide tips on how to incorporate them into your website content.

Understanding SEO Keywords

Before we dive into the best SEO keywords for lawyers, it’s essential to understand what SEO keywords are and how they work. In simple terms, SEO keywords are the words or phrases that people enter into search engines like Google when they’re looking for information. Search engines use these keywords to match relevant content to search queries.

There are different types of keywords, including short-tail keywords, long-tail keywords, and location-based keywords. Short-tail keywords are general and broad terms that are usually one or two words, such as “lawyer” or “attorney.” Long-tail keywords are more specific and usually consist of three or more words, such as “personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles.” Location-based keywords include the name of the city or state, such as “Chicago law firm” or “New York City attorney.”

Best SEO Keywords for Lawyers

Now that we understand the importance of SEO keywords let’s discuss the best SEO keywords for lawyers. The following keywords are relevant and commonly used in the legal industry:

Lawyer/lawyers – This is a general keyword that people use when they’re looking for a lawyer.
Attorney/attorneys – Similar to “lawyer,” this keyword is commonly used in search queries.
Law firm – People looking for legal services often search for “law firms” instead of individual lawyers.
Personal injury lawyer – This is a specific keyword that’s relevant to lawyers who specialize in personal injury cases.
Divorce attorney – This keyword is relevant to lawyers who specialize in divorce cases.
Immigration lawyer – This keyword is relevant to lawyers who specialize in immigration cases.

Being Specific with Keyword Intent

Intent specific keywords, also known as long-tail keywords, are search terms that are more specific and targeted to a particular audience’s intent. In the legal industry, intent specific keywords are often used by people who are searching for a specific type of lawyer or law firm. For example, “motorcycle accident lawyer” is a specific keyword that someone might use when they’re looking for a lawyer who specializes in motorcycle accident cases. By incorporating intent specific keywords into your website content, you can attract more qualified traffic to your site and increase your chances of converting potential clients into actual clients. Additionally, intent specific keywords can help you rank higher in search results for relevant search queries and improve your overall online visibility.

Incorporating Location-Based Keywords

In addition to the above keywords, incorporating location-based keywords is crucial for lawyers and law firms. For instance, if you’re a law firm in Los Angeles, you should use location-based keywords such as “Los Angeles lawyer” or “Los Angeles law firm.” This will help you attract potential clients who are looking for legal services in your area.

Tips for Using SEO Keywords

When using SEO keywords, it’s important to avoid overstuffing them in your content. This means using them naturally and not using them too many times in your content. Overstuffing keywords can make your content appear spammy and can harm your website’s ranking in search results.

Here are some tips for using SEO keywords effectively:

1. Use keywords in title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and content.

2. Include relevant keywords in URLs, image tags, and internal links.

3. Use keywords in a natural and relevant way in your content.

In conclusion, using the right SEO keywords is crucial for lawyers and law firms to attract potential clients and increase their website traffic. By incorporating the above keywords and following the tips we’ve discussed, you can optimize your website’s online presence and improve your website’s ranking in search results. If you’re not sure how to get started, our team at Shawn the SEO Geek is here to help. We can help you conduct thorough keyword research and optimize your website’s content for the best results. Contact us today to learn more.

May 4, 2023/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek

SEO

5 Essential B2B SEO Strategies to Boost Your Company’s Visibility

The world of B2B is getting more and more competitive, so in this blog post we wanted to explore some simple yet effective B2B SEO strategies to give your company’s visibility a boost. In this blog post, I’m going to share with you five essential B2B SEO strategies that will help you rank higher on search engines, drive more traffic to your website, and ultimately increase your company’s visibility. If you think you could use a hand and want some pointers from a B2B SEO Consultant, feel free to reach out!

Strategy 1. Conduct Thorough Keyword Research

The first step to any successful SEO campaign is conducting thorough keyword research. Keyword research involves identifying the most relevant and high-traffic keywords and phrases that your target audience is using to search for your products or services. By optimizing your website and content for these keywords, you increase your chances of ranking higher on search engines and being discovered by potential customers.

To conduct keyword research, you can use free tools like Google Keyword Planner or paid tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush. Once you have a list of relevant keywords, you can start optimizing your website and content accordingly.

Strategy 2. Optimize Your Website for Search Engines

The next step is to optimize your website for search engines. This includes both on-page and off-page optimization. On-page optimization involves optimizing your website’s content, titles, meta descriptions, and other elements for your target keywords. Off-page optimization involves building high-quality backlinks from other websites to your website, which signals to search engines that your website is a trustworthy and authoritative source of information.

