Lubbock SEO Company

SEO's real goal is to help your website attract new qualified visitors by increasing your website's keyword rankings. Improving rankings is also known as improving search engine visibility, search presence or reach) in search engine results such as Google, Bing & Yahoo (primarily Google). Improving rank positions is done by enhancing your website's content, links, website structure, and performance for topics & keywords relevant to your business and being searched online.

Results can take anywhere from 3-6 months depending on the SEO plan, the primary KPI (key performance indicator) desired (website visitors, leads, or sales), and external factors.

Factors might include changes in industry search/keyword trends, current type/age/size/quality of the website, seasonal trends, the volume and types of keywords searched within a geographic location, competitor websites (increases in website visitors, leads, or sales), and changes in search engines themselves. (Google’s tweaks its search engine algorithm daily, which can shift ranking results for specific keywords regularly.)

With SEO, results are similar to cumulative interest over time. Therefore, we recommend ongoing monthly SEO optimization, as search engines change, user search behavior changes, content and links need updating over time, and competing sites are constantly changing. However, depending on the size of the website and scope of the SEO plan, there is generally a setup period of 1-2 months, which includes auditing, keyword research, and the start of website metadata updates. After the setup period, more in-depth content and link updates begin, alongside content creation if blogs are a deliverable, and follows a feedback loop: research keywords/competition -> update/create content/links -> analyze results/trends -> repeat process

Each page of a website includes metadata, including 1.) page search titles (the titles that appear in your browser tab and search results, which can be created/optimized, and is not necessarily the visible title on a page), and 2.) page meta descriptions (the description of the page displayed in search results below the search result title, which can be created/optimized, however, Google may decide to auto-generate a page’s meta description based on the content of the page and the keyword searched by a user). Metadata can help influence users to click on your website’s search result listings over others. Note: page meta descriptions are not a direct ranking factor; however, they influence clicks into your website, which may lead to improvements in other metrics that could be used by Google as ranking signals.

In the field of SEO, link building describes actions aimed at increasing the number and quality of inbound links (whether from another website or another page in your own website) to a page in your site with the goal of increasing the search engine rankings of that page or website. These may be known as backlinks or internal links (internal links are links from one page in your site to another page in your site; these are also considered backlinks when thinking about the link from the point of view of the page being linked to).

Links provide keyword/topic relevance and authority/popularity signals to Google for the page being linked to. Besides providing quality content on a page, links are the 2nd most crucial ranking factor when it comes to ranking a website page higher for keyword/s related to the page's topic. Similar to content creation and optimization, link building and optimization should be an ongoing process for a website's life due to the constant changes in search engines, links getting removed from websites, and competing website efforts.

A local citation is any mention of your business on the web (on other websites/listings/profiles); it is any combination of your company name, phone number, address, zip or postal code, website address, and description if applicable.

Citations in SEO are a key factor in improving your local search results (alongside website content, links, related optimization, and reviews). While Google looks at hundreds of ranking factors/signals, citation-related ranking signals include the quality and consistency of your business and website’s citation info across the web compared to competing businesses.

Google My Business (GMB) is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence locally across Google, including Google Search and Google Maps. If you verify and edit your business information, you can help customers find your business and learn about your business.

Google My Business enables you to provide information about your business locally to potential searchers in Google and on Google Maps in your area, including contact info, hours, business categories, descriptions of your business and offerings, photos, and the ability to collect reviews. An updated GMB listing and collecting an increasing number of positive Google reviews improves your chances of reaching potential customers when they’re searching related keyword searches in your area, both in Google search results and Google Maps. (This is alongside the organic or natural search result listings that a website can rank for through SEO and by publishing quality, relevant local content on the website).

On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page that can be optimized, as opposed to off-page SEO which refers to links (whether from another website or another page in your website) and other external signals.

While there are over 200 ranking factors and Google adjusts these factors daily, some of the primary factors that SEOs have deduced over the years based on data and experience include:

