What is SEO? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which we work to optimize your website for the best possible placement on major search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing to improve the visibility of your website pages on search engines like Google so that more potential customers can find you online. Grand Rapids search engine optimization is critical to the online success of any business. SEO best practices and techniques change often; but we are always reading up on the latest SEO news and testing out new Google SEO techniques to help you stay a step ahead of your competition.

On the Page SEO

So what factors influence SEO? There are two facets of search engine optimization; known as on the page SEO and off the page SEO. On the page SEO refers to the dynamics within your actual website — the things that we can directly control, test, analyze and change. These are things contained on your website itself, or on the page,, like your site's content, coding and technology, images and so forth.

Factors for on the page SEO we will evaluate for the best possible placement on Google and other search engines include your website's keywords, title and description tags, image alt tags, heading tags and several other factors. We will also analyze your site's content, such as your headings, paragraphs and other text and optimize it for keyword relevancy and density for the search terms being targeted on each page.

The effectiveness of your website's search engine optimization efforts are also greatly effected by things that are controlled "off-the-page" — information online about your website that does not appear on your site directly. Off the page SEO is influenced by backward links, more commonly known as backlinks. Backlinks are links that to your website that are placed on other websites. These links help Google verify and confirm the topic and relevancy of your website pages, and boosts search engine rankings. Legitimate natural backlinks increase your search engine rankings, but beware of paid links (advertising) that will not help with SEO, and may even cause Google to penalize your site.

Effective off-the-page search engine marketing and search engine optimization has changed greatly over the last few years. Google and other search engines use complex algorithms to help them calculate which websites are the most relevant for a given search term and should appear at the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages). When Google changes or updates its algorithm, SEO techniques must change and adapt to continue to be effective in increasing Google rankings. As SEO specialits we use modern, current search engine optimization techniques to improve the Google rankings of your websites. Some techniques that were effective for Google search engine optimization in the past — even as recently as 12 to 18 months ago, are now in-effective and can even have a negative impact on your search engine rankings or cause your website to be sandboxed or blacklisted by Google, so choosing the right SEO specialist is a fundamental key to your success.

White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO

The terms white hat SEO and black hat SEO have been coined by experts in the search engine optimization industry like SEO author Evan Bailyn and are known in the SEO world as two distinctly different ways to optimize a website for better search engine placement.

White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO is considered the "good" or "right" way to legitimately optimize any website for better search engine placement. This means following SEO guidelines and rules set forth by Google and other search engines and using these Google-approved techniques to optimize a website and conduct SEO. White hat SEO has no risk of resulting in website penalization by Google or other search giants, is more effective, and has longer-lasting, long term SEO results.

Other areas of both on the page white hat SEO and off the page white hat SEO include tasks like legitimate linkbuilding to improve backlinks, using highly-specific keyword targeting and landing pages for better relevancy, and making smart choices about your domain name. The three primary factors of domain-related SEO are domain name age, domain name keywords, and domain name extension. If you don't already have a domain name picked out for your website, we can consult with you and use tools like Google Insights for Search to help you pick the domain name that will be most beneficial to the success of your business. Read more about choosing the right domain name for your website.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO means using tactics and techniques not approved by Google and the search engine optimization industry to optimize a website. Black hat SEO is considered to be unethical, as the tactics used to optimize a website include those that attempt to trick the search engines into ranking your website higher. Black hat SEO techniques are things like invisible text (such as text that is the same color as the background), keyword stuffing, link farming and other spammy techniques that degrade and hurt the relevancy, quality and value of search engines and their search engine results.

Any search engine optimization success gained from using these unethical techniques is often short-lived and certainly not worth it. Google's algorithms are incredibly smart, and are regularly on the lookout for websites that are utilize these sorts of SEO techniques. When search engines discover that techniques like these have been used, your search engine rankings can fall drastically, or Google may penalize you by sandboxing your website, or even blacklisting your domain. Domain blacklisting means that your website will not appear anywhere in the Google search results, which in the Internet Age, can be a crisis for any business. This is why we only use proven, Google-approved white-hat SEO techniques to optimize your website. In short, when Google is happy — you'll be happy, because they will reward you for ethical SEO, relevant content and clean code by moving you higher up into the search engine results.

Online success from SEO can be longlasting, and the investment placed in search engine optimization is well worth the rewards of new customers, sales, and traffic to your business or store. Unlike with traditional paid advertising like television and radio commercials, billboards, and even online ads, search engine optimization ensures that everyone who sees your business on Google actually is in search of the very products or services you offer. When you run a television commercial to advertising your roofing company; a vast majority of the general public who is watching TV when your commercial airs will see it, but many may not even own a home, or may not need a roof — these people will simply ignore your ad, essentially wasting your advertising dollars. Instead of wasting your advertising budget on ineffective methods of advertising; consider setting aside a portion of your budget to invest in a meaningful SEO campaign from a Grand Rapids search engine optimization specialist. With search engine optimization, a person who does need or want your products or services will search for you on Google; and your website will appear in the search engine results. This way, you're not wasting money to advertise to people who may not even be interested.

Consider that in some markets, just one single airing of a 30-second television commercial may cost as much as $499.00, and a single airing of a 1-minute long commercial may cost $1000.00 or more. Literally — that equates to almost $17 per second of airtime, and this does not even include the costs required for a video specialist to produce your commercial TV spot!

A large and effective, aesthetically pleasing and multi-page local business website with advanced search engine optimization for Google, however; can be purchased for between $1,000 and $2,000 dollars — and it stays online forever, not just for 30 or 60 seconds! As an effective marketing tool for your business, your website has the potential to be seen by thousands of potential customers online, and unlike TV, radio or newspaper ads — you're not going to pay everytime someone sees it.

Contact us for a free SEO quote and start building your Google SEO strategy today!