Some tips for optimizing your website for search engines include:

Conducting a thorough site audit to identify any technical issues or areas for improvement
Optimizing your website’s URLs, title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags for your target keywords
Ensuring your website is mobile-friendly and has a fast page load speed
Building high-quality backlinks from other reputable websites in your industry

Strategy 3. Create High-Quality Content

It’s a cliche, but content is truly king when it comes to SEO. Creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content is a great way to attract and engage potential customers to your website and establish your company as a thought leader in your industry.

Some tips for creating high-quality content include:

Conducting keyword research to identify the topics your target audience is searching for
Writing long-form content that is informative, engaging, and provides value to your readers
Including relevant images, videos, and infographics to enhance the user experience
Using internal and external links to provide additional resources and context
Promoting your content on social media and other channels to drive more traffic to your website

Strategy 4. Utilize Local SEO Strategies

If your company operates in a specific geographic area, then local SEO strategies can be a great way to increase your visibility in local search results. Local SEO involves optimizing your website and content for location-specific keywords and phrases, as well as building local citations and getting listed in local directories.

Some tips for utilizing local SEO strategies include:

Creating location-specific landing pages on your website
Building local citations on sites like Google My Business, Yelp, and Yellow Pages
Getting listed in local directories and industry-specific directories
Encouraging customers to leave reviews on your Google My Business listing

Strategy 5. Monitor and Analyze Your SEO Results

The final step in any successful SEO campaign is monitoring and analyzing your results. This involves tracking your website’s rankings, traffic, and conversions over time and making adjustments as needed to improve your results.

Some tips for monitoring and analyzing your SEO results include:

Using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track your website’s traffic and search engine rankings
Analyzing your website’s conversion rates and identifying areas for improvement
Conducting regular site audits to identify technical issues or areas for optimization

So there you have it. By following these five essential B2B SEO strategies, you can boost your company’s visibility, attract more potential customers, and ultimately drive more sales and revenue.

Remember, SEO is a long-term strategy that requires patience, persistence, and a willingness to adapt and adjust your tactics as needed. But with the right approach, you can achieve great results and take your B2B business to the next level. Good luck!

May 2, 2023/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek

SEO

SEO Tactics to Apply Today for a Successful Holiday Shopping Season

The holiday shopping season is quickly approaching! Are you prepared? If not, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. In this blog post, we will discuss some SEO tactics that you can still apply today to help increase traffic to your website and boost your sales during the holiday season. Let’s get started! If you need a hand and want some advice from an SEO Consultant, feel free to get in touch!

Tactic 1: Align your content with your customers’ needs and interests.

The first step to successful SEO is understanding your audience. What are their needs and interests? What kind of content are they searching for? What words are they using? Once you have a good understanding of your target audience, you can create content that is relevant to them and that answers their questions. This will help you attract more visitors to your website and convert them into customers.

Tactic 2: Gather Reviews

If you haven’t already, now is the time to start gathering reviews and testimonials from your happy customers. These can be used in your holiday marketing campaigns and on your website to show potential customers that you’re a trusted business. You can also use this valuable customer feedback to improve your products and services. People are naturally going to wonder if other people like your product after they bought it, so show your stuff!

Tactic 3: Get other websites talking about you (and get some good backlinks in the process)

One way to increase your website’s visibility and authority is to get other websites talking about you. This can be done by guest blogging, being featured in a press release, or being listed on a directory or review site. Not only will this help to increase your website’s traffic, but it will also give you some valuable backlinks that can improve your website’s SEO.

Tactic 4: Optimize your website for mobile

Mobile traffic has been increasing every year, and this holiday season is sure to be no different. Make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices so that users have a good experience when they visit your site from their phones or tablets. This includes making sure your website loads quickly, is easy to navigate, and has a mobile-friendly design.

There you have it! These are just a few SEO tactics that you can still apply today to help you boost your traffic and sales during the holiday season. You may have noticed that these are not necessarily “Keyword Ranking” focused. The idea here is to build confidence beyond just ranking on Google. That’s the direction Google is taking things, so be a part of it!

August 17, 2022/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek

Conversion Rate Optimization, SEO

3 SEO Strategies that also increase Conversion Rates

Historically, SEO has lived in a little black box as a weird tactic that gets you more traffic. And, if you’re lucky, you get some more sales out of it. At least, that’s what many people think.

