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What to look for in an SEO and SEM plan

What we’ll do for your SEO and SEM to get your website to show up in Google.

1. Ongoing SEO management for your website

Step 1: Analyzing your competitor’s SEO and SEM and what keywords they use. Competitor analysis is of vital importance to these efforts. We help you understand how you rank compared to your competitors, and share important analytics. All in an effort to help increase your ranking over theirs.

Through monthly video calls, we provide analysis charts showing how you’re ranking for your top keywords with Google, and make ongoing recommendations for how to continue to improve your rankings.

Below is an example of how a Competition Map looks – not for your industry – just as an example. We’ll create one for you, in your industry, so you can see exactly how your current website stacks up against your competitor’s websites. That way, we know where we’re starting from, and how far we have to go.

Competitive Positioning map for SEO and SEM plan

Step 2: Apply what we’ve found to your website. This covers keyword research and applying them to your website’s overall SEO and SEM. With Google’s never-ending algorithm updates, SEO and SEM is always an on-going effort. We will continue to modify your homepage for the 6 months to reflect the current best SEO practices. And continue it after the initial 6 months if you agree.

This also includes technical analysis and improvements to your website fixing backend issues throughout the website, which includes Page Titles, Meta Descriptions, on-page content, broken links, toxic link analysis, along with many other issues related to SEO. (You’d be surprised how many things can be inadvertently affected over the course of a website’s lifespan.)

This covers reviewing how well the keywords are working for you, making sure they’re playing well with Google’s algorithms, and tweaking them over at least 6 months, for maximum impact.

2. Conversion tracking

“Conversions” on your website is extremely important and something we track carefully. Read Google’s take on conversion tracking here.

This means you know what prospects are doing on your website, how they got there, who clicks where, how long they spend on your site, how many pages they visit and how many “click-throughs” to your contact form. We analyze everything and let you know the performance metrics of your site with detailed monthly reports.

3. Set up for voice-activated searches

With voice activated search, people ask questions (Google shows what they’re asking), more so than just typing in 2 or 3 keywords.

By conducting keyword research that includes voice searches, we determine the questions that are being asked, which can then become the headlines for your blog posts. When the headlines of the new blogs match the questions being asked, the chances of those blogs showing up well in Google or Bing searches go way up.

For a real-life example, research for ourselves showed there were voice searches asking the question: “What is the process of working with a web designer in Columbus?” So we wrote a blog with that exact headline. When someone does a voice (or Google) search asking that question, our blog shows up at the top of the page.

4. Getting backlinks to your website.

Backlinks to Sheep Herding School homepage

Google’s original algorithms were based on how many backlinks a website has, which is still a critical ranking factor. The theory being, the more websites that link back to a website, the better information the website has.

This process will get you 50 – 75 backlinks to your website from credible national websites. Backlinks have been one of Google’s very first algorithms, and continue to be relevant for every website.

See an example of a backlinks report here.

What determines how successful your SEO will be?

Any website, no matter how small, or when you start, benefits from SEO.

Racecar and go-kart side by side

There’s a lot of factors, but main ones are:

  • How much SEO your competitors are doing. Even though you might have professionally-managed SEO, your competitor’s definitely have a head start. That said, it’s never too late to start with SEO and blogging.
  • The keyword competition. You may never be able to rank on page one for some keywords if they’re competitive, general phrases. That’s why finding the right niche keywords are critical.
  • The market you’re in. The smaller the market, the easier it is to rank for your keywords. Being found in a city is easier than being found in a State, which is easier than being found regionally.
  • How serious you are with your blogging, including how frequently you post, and how diligent you are using keywords, and how detailed you are with your on-page SEO. See what’s involved with on-page SEO here. <https://www.sevell.com/news/what-good-on-page-seo-involves/>

Writing for the web is very different than writing for print.

See why here.

We can also help with Google Ads.

Stadium with man waving

Google Search and Display ads.

As you would imagine, the cost for your Google Ads can vary depending on:

  • Your industry,
  • The competitiveness of your industry,
  • The number of services or products your want to promote, and
  • Whether you’re in one location, or several. We determine the mile radius you want to reach extending from your office(s).

If you sell nationally, let us know select the top cities you sell to, and we’d start there. Then, once we know which of your products or services are the most profitable, we’d focus on those to target your ads.

If we’re fortunate enough to help with your Search Engine Marketing and Google ads, we’d review all the elements that affect your Google Ad costs, then map out a budget and a plan specifically for you.

Contact us today so we can answer any questions you might have.