Think about the last time you needed to buy something. We’re willing to bet that before you went to the store, you looked for it online. There are 313 million internet users in the United States that do the same thing.
With so many people using the internet, having an online presence is an essential part of meeting your sales goals. The problem all businesses face is that almost every company realizes this, so they are all online. Everyone has a website now, and many of them use an SEO agency to help them rank higher on search engines.
If you look online, you’ll find thousands of SEO businesses promising quick results. You might have even used one of these agencies in the past with varied results. Most of them sell their customers on a package or two and do some cosmetic work before leaving their customers scratching their heads. Often, the results you see differ from the ones promised.
The reason that many of these agencies can’t give you the results you need is that they don’t take a holistic approach. SEO is a lot like pizza. When you put the crust, sauce, cheese, and pepperoni together, it makes a delicious meal. If you only get a pepperoni, it will taste good, but it will not fill you up.
Let’s look at each part of the SEO pizza and why it’s important for your business. First, let’s look at the very basics of how SEO works to help you better understand why each piece of the pie is important.
How Do Search Engines Determine Rankings?
To understand on-page SEO (and SEO in general) you need to think of Google, Bing, and other search engines as a business. Unlike other businesses, they give away their primary service for free.
When you go onto Google and search for something, you become a customer. It’s Google’s job to connect you with the information that you’re looking for. Their success keeps you coming back for more.
Search engines use web crawlers to go through the internet and look at web pages. These crawlers are really bits of code, so they can’t technically ‘see’ anything, but they can look for certain things that will let them know what a website is about.
These bits of information that they look for are keywords. Keywords are what you type into the search bar. If you’ve recently typed ‘funny cat pictures’ into Google, that’s the keyword. Websites that have those keywords are more likely to show up.
Keywords are everywhere on a website: pages, blog posts, headers, and even in the HTML (more on that in a minute).
There are other factors that search engines use to determine the best sites to send to each searcher. Search engines won’t tell companies what their algorithms look for because they want websites to be as natural as possible, but experienced agencies have years of experience in knowing what works.
In any case, SEO works to improve your website’s chances of getting onto the first page of search engine results. The goal of a search engine is to send their customers (searchers) to websites that provide them the most value.
Now that we’ve laid out the basics of SEO, let’s look at the different parts of it to see what they do and how we can help you.
On-Page SEO (The Crust)
The crust of the pizza is the base. It’s what holds everything together. In this sense, On-page SEO is similar. It’s the foundation on which an agency should build the rest of your SEO strategy.
On-page is the same when it comes to SEO. It should be the base of your strategy.
When we asked whether your SEO agency is giving you the whole pizza or only a pepperoni, on-page SEO came to mind. Many companies only focus on cosmetic changes because those are the ones that are easier for their clients to see. On-page is a more subtle approach, but an important one.
According to Google’s website, on-page strategy provides its web crawlers with “The most basic signal that information is relevant”. Remember from earlier, it’s their job to send searchers to the most relevant web pages, so it stands to reason that without on-page, they won’t know to send people to you.
What Is On-Page?
On-page consists of optimizing your website’s pages for search engines and users. You want to make your content easy for the search engines to find and categorize, and you want to make your pages easy for users to navigate.
For the search engines, this includes using optimized title tags and URLs, having keyword-rich content on your pages, and internal linking to pages that add value for your users.
For the user, it’s all about providing as much information as possible in an easy-to-understand way. You want short paragraphs, internal links that help drive traffic to other parts of your site, and articles that are visually pleasing to the viewer. You also want to make your website mobile-friendly since Google now penalizes sites that aren’t viewable on mobile devices.
The most important thing to do is to make information easy to find for viewers. Remember, Google’s customers are searchers. One of the ways they determine whether a website meets its customer’s needs is through a metric called ‘bounceback’. If someone clicks on your website and leaves soon after, Google assumes that they didn’t find what they were expecting.
The best way to stop viewers from leaving your website immediately is to give them what they’re expecting. Don’t try to deceive someone by promising them free advice and then asking them to sign up for a service to get it. Don’t title an article “10 Easy SEO Tips” and use the majority of the text as a sales pitch for your E-book. Give them what they want or they’ll leave your website. If enough people do that, Google will stop sending people your way.
How We Help You Optimize Your On-Page SEO
The first thing that any SEO agency should do is audit your website. There are several things that they’ll look for during this audit.