However, with the dawn of Google moving more and more towards creating a search EXPERIENCE as opposed to a simple transaction, this creates an opportunity for ecommerce businesses to consider how people search instead of what they search for.

In this blog post, I’ll be digging into the overall search journey and how each step of the way adds to potential for more conversions instead of just more traffic.

Let’s dig in.

Tactic One: Content Optimization

Everyone that has been through the SEO process knows that creating content is important. But, where most people stop is in the idea of “SEO Content.” Meaning, content that was written to “target” a “keyword”. As we begin to understand our customers more, we know that this is only step one in your customers’ journey.

Every search begins with a trigger event.

In other words, there’s a reason for every single visitor to be on your website. When you are optimizing your content for a specific keyword, you create a subconscious impression that you are there on their screen because you want them there because they searched for that keyword.

Instead, the impression should be that you exist as a brand to solve their problems and make their lives better. Whether you are selling a t-shirt or a widget, there is an emotional response that needs to happen in order for the person to resonate with your brand and potentially take action.

What can you do with this information?

Instead of researching which keyword to target, research the motivation of the search itself. You probably already know what your customer is thinking about and the questions they’re asking for one reason or another. Use that knowledge to create better content on your website.

Answer those questions.

People will develop a positive impression of you (the company, not the product) when they feel heard and appreciated.

Use the words they use.

Jargon is a curse among the marketing world. Your customer does not care about the things you think are selling points. They want to feel appreciated.

Tactic Two: Link Building

Ah yes, the old conversation around “he who has the best links wins”.

While having authoritative websites linking to you does indeed improve your rankings, there’s an opportunity that often gets overlooked.

Part of your customer’s buying journey is looking for social validation. This means they are looking to resources beyond your website to confirm that your brand is legit and worth buying from.

Sure, getting a bunch of 5 star reviews is a great start. But, what if when someone searches for “‘brand’ reviews” a number of blog posts pop up that showcase your products. This holds a lot of authority with Google, sure… but it also builds up the impression with your potential customers that your website is worth buying from.

Tactic Three: Website Performance Optimization

Yes, Google loves clean code. Clean code not only makes your website easier to crawl for Google, but it also helps your load time. While Google may claim that website load time is only a small piece of the rankings pie, it’s important to note that load time is an important consideration in your customers’ buying decision for two reasons:

First: The subconscious factor

If your website loads slow, it creates the impression that your website is not technically sound. This creates hesitation around what else could be wrong with your website. This could create internal tension with questions like “Is my credit card information safe here?” And when someone asks themselves a question like that, the sale is all but lost.

Second: The quick decision factor

It’s 2022 and people are on the move. Take a look at the shelves near the register at any department store and you will see items abandoned because people do not want to wait any longer than they have to. They will literally leave behind what they came into that store for because of the fact that they don’t want to wait.

And, for what it’s worth… Despite what Google says about how much page speed may or may not be a ranking factor, faster sites just rank better.

Now, I also realize that this section has mainly been about page speed…

It’s also important to consider the mobile performance of your website.

Google is running the “mobile first” version of their algorithm now. This is because across the board, more than 50% of all interactions between brands and their users happen on mobile devices.

There could be a whole other blog post about mobile performance, but I’ll share this for the purposes of this post, consider checking out Google’s mobile friendly scan. This tool gives some great insights on mobile website performance.

Overall, I hope it’s coming across that when you take care of your customers while they’re on your website through their buying journey, Google takes care of you.

And when you take care of your customers, you’re more likely to get that sale and gain a customer for life.

If you want me to take a peek “under the hood” and see if there may be some potential opportunities to improve your SEO and Conversion Rate right away, grab some time and we can chat. I’ve opened up my calendar and I’d love to see you win.

Hope this was helpful! If you have any questions, please let me know below!

June 28, 2022/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek

SEO

Which SEO techniques should be avoided

I gotta say that writing this blog post was a fun weird trip down memory lane. When you’ve been an SEO Consultant for as long as I have, you see a lot of funny things where people are trying to game Google, all of which is doomed to fall flat on its respective face. If you’re asking yourself “which SEO techniques should be avoided”, keep reading… We all wonder this exact question from time to time.

SEO consultants are always looking for new techniques to improve their clients’ search engine rankings. However, not all of these techniques are effective – in fact, some can actually harm your ranking and visibility. In this blog post, we will discuss which SEO techniques you should avoid if you want to maintain your website’s rank and visibility.

