In theory, it’s simple…you want your products to reach the person who’s looking for it, especially on the internet, and preferably in the first few clicks. Reality, however, paints a more complex picture–or at least one that involves a much more meticulous level of planning.
The art of optimizing that which you are promoting so that your product appears highest on internet search result pages is a process that dates to nearly the inception of the internet. It’s an aptly titled process called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short–and wielding such a trailblazing tool correctly can have tremendously positive effects on your profits.
As a marketing strategy, SEO is designed to pick up on which words and key phrases or questions browsers use to find the products and services for which they’re looking, then apply those words and phrases to your brand’s internet presence; the result: clicks, clicks, clicks. How often have you wondered why your business name wasn’t appearing in top search results? How often have you wondered what significant difference it would make if your product did appear?
Suitable Search Engine Optimization will help make your brand more visible online. Google and the other search engines use bots to crawl pages on the web, going from site to site, collecting information about those pages and putting them in an index. Their algorithms analyze pages in the index, considering hundreds of ranking factors or signals, to determine the priority sites. The most optimized sites get the highest rankings according to this algorithm. The poorly optimized websites, of course, earn lower rankings, meaning that your products and services are out of sight and out of consideration. Thus, obtaining a page-one rank for popular terms can be a huge driver of traffic.
A brand can’t pay search engines to get higher organic search rankings, which means an SEO expert must fill in the gap. Animaré SEO expert, Alex Tchouangwa, is accomplished at generating organic traffic while ranking companies higher on the search engines. His primary focus is only on the best SEO practices to create the most significant returns on your investment.
“SEO is more of a long game, but it compounds over time,” said Alex. He cautions: If you want to see how the strategy might work for you, you must exercise a little patience. “If you’re OK with not seeing results in the next three or four months, with the understanding that in six to twelve months from now, the work that you’re putting in today is going to be start compounding–like a snowball effect–then you’re going to be good!”
Alex goes on to say that a Search Engine Optimization campaign is totally different from something like an ad campaign. Whereas an ad campaign centers around showing browsers products they’ve previously searched for, the brilliance of an SEO campaign is that you’re taking a far more active approach in bringing the product to the buyer. In fact, you’re bringing the product to one of the most motivated types of buyers: the one who's presently scouring the internet for what you have.
The Importance of a Blog.
But how to ensure your brand cuts through the crowd of others hoping, in turn, to achieve the same coveted standing in the search results? Animaré knows it comes down to copy. “The copy, the text from your website; it has to have keywords that consumers use and ones that attract,” Alex said, and with it offered an important and, in his opinion, underutilized website tool: a blog. Think about it: blog posts can be extremely impactful, because a blog is something that you, the content curator, has immense control of–what words to use, when to publish, how often to put up new content, when to pivot the narrative, etc. Additionally, Alex states that blog posts are a way to initiate organic search history, because you can sprinkle in those key phrases much more often given the larger body of words. “An effective SEO strategy is one centered around the quality of the content,” Alex said. From key terms to phrasing answers in a style that matches how browsers pose a question when they type it into their search bar.
But how can one know what key terms and phrases to use? Alex ends by saying that, in his opinion, a successful SEO campaign is one that you invest in; one that you get out what you put in, and something you work at–like studying for a test or going to the gym. It’s something you need to spend some time perfecting. Spend time with the data to see what words and phrases consumers use to search; see what works, what doesn’t. “You're probably not going to see the results you want in the first few weeks, but give it time, give it six months or so, and you’ll see.”
Steps Animaré Takes for Optimizing Your Search Engine Results.
1. Competitive Assessment: This is to define and aggregate opportunities for technical SEO implementation and content creation based on competing destinations, geographic location, and industry best practices. This will put in perspective where your brand stands and where its competitors are. Our assessment includes a roundup illuminating the biggest threats SEO-wise and what key points can be taken from their SEO strategy, including:
Keyword repository aggregated through end-to-end search engine/website scrape of competitor keywords.
Leverage dataset to calculate total addressable search engine market, cost of traffic, and other strategic metrics to inform SEO CAC and ROI.
List analysis to determine most highly searched and conversion optimized keywords amongst the competitive set based on search intent.
2. Comprehensive SEO Strategy: This is based on the competitors listed as threats and includes the number of blog posts and backlinks required to compete in the search engine for revenue-driving keywords including:
Analytics Implementation (Google Search Console and Google Analytics)
Content Analysis and Strategy Build-Out
Link Acquisition Analysis and Strategy Build-Out
3. Collaborative Implementation: Animaré works closely with the development teams to ensure that your website is built (or updated) using best-in-class SEO practices while also setting up the analytics properly to accurately attribute web visitors to the proper acquisition channels (organic, referral, social media, paid).
Set up Google Search Console and Google Analytics
Generate and submit sitemap
Create a Robots.txt file
Find and fix potential crawl errors
Ensure SEO-friendly URL structure
Add structured data
Create proper page depth
Create unique meta descriptions, page titles, and H1 headers
Ensure images have alt tags
Create an internal linking strategy
Ensure that there are no orphaned pages or cannibalization
Animaré also collaborates with the paid search team to determine primary keywords which will be the focus for each page of the website to ensure that specific keywords aren’t being bid on through paid and organic channels.
4. Backlink Acquisition: Backlinks are created when third-party websites link back to your website. This improves search engine rankings. The amount is TBD and based on consideration of all priorities.
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Dallas-Based Marketing Expertise Since 1994.
In 28 years, Animaré has transformed more than 100 brands using innovative brand strategies and compelling creative for a proven marketing ROI. We bring to your challenges the very best strategic brainpower for differentiating your company and persuasive storytelling to make the brand stand out from the sea of sameness. Our collaborative process focuses on four important components of a brand to achieve results:
Identifying and understanding your target personas and advocates
Articulating a philosophical connection between your brand and its advocates
Creating/highlighting engagements to reinforce advocacy
Elevating the brand core competency in a manner that sets it apart from the sea of sameness and causes action.
Most importantly, what we do works! In the words of our other clients:
“Animaré performed above and beyond by collaborating with us on time-consuming marketing projects of great benefit to Dallas. This included ongoing collaboration with the City of Dallas Marketing Committee, comprised of numerous organizations and city entities, to create a unified marketing strategy for the city. Their professionalism, insight, and understanding of our industry made Animaré a valued member of the team.”
“The Animaré Team is very special. They exemplify what a true business partner should be. They spend quality time with genuine care, to clearly understand what your company and brand is really all about. Then, they work their magic to create the perfect message and, most importantly, align it with the best channel(s) to reach your target most effectively. They are always trying to be a better partner, to make us better in what we do every day!”
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