First, they’ll check your URLs to make sure that they are an ideal length and that they include a high performing keyword. They’ll also check your title and description tags and meta descriptions for the same things.
They’ll also make sure that your links are effective. Many sites put up links to their internal website and to other websites and forget about them. The problem is that sometimes those links become inactive because web pages get taken down or change their address.
Audits will also go over your web copy to make sure you’ve optimized keywords and content, check for common penalties, and make sure that you’ve optimized your pages for mobile devices.
We’ll then give you actionable recommendations that can improve your SEO ranking with a few simple steps. This creates the base of your SEO strategy and will show quick results.
Content Marketing (The Sauce)
Pizza sauce is one of the most important parts of the pizza. If it’s good, it can make a good pizza great. If it’s bad, it can ruin everything else. The same is true of content marketing: you can’t have an effective digital marketing strategy without it, and if done incorrectly, it can damage your other efforts.
Content marketing involves creating informative content that helps establish you (or your company) as an expert in your field. Bill Gates declared that ‘content is king’ in the 90s, and that saying still holds true for good reason.
First, content marketing draws people to your products or service. By setting up a blog and producing content built around high-performing keywords, people are more likely to find your website. Think about the questions your customers ask you and build content around those inquiries. You can also think about what questions you would have if you were a new customer.
You will also build trust between yourself and your clients. Customers are more likely to buy from companies that they trust, which means that you’ll improve your conversion rate. Combining compelling content with an effective call-to-action at the end of each article is the best way to convert visitors into customers.
A lot of people think that content marketing is a complicated process, but really it boils down to two things. First, you need to do keyword research to find the words and phrases that customers use to find businesses like yours. Next, you need to build informative content around those keywords.
Every SEO agency has some form of content marketing, but are they doing it right? Do they do research to ensure that you get the best results? Are they targeting your ideal customer or taking a broad (and ineffective) approach?
How We Can Help You With Content Marketing
The first thing that we’ll do is research your business and industry. We want to identify your ideal customers, information gaps that exist in your industry, and your goals.
We’ll then develop a content strategy around this information. We’ll help you set up a schedule so that you’ll know when to expect new content. Afterward, we’ll get to work. We’ll research keywords that draw your ideal customers to your blog and write engaging content. We structure each piece with three goals in mind:
- Engage the reader
- Answer pain points/provide the reader with information
- Convert readers into customers
We’ll publish the content for you on your website and social media channels to help you build customer awareness and get the most value for your investment. We’ll also keep an eye on the performance of the content and make adjustments when needed. We can even localize your content. If your business is in Boise, we can help improve your Boise SEO rankings. Wherever your target audience is, we can help you reach them!
When combined with on-site SEO, content marketing can improve the visibility of your business and help you build sales organically.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising – The Cheese
When you build a pizza, you need a connecting layer between the sauce and the toppings. Cheese serves as a delicious connector. It not only bridges the gap, but it also helps hold everything in place. In this way, it is the PPC of SEO.
Once you develop your on-page SEO and content marketing strategies, you’ll still need help getting the word out to potential customers. You need something to bridge the gap between your website and potential customers. This is where PPC advertising comes into play.
Despite what many SEO agencies will tell you, it can take months to drive a high amount of organic traffic to your website. The good news is that once this happens, SEO tends to feed into itself. SEO brings you traffic, and traffic gets you a better search engine ranking. The bad news is that while you’re waiting, you’ll still need to make revenue.
With PPC, you can actually drive traffic and sales while waiting for your organic SEO to take you to the next level. The best part about PPC is that it’s one of the most affordable ways to advertise and can have a massive ROI.
You select keywords to target your audience and place bids on them. You can target based on keywords, geographic location, and general audience demographics. You’ll then place an ad that Google will display whenever someone searches for your terms. You can also set negative keywords to omit people from seeing your ads if you don’t want to target them.
PPC marketing is more than selecting some keywords and hoping for the best though. You also need to write compelling copy for the ad that shows up to searchers, create a high-conversion landing page, and figure out what keywords will draw in viewers ready to buy now.
We Can Help You Build An Effective PPC Digital Marketing Campaign
Like our other services, the first step in helping you build effective PPC campaigns is learning about your business. What industry are you in, what are your goals, who do you view as your ideal customer, and what are others in your industry doing? We not only research your business, but we’ll look at your competitors as well to see what you can do to stand out from them.