First… Not all stuffing is good stuffing

One of the most common and ineffective SEO techniques is keyword stuffing. This involves cramming as many keywords into your website’s content as possible, regardless of whether or not they make sense. Not only does this technique not improve your ranking, it can actually harm it. Google’s algorithms are designed to identify keyword stuffing, and will penalize websites that engage in this practice.

It doesn’t count if ya paid for it, lol

Another SEO technique that you should avoid is link buying. This is when you pay for links from other websites, in the hopes that Google will count them as votes and improve your ranking. However, Google’s algorithms are also designed to identify paid links, and will penalize websites that engage in this practice.

You’re not a wizard, Harry… you’re gonna get yourself penalized.

Next up is cloaking. Cloaking is when you serve different content to Google’s crawlers than you do to actual users. This can be done by serving different HTML code or by redirecting users to a different URL. Cloaking is an attempt to trick Google’s algorithms, and will result in a penalty if you are caught.

Low Quality Doorways

Lastly, we have doorway pages. Doorway pages are created for the sole purpose of ranking for a particular keyword or phrase. They are typically low-quality and provide little value to the user. Doorway pages will also result in a penalty from Google if they are detected.

These are just some of the SEO techniques that you should avoid if you want to maintain your website’s rank and visibility. Remember, it’s important to focus on providing quality content and a good user experience – not on trying to trick Google’s algorithms. If you do that, your ranking will take care of itself.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about SEO, feel free to contact us. We’re always happy to help! Get in touch for more information. Thanks for reading!

June 20, 2022/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek

SEO

SEO Audit Checklist: How to Perform a Successful SEO Audit

If you’re like most business owners, you want to make sure that your website is performing at its best. That’s why it’s important to perform a SEO audit on a regular basis. In this blog post, we will provide you with a SEO audit checklist that will help you identify any potential problems with your website and fix them.

Here’s what you need to do to perform a successful SEO audit:

Identify your goals: What do you want to achieve with your website? Make sure that your goals are realistic and achievable. It’s amazing how many successful websites don’t have a goal in mind when they are developing their SEO strategy. By simply defining a strategy, you will be ahead of many of your competitors!

Check your website structure: Is your website easy to navigate? Do all of the pages on your website have unique titles and descriptions? Are all of the links on your website working properly? If you answer “no” to any of these questions, then you need to make some changes to your website.

Analyze your content: Does all of your content contain keywords that are relevant to your business? Is all of your content original and well-written? If not, then you need to improve it. More importantly, it is critical to make sure that your website’s content is friendly to your customers and not just Google.

Test your website speed: How fast does your website load? If it’s slow, then you need to work on optimizing your website. Slow websites are bad for SEO because they frustrate users and cause them to leave before they even have a chance to see what you have to offer.

Check your mobile friendliness: Is your website mobile-friendly? If not, then you need to make some changes so that it is. Most traffic generated by Google is on mobile devices, so mobile performance is critical! Use tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see how your website measures up.

Analyze your backlinks: Are the backlinks to your website high-quality? If not, then you need to work on getting more high-quality backlinks. One way to do this is by guest blogging on high-quality websites in your industry.

Analyze your competitors: What are your competitors doing that you’re not? This is an important question to ask when performing a SEO audit. By analyzing your competition, you can find areas where you can improve your own website.

Tools for SEO Audits

There are a number of different tools that you can use to perform a SEO audit. Here are some of our favorites:

– Moz

– Screaming Frog

– Google Analytics

– Google Search Console

– SEMrush

With these tools, you will be able to identify any potential problems with your website and fix them. As a result, you will see an improvement in your website’s traffic and ranking.

Identifying Technical SEO issues

One of the most important aspects of a SEO audit is identifying technical SEO issues. Technical SEO refers to the optimization of your website for search engines. It includes things like site structure, titles, descriptions, and keyword usage. By fixing these technical issues, you will see an improvement in your website’s ranking.

To identify technical SEO issues, we recommend using a tool like Screaming Frog. This tool will crawl your website and identify any technical SEO issues that need to be fixed.

Once you have identified the technical SEO issues, you need to fix them. Fortunately, most of these issues are relatively easy to fix. However, if you’re not comfortable making these changes yourself, then we recommend hiring a qualified SEO consultant to help you.

Improving Your Content

Another important aspect of a SEO audit is improving your content. As we mentioned earlier, it’s important to make sure that your content is relevant to your business and keywords. It should also be well-written and original. If you’re not sure how to improve your content, then we recommend hiring a professional copywriter.