1. A secure and accessible website (including hosting with an https certificate)
2. Page speed (including mobile page speed) affected by page content and quality of hosting plan/provider
3. Mobile-friendliness (site and pages built with a responsive design so content looks good on smaller device screens, loads quick, and is legible). Keep in mind - it is now a mobile-first world, where Google looks at ranking your site for mobile-first, and more people are using mobile devices than desktops to access the web); mobile rankings can also differ from desktop rankings
4. Domain age, URL, and authority - Did you know that nearly 60% of the sites that have a top ten Google search ranking are three years old or more? Data from an Ahrefs study of two million pages suggests that very few sites less than a year old achieve that ranking. This is why SEO takes time to compound results, and is an ongoing process, especially for new or small sites with a lack of quality content and links built over time.
5. Optimized content - Optimizing content includes keyword optimization, page HTML code optimization (metadata & elements like title and image tags), and search intent. Keyword optimization includes optimizing a page’s topic to incorporate the keywords (words and phrases) searchers use when they’re looking for information as well as words and phrases related to the keywords being searched. These are also the words and phrases that describe a page's topic, which improves the quality, comprehensiveness, and perceived authority of the page and your site for the topic and related keywords in the eyes of Google. 2nd is the page’s HTML code and related metadata, which helps further optimize the page for both users and Google, as well as giving the ability to potentially alter the title and description of the page’s search result snippet. 3rd is making sure the page is aligned with search intent, which means understanding what people are really looking for when they type in search keywords and providing this information in a user-friendly, understandable way in the page’s content. (Keep in mind: while you may desire a specific page to rank for a specific keyword, may never have the chance to rank well for that keyword due to the content not being aligned enough or properly with search intent. One example would be trying to get a website or page about a local service to rank for related keywords in another location when your business doesn’t actually service or exist in that location.
6. Technical SEO - This is related to more of the minutiae within optimizing content and links, including the HTML code and related elements such as h1, h2, h3 tags for page headers/titles, alt tags to describe any images on a page, length of titles and meta descriptions, and where to incorporate keywords within these elements based on what Google likes to see in top-ranking results for a specific topic/keyword, link redirects, anchor text (keyword phrases) used within certain links, and structured data markup.
7. User Experience (RankBrain) - For a while now, Google’s been using artificial intelligence to better rank web pages. It calls that signal RankBrain. This includes other sub-signals that affect your search engine ranking. These might include click-through rate or the percentage of people who click to visit your site in search results, bounce rate or the number of people who click on your page and quickly go back to the search results, and dwell time or how long visitors stay on your site after they’ve arrived.
8. Links - The web is built on links. So, naturally, links are a crucial SEO ranking signal. There are three kinds of links to think about: inbound links (aka backlinks), outbound links, and internal links. All three are tied to a descriptive anchor text, which is the keyword phrase used for the link. (This can lead to being an aspect of technical SEO).
9. Real Business Information/Citations/Reviews - This last tip is important for businesses targeting particular local areas. The presence or absence of business information such as business mentions, local citations, and reviews is one of the most crucial local SEO ranking factors. This includes NAP (name, address, phone number), having verified business listings on Google My Business and Facebook, collecting reviews on both of those sites and relevant directories like Yelp and others, and incorporating the right local search terms.

We require website edit access in order to make content and link changes across your website’s pages. This is necessary to make SEO and content adjustments with meaningful impact.

While we attempt to gain approval to optimize and potentially expand upon your site’s existing page content before starting SEO (depending on the agreed-upon SEO plan), someone at your company may be caught off guard noticing changes in a page’s content, especially if more than one person is analyzing or working with your website. As part of on-page SEO, we do often adjust content for clean formatting, alter titles/subtitles, keywords, metadata, and potentially expand the content about the page’s topic based on competing pages in search results and to increase the word count of the page if it is thin in comparison to the competition and what Google is looking for as a quality page result about that topic and related keywords.

While it depends on the type of site, industry, and offerings, SEO is primarily measured by improvements in the volume or quality of visitor traffic to your website coming from search engines (known as organic search traffic, primarily from Google). This in turn leads to either the desired goal of more leads (calls/form fills) or website sale transactions. The secondary KPI/metric leading to more traffic and leads or sales is improvements in the positions of keyword rankings in search results for your website’s pages, and potentially an increase in the total number of keyword rankings on average for your website.

It can take time to see improvements in results with SEO, as search engines like Google & Bing require time to detect new content and link changes for your website pages in relation to other websites, as well as how users start to interact with the page changes. Based on experience performing SEO for client websites across many industries, analyzing results on a shorter period of time such as weekly or biweekly doesn’t provide enough time to rely on that data being related to recent optimization updates.

This may depend on deliverables and the client situation, however, a consideration to keep in mind is starting on a new page/topic/keywords will take time, as it's similar to starting a month 1 setup phase. The client may expect noticeable results in under 1-2 months for this type of request, although it may take 3-6 months, especially if the topic is brand new or not existing within the site and a new fresh page of optimized content and link building process is required.

Structured data is a type of markup code added to a website page that provides additional meaning and context on what a page’s content is about. Schema.org is a project that provides a particular set of agreed-upon definitions for structured data markup. Search engines like Google may decide to alter the display of a website page’s snippet/listing in search results depending on the type of content and structured data markup in the page.

Not directly at the moment based on official statements from Google, however some structured data markup, if chosen to be shown by Google, could potentially improve other indirect ranking signals if the structured data leads to more visitors clicking into the page (such as if Google decides to show review stars in a search result snippet)

• SEO is not a one-and-done effort and requires ongoing structural, link-related, and content-related production and maintenance efforts to stay competitive.
• Competing or related sites that continue to invest in SEO efforts can overtake your search presence or search visibility
• Google likes to see your site's content and links being updated consistently (freshness signals)
• Expanding content and links strengthens your website's position for target topics and keywords in the eyes of Google and compared to competing sites
• User search behavior and Google itself change over time, so optimization of content and links isn't a one and done effort if you want your business to stay competitive
• SEO efforts take time to see results and work similarly to compounding interest
• Re-optimization/adjustments to content and links should be an ongoing effort to increase the chance of better results, based on trend insights from website data analysis tools like Google Analytics and other SEO software
• Links pointing to other sites within your site may break over time, as well as changes in your own site pages causing broken links. Depending on the situation, these broken links can cause issues in search visibility and ranking performance