We’ll then evaluate the keywords that will provide you with the best ROI. We’ll discuss our choices with you and why they’re the best options. We’ll also discuss strategy with you.
Do you want to target higher volume keywords and pay more? Are you looking to spend the least amount possible to test the process out? Do you want easy win keywords that have less volume but higher conversion rates? Perhaps you’d like a combination of these.
No matter what you choose, we’re with you every step of the way. Our content and PPC teams can help you design your ad and landing page to maximize your conversions. We’ll also constantly examine the results from your campaign, keep you updated, and make adjustments as needed.
Social Media Advertising – The Toppings
You can technically have a pizza with nothing but cheese, but if you want to have the best experience, you need to throw some pepperonis and mushrooms on there. Social media advertising represents the toppings because while it’s not a necessity, you’re missing out without it.
Facebook has over two billion users, and 20 minutes out of every hour that someone uses their phone, they’re on Facebook. These are potential customers that are looking to buy now, but you have to get in front of them.
With such a big platform, you may think that Facebook advertising is prohibitively expensive, but it’s not. The company has worked hard to help businesses advertise on their platform, no matter the size of their budget. They also collect massive amounts of data on their users, making it easier for you to target your potential customers.
Facebook has a similar structure to Google Ads, although some of its metrics are different. You can actually narrow your audience down more than you can with Google, making it a valuable part of your advertising campaigns. Of course, this ability comes with challenges for businesses. You have to be very specific about your ideal customer and know what your competitors are doing well to get the most out of this tool.
How We Can Help You Succeed On Facebook
As with everything else we do, we start with research. What can we say, we love data.
We’ll look at your competitors to see what they do well and find areas where you can beat them out for customers. We’ll help you develop a strategy based on your customers and industry that will give you the best Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
Our goal is to crack the Facebook ad funnel within the first 45 days and give you 5x (or higher) on your ad spend. We do this through extensive research, highly targeted ads, and constant evaluation to see if there are changes needed to your strategy.
Ordering Your Pizza/SEO
It’s hard to think of anything worse than getting a pizza you didn’t want. It’s Friday night, you’ve got shark week pulled up on Hulu, and the delivery driver shows up with something that you either don’t want or that isn’t what you asked for.
That’s the same feeling business people get when they order SEO services and don’t get the results promised. Losing money on a substandard product is one thing, but more so than that, you also have to deal with wasted time and disappointment.
One of the things that most people overlook when ordering pizza or SEO (or both, we won’t judge!) is the company’s commitment to service.
The Bear Fox Difference
Our mission at Bear Fox Marketing is to provide you with the best service possible. We’ll never take shortcuts or attempt to sell you on false promises. Our business model is simple and effective: we invest in your success. We’re more than a digital marketing agency: we support businesses and help them achieve ROI driven results.
We Treat Our Customers Like Partners
The best form of advertisement for us is the success of our clients. We know that when our clients do well, others will take notice. We work hard to ensure that your business succeeds and we take pride in the growth of our clients.
While some companies will give you a generalist or two to answer your questions, when you work with us you’ll have a team of 4-5 dedicated specialists. Your team will work with you every step of the way to develop a specialized plan for your business. They’ll help you with any issues and celebrate success with you.
Open And Honest Communication
You’ll never have to worry about chasing us down. We’ll work with you to develop and implement your plan. We’ll then keep you updated on the results and let you know if there are adjustments needed.
One of our core values is Integrity. We will always do the right thing and be honest with our customers.
Value And Innovation
SEO techniques are always changing. Google changes their algorithms frequently, and to keep up, a professional SEO agency has to adapt quickly. We keep up to date with algorithm changes made by search engines and will change your strategy if needed.
Because of our ability to make changes quickly, we’re able to provide our clients with an excellent ROI. Our goal is to give our clients the best return possible on the money that they invest in advertising. We’re always looking at results and working to determine new ways to improve your campaigns.
Stop Getting Just The Pepperoni…Get the Whole Pizza Today
Does your SEO agency only give you enough to keep you satisfied but not enough to push your business to the next level? Do they make you feel like you’re only another account and not a valued customer?
At Bear Fox Marketing, we’re here to help you succeed by providing a holistic approach to SEO and digital marketing. Our Boise SEO digital marketing agency has helped companies like yours realize amazing results in a short amount of time.
Check out our case studies to see how we’ve helped other businesses and get in touch with us today. You can give us a call at 208-820-1932 or use our contact form and our team will get back to you right away. Start growing your business today!