By following this SEO audit checklist, you can be sure that you’re doing everything you can to optimize your website for the search engines. Contact us today if you need help with your SEO audit. We’d be happy to assist you.

SEO audits are important because they help business owners identify potential problems with their websites and take steps to fix them. With a little time and effort, anyone can perform a successful SEO audit.

May 24, 2022/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek

SEO

Is Shopify good for SEO?

The simple answer is yes, Shopify is good for SEO. However, it isn’t a magic bullet that will guarantee top rankings and increased traffic overnight. It takes effort and optimization to make a Shopify store rank highly in search engines.

That being said, Shopify is a great platform for SEO because it is built with search engine optimization in mind. When you use Shopify, you get access to features and functionality that make it easy to optimize your store for search engines.

Shopify is good for SEO because:

-It has a clean and simple code structure that makes it easy for search engine crawlers to index your content.

-It allows you to create unique and descriptive URLs for your products and pages, which helps search engines understand what your pages are about.

-It provides built-in tools for generating sitemaps and submitting them to search engines, which makes it easier for them to find and index your pages.

-It offers a wide range of plugins and add-ons that can help you further optimize your store for better search engine visibility.

All that said, Shopify is great out of the box for Search Engine Optimization. But, that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done. Launching your website on Shopify doesn’t mean it will instantly rank.

How to do SEO on a Shopify Website

Here are a few tips to get you started on the right track:

-Choose the right Shopify plan: Choose the Shopify plan that gives you access to all the features and functionality you need to optimize your store for search engines. The higher-priced plans come with more features and are generally a better investment if you’re serious about SEO.

-Install an SSL certificate: Google prefers sites that use HTTPS, so it’s a good idea to install an SSL certificate on your Shopify store. This will help your site rank higher in search results.

-Pick a theme that is SEO friendly: Some themes are better than others when it comes to search engine optimization. When choosing a theme for your store, make sure to pick one that is designed with SEO in mind.

-Add alt text to your images: Whenever you upload an image to your store, make sure to include alt text. This helps search engines understand what the image is and how it relates to your page content.

-Create descriptive product pages: Write unique and descriptive product descriptions for each of the products in your store. Make sure to include relevant keywords and phrases so that search engines can easily find and index your pages.

-Generate a sitemap: A sitemap helps search engines understand the structure of your site and find all the pages on it. Use a sitemap generator tool to create a sitemap for your Shopify store and submit it to Google Search Console.

-Submit your site to Google Search Console: Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to submit your site to Google and track its progress in the search results.

The Biggest “Miss” that hurts Shopify Store Owners

If there’s one thing that I constantly see missed in regards to SEO for shopify, it’s lack of content. Especially on collection pages. This is prime space for getting the most SEO traction.

Tips for creating great content for SEO in Shopify:

For starters, always keep in mind that you are writing for a person first. If you do that well enough, the search engines will like what you wrote and you will eventually rank on Google.

-Include 200+ words per collection page

-Use proper keyword research to find what people are searching for related to your products

-Use headings (H1, H2, H3) to break up your content and make it easy to read

-Include images and videos to help break up the text and keep people engaged

-Make sure your product pages are well optimized with unique titles, descriptions, and images.

Another Important Consideration that will improve your SEO: User Experience Optimization

Google has stated multiple times that the goal of their algorithm is to provide the best user experience possible.

What does that mean for you?

It means that you need to focus on creating a fast, easy-to-use, and informative website if you want to rank well on Google.

Here are a few tips to help you improve your website’s user experience:

-Make sure your site loads quickly: Visitors expect websites to load in 3 seconds or less. If your site takes longer than that to load, they will likely leave before they even see your content. Use a tool like Pingdom to test your site’s speed and make changes accordingly.

-Make it easy to navigate:Your website should be easy to navigate so that visitors can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Use clear and descriptive links, organize your content into logical categories, and use a search feature if your site has a lot of content.

-Use high-quality images: People are visual creatures, so make sure to use high-quality images on your website. This will help visitors understand your products better and make them more likely to buy from you.

-Include informative and helpful content: Your website’s content should be informative and helpful. Make sure to answer any questions that your visitors might have, and provide additional resources if needed.

So, Is Shopify good for SEO?

As we stated above… Yes. Shopify is in fact good for SEO. Much like how the human body is designed to build muscle… It doesn’t happen without work.

Following these tips will help you get started on the right track with SEO for your Shopify store. However, keep in mind that SEO is an ongoing process. You’ll need to continuously work on optimizing your store if you want to see long-term results.

Overall, Shopify is a great platform for SEO and can help you rank higher in search engines with the right optimization efforts. If you want to learn more about how to optimize your Shopify store for better SEO, contact an ecommerce SEO consultant today.

May 11, 2022/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek

SEO

How to Audit Your Website for SEO: A Guide by an SEO Consultant

SEO website audits can be a great way to find out where your website stands when it comes to search engine optimization. As an SEO consultant, I often recommend that business owners audit their website on a regular basis – at least once every six months.

In this blog post, we will discuss the steps involved in conducting an SEO website audit. We will also provide tips on how to improve your website’s ranking in search engines. Let’s get started!

SEO Audit Step One: Audit your current keyword rankings

The first step in conducting an SEO website audit is to assess your website’s current ranking in search engines. You can do this by using a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner or Moz’s Keyword Explorer. Once you have a list of keywords, you can use these tools to find out where your website ranks for each keyword.

This is also an opportunity to identify other keyword opportunities. Including other keywords your competitors are not ranking for but could also generate high quality traffic. Some ways of identifying these keyword opportunities include using Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner, conducting a competitor analysis, or using a tool like SEMrush.

SEO Audit Step Two: On Page Optimization

After you have assessed your website’s current ranking in search engines, it is time to take a look at your website’s on-page optimization. This includes factors such as your website’s title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and content. You will want to make sure that each of these elements are optimized for your target keywords. If they are not, you may want to consider making some changes.

Google’s standards are always changing, but it’s safe to follow a general rule of thumb: Optimize for your customers, not Google. It seems counter intuitive, but Google is incredibly sensitive to spam. So, if you’re over-optimized for specific keywords, it may actually work against you in the end.

SEO Audit Step Three: Off Page Optimization

Once you have reviewed your website’s on-page optimization, it is time to take a look at your off-page optimization. Not only do you want to look for opportunities, but you’ll also want to assess what your current off-page optimization picture looks like. To audit your backlink profile, use tools like Moz’s Open Site Explorer or Majestic’s Site Explorer. These tools will allow you to see who is linking to your website, what the anchor text of those links are, and the quality of those links.

If your links look like they are from legitimate websites, you’re in good shape! If your backlinks look spammy or are overly keyword stuffed, you may want to consider a backlink removal campaign.

As for social media engagement, it is important to make sure that you are active on relevant platforms and that you are sharing content that is interesting and engaging. This will help to increase your brand awareness and build relationships with potential customers.

SEO Audit Step Four: Technical SEO

The next step is to identify the areas of your website that need improvement. This can be done by looking at your website’s analytics data or by conducting a competitor analysis. Once you have identified the areas that need improvement, you can start working on making changes to your website.

Some of the basics of a technical website audit include:

-Crawling: You will want to use a tool like Screaming Frog to crawl your website and identify any errors that may be holding you back from ranking higher in search results.

-Indexation: This is a check to make sure that all of the pages on your website are being indexed by search engines. You can do this by using the Google Search Console.

-Mobile-friendliness: With more and more people using mobile devices to access the internet, it is important to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. You can test your website’s mobile-friendliness by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

-Site speed: Site speed is a factor that can impact your website’s ranking in search results. You can test your website’s speed by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

-Security: This is a check to make sure that your website is secure and that there are no vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers.

SEO Audit Step Five: Content

After you have completed your technical SEO audit, it is time to begin an SEO content audit. This includes both the text on your website as well as any images or videos that you may have. You will want to make sure that all of your content is high quality and relevant to your target audience.

If you find that there are some areas of your content that need improvement, you can start working on making changes. This may include adding new content, optimizing your existing content, or both.

Some common changes that are made during an SEO website audit include optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags. Other changes that may be made include adding alt text to images, improving the website’s internal linking structure, and creating more compelling content.

Once you have your SEO Audit findings

Our recommendation is to just take each item step by step. There’s no need to rush and tackle every item within a week unless you find severe crawl issues. Improving your website over time will serve you better than finding yourself overwhelmed and not doing anything at all.

Remember: the key to SEO success is knowing which direction to point your ship then heading in that direction. With that said, don’t skip any of these steps. Even if you think it’s not necessary to look at specific keyword categories, when you identify those categories you identify competitors and get the beginnings of your technical to do list.

If you want to be an SEO Master, make sure you audit your website regularly!

Do you have any other questions about auditing your website for SEO? Leave a comment below and let us know! We would love to help you out.

April 27, 2022/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek

SEO

SEO Tips for Travel Websites: How to Increase Traffic and Conversions

Are you looking for ways to increase traffic and conversions for your travel website? If so, you’re in luck! In this blog post, we will share some SEO tips that will help you achieve those goals. It’s no secret that there is a lot of competition when it comes to SEO for Travel websites. Our goal with this blog post is to help you be set up for success and to get that extra edge to outrank your competitors.

First: Make sure you are targeting the right keywords.

One of the most important aspects of SEO is targeting the right keywords. You want to make sure that you are targeting keywords that are relevant to your business and that have a high enough search volume to justify the effort. But don’t get too hung up on keyword difficulty or search volume. The most important thing is to target keywords that are relevant.

Next: Optimize the basics.

Once you find what you’re targeting, make sure your website is optimized for search engines. This means including the right keywords in your titles, descriptions, and throughout your website. You should also focus on creating high-quality content that provides value to your readers.

Having high quality content doesn’t only mean well written, it also means it resonates with who your audience is. Our recommendation is to make sure you have a profile put together for who your ideal customer is and speak directly to that person. In other words… get inside their head! Speak to what matters to them.

You’d be surprised how frequently this step is missed and how effective it is. The cool thing is that by creating content that is relevant to your customers you NATURALLY do SEO.

Third: Make your website performance top notch.

Your website’s performance is important for two reasons. First, it will impact your SEO. Second, it will impact your conversion rate. If your website is slow or difficult to use, you’re going to lose potential customers.

Make sure your website is fast and easy to use by doing things like optimizing images, using a caching plugin, and using a content delivery network. These are just a few of the things you can do to improve your website’s performance.

Pay regular attention to your page speed. Google has recently released a number of updates specifically geared towards page speed. One of our starting points for page speed specifically is typically images. Having high quality images is important for showing your destinations in detail. The challenge typically becomes that high resolution image files sizes are massive. This means a page with a full size, full resolution image is going to take forever to load. Bad experience for Google for sure… Even bigger problem for your website visitors!

Next: Consider Using Structured Data.

Structured data is a code that you can add to your website to help search engines understand your content better. This can be things like event information, product information, or even business information.

Adding structured data to your website can help you show up in more search results and can even help you get featured in Google’s rich results.

For more information about Structure Data, check out Schema.org’s write up of Travel Markup!

Tip 5: Get other people talking about you! (AKA… Link Building)

Another important factor is link building. Getting links from other websites is a way of showing Google that what you’re saying matters. Ideally, you’d be looking to get editorial pieces written about your business and have the author link to your website for reference.

However, there are other ways to get links as well.

A few examples:

-If you have a blog, make sure you’re using social media to share your content and that you’re using keywords in your anchor text when you link to your own website.

-If you sponsor an event or belong to an organization, see if you can get a link on their website.

-If you’re listed in a directory, make sure the listing is linking to your website.

-Check out some of your competitor’s backlinks and see if there are any opportunities for you to get a link from the same places they are.

Just remember, when it comes to link building, quality trumps quantity. So don’t go out and start buying links or participating in link schemes. That will only get you into trouble with Google.

If you focus on these SEO tips for travel websites, you should see an increase in traffic and conversions from your website!

SEO can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it doesn’t have to be.

By following these simple tips, you can see real results for your travel website without spending hours upon hours working on SEO. And isn’t that what we all want? More traffic and conversions with less work!

If you need help getting started with SEO for your travel website, contact us today! We’d be happy to help you get on the path to success.

March 14, 2022/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek

SEO

SEO Tips for Shopify: How to get more free traffic from Google

If you are running a Shopify website, you know how important it is to get quality website traffic. A lot of Shopify store owners are dependent on ads to drive sales. While this is still an effective strategy, major platform updates like iOS 14 made advertising targeting even more difficult. Many site owners are scrambling now after taking a major hit to their sales. One option for making up for some lost sales is by being present for the phrases that your customers are searching for. This is where we introduce SEO Tips for Shopify!

In this blog post, we will discuss some tips for improving your SEO for your Shopify website. We will cover everything from Shopify Specific Technical modifications to on-page optimization to link building and more! Buckle up!

1. Resize your photos for better load times.

Page speed is a serious matter.

Google calculates that for every 1 second of load time, you can take away 20% of your conversion rate. People don’t like waiting… period.

One of the major contributors to long load times is image size. A lot of times, we take the images right from our photographers and load them right into Shopify as is. This means an image meant for a billboard is loading on your customer’s smart phone. (Yes… even though it was resized, it’s still trying to load that whole image).

I like to recommend Photo Resize to my clients. This automatically updates your images for you so that you can quickly and easily go about running your store.

One client saw his load time go from 5+ seconds per page to under 2 seconds from this alone.

2. Utilize the space Shopify gives you for content.

A lot of Shopify store owners gripe about the fact that other stores are already winning the top ranking spots because Google plays favorites.

The reality is that Google does indeed play favorites, but not the way that you’d think…

Google plays favorites with the websites that give them what they want.

And what they want is content. It’s how they know what your pages are about!

By using your catalog pages, you can essentially categorize your products and add content to those catalog pages. In a lot of Shopify Themes, the content area falls above your products so it may be necessary to modify your liquid code document.

3. Make sure your content is unique.

This is specifically for a lot of dropshippers or POD folks… It’s really tempting to just use the description you get with your products.

But… this is a fast way of getting yourself blocked by Google and you’ll never get those sales.

Take the time, even if you only get through one product per day to create new content for your site.

This will allow you to not only be in Google’s good graces, but also add some personality to your products. Do this right and it’ll resonate well with your customers.

4. Check your domain canonicalization

Alright… gonna get technical for a quick second…

For your home page specifically, there are technically at least 4 ways for Google to find it.

The options are:

https://www.yoursite.com

http://www.yoursite.com

https://yoursite.com

http://yoursite.com

Weird, right?

Luckily, there is a setting in Shopify that allows us to fix this little bug, so make sure you have this set:

The reason you’ll want to fix this is to avoid duplicate content. When Google sees each of those different URLs, they treat them like four different pages. Again… Weird… I know, but it’s what we gotta deal with.

The same also holds true for your product pages. Let’s say that you sell t shirts and you have one design that you sell in blue and black. It’s probably not important enough to write 2 new brand new pages of content, so this would likely create some mostly duplicated content. By adding a canonical tag, you can essentially give ownership of the content of the page to one product and Google will know that it’s not intentionally duplicated content.

I’m not going to dig into the step by step of how to do that here, but here’s a great article that does just that.

5. Don’t let old products 404

Over time, you’ll likely stop selling certain products, things will sell out, or whatever else happens over time.

It may be tempting to just delete that product, but I’d advise against it.

You have two options here…

First is to just let the product read as “Sold Out”. This may be a frustrating user experience, but it will at least not show a page missing error.

The other option is to write what’s called a 301 redirect from the old product page to the catalog page. Over time, this will eventually tell Google that this page isn’t coming back and they’ll no longer store it (which is a good thing).

Either way, you want to avoid Google seeing that a page is just flat out missing. It’s frustrating to them and it’s frustrating to your customers.

SEO Tips for Shopify that aren’t Shopify Specific

6. Some SEO basics and how to get them with Shopify.

These last items aren’t Shopify specific, but if they’re not done, all the other stuff we already tackled won’t matter.

Write unique Page Titles and Meta Descriptions for every single page and product. Tedious? Yes… The easiest way to show Google you care about creating a great user experience? Absolutely. Use these areas to write something appealing about your store, your products, and your brand. Make it as unique as you are!
Register for and set up Search Console. Be sure to register your site at google.com/webmasters/tools. Once you sign up, you’ll get a welcome email that’ll walk you through some basics, but be sure to also make sure you submit your XML sitemap. Here’s a step by step for getting your sitemap and here’s how to save it to Search Console.
Be sure to write all of your content with a strategy in mind. Ask yourself the question “what would I search for if I wanted to buy this?” This’ll be a great starting point for what to say in each of the elements you write. For example, if someone would search for “Blue Widgets” make sure your title tag mentions “Blue Widgets”. The more specific you can be, the better… For example “Size 10 Red High Heels” is way better than “Red High Heels”.

Next Steps for your SEO: Building Backlinks

Once your site itself is optimized, you can start getting other people to link to you, which will be the big winning factor for your SEO. Consider partnering with bloggers in the space that you’re in and get them a product to try! I’ve gotten clients hundreds of backlinks by simply getting product in the hands of someone that could use it. Not only do you get the SEO benefit, but if the blogger is any good, you get some sales from the link too!

I hope you found this post helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to help where I can!

SEO can be a bit overwhelming, but it’s so worth it when you start seeing the results in your traffic and sales.

By following these simple steps, you’ll be on your way to getting more traffic from Google.

Have a Question about SEO for Shopify?

February 26, 2022/0 Comments/by Shawn the SEO Geek