SEO

The Rules of Engagement for Backlinks and Keywords

J.C. Granger July 3, 2019

I’ve been talking about the truth (and lies) software companies tell about SEO. There are three things we’ve already discussed-page ranking, the “complicated” label that SEO has and the role Social Media plays in your rankings. These lies are one of the reasons people bounce from SEO strategy to SEO strategy. It’s also why companies spend a lot of money in the wrong places of their SEO plan.

It’s also important to know that it’s not all about the keywords.

You read that correctly, keywords are just part of your strategy when it comes to your SEO strategy.

Keywords were the main focus of SEO for a long time. You had to have the right keywords placed on the right pages if you wanted to be seen, and that was about it. People shoved tons of keywords into every sentence they could. Here’s the thing- search engines get smarter and more complex every few months. Your keyword strategy should be reviewed every few months so that you can make adjustments and stay relevant.

Google takes around 200 factors into account when they determine rankings for websites. Keywords are still important, but there’s a lot more that goes into it than just making sure you use the word “dog” as many times as you can in your posts about dogs.

If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, you’ll want to look at:

Your domain age
Your page titles
How H1 tags are used
Semantically related keywords
Page-loading speed
The recency of updates (to your site and content)
Outbound links

While we’re at it, the reading level of your site, the layout of your site and a layout of your “Contact Us” page can affect your SEO rankings.

So while keywords are an essential part of your SEO strategy, there are tons of other factors you need to take into account. It’s the whole package they are looking at. So do your best to make that package the best it can be.

Asking about the different tactics that an SEO provider used to help you improve your rankings is really important. If they emphasize keyword density or other keyword-related practices, be a bit wary. They are not looking at the big SEO picture and they are not going to create a solid strategy.

Power loading links isn’t the answer either by the way

A while back, there was a huge focus on having a crap ton of inbound or outbound links- external or internal. It’s not that this statement isn’t wrong, it’s that it’s too general and highly misleading when it comes to getting you the results you need. The number of links is important, but what’s more important, is where those links are coming from. I can link to a ton of sites all day long on my blog, but it’s not going to get me a seat at the table when it comes to Google rankings.

Backlinking is only going to help you when you link from “high-authority” websites like Mashable, TechCrunch, or Wired. That’s because everyone is linking everything, so quality starts to emerge as the defining backlink. If Google thinks your page contains excellent information based on that link then that’s a plus. If that information helps them to figure out exactly what your page is about, even better.

So remember, that one link from a high-authority domain to your page could be the boost you are looking for, whereas tons of links from low-quality sites that are not providing any real value might not do anything. In fact, it could even hurt your rankings if you have those types of sites linked to yours, so be careful.

If an SEO expert tells you that you need tons of links, you now know that’s not true. If “links” are their focus, they may engage in link buying or other strategies that are not so Google friendly. That can result in penalties, and you don’t want that to happen. It should also be noted if it’s really bad, Google will slap you hard and lower your rankings even more. So don’t over link.

Having links= OK

Having the right kind of links=Gold

So if you’re not ranking high on Google search results and you want to benefit from having stronger backlinks and keyword strategies, shoot us an email at info@infinitymgroup.com or message me on LinkedIn.

J.C. Granger is the CEO of Infinity Marketing Group. Infinity Marketing Group is an inbound marketing agency headquartered in Denver, Colorado that specializes in helping SaaS companies achieve their lead generation goals.

Connect with J.C. on LinkedIn and download his free eBook, “3 Essentials of Inbound Marketing”.

SEO is Really Complicated (but it’s not)

J.C. Granger June 24, 2019

In my previous post, I talked about the number one lie that I’ve heard regarding SEO, and that’s the “promise” that you’ll be in the number one spot in a Google search. Although it’s one of the biggest lies out there, it’s also not the only lie. Here’s another lie- it’s tough to improve your search engine results without hiring a professional.

I’m sure right there you said, wait a minute Jason, what the hell? “Aren’t you in the marketing business and don’t you own a marketing agency?”

Why would you have even started a company, and why is professional SEO such a massive industry if it wasn’t complicated and downright something only a trained professional can do?

First, I’m not going to lie to you. Improving your search rankings, in general, is a pretty simple thing to do. There are specific things that Google places a lot of weight on when it’s determining search rankings for websites. Things like relevancy, backlinks, the format of your website, and the overall authority that it has compared to others in your industry.

Sure, people specialize in things because this allows them to train their minds to figure out all of those I mentioned, efficiently prioritize them, and then roll them out. It does take a lot of hands-on experience to understand how to go about the process in the most efficient and “graceful way”. Most business owners don’t have the bandwidth to do that.

But what you do have the bandwidth to do is make your website as relevant, and authoritative as possible, which right there is one of the biggest things that an SEO makeover does. So you’ve already done a lot of the hard work.

SEO Takes Time

I’m not going to lie- SEO takes a lot of time. By a lot of time, I’m not just talking about it taking a few months or a year. SEO takes a lot of work over the lifetime of your website/business. SEO is ever-evolving. To be on top of it means keeping track of constant updates, managing and building your own content, making technical improvements, having a consistent backlink outreach strategy, and a host of other things.

So SEO is hard, but it’s not super complicated (at least not until you get into the extremely small details). It’s no joke, it takes a lot of work, and it does need a dedicated person being a taskmaster for it. So if you don’t know how to manage your time and effort on SEO best, you’ll end up wasting both.

That’s where an SEO expert comes in. An expert can tell you where your strategy needs to focus its energy and what’s going to get the most return on your investment because they’ve done it before and it’s what they eat and breathe.

In short, SEO isn’t all that complicated per se, but not complicated doesn’t mean it’s easy.

So if you’re not ranking high on Google search results and you want to benefit from all that free organic traffic, shoot us an email at info@infinitymgroup.com or message me on LinkedIn.

Connect with J.C. on LinkedIn and download his free eBook, “3 Essentials of Inbound Marketing”.

Read (And Obey) My “90 Day Rule” Or You’re Completely Screwed

infinityadmin May 30, 2019

The world is full of rules. Some of them you need to follow, and some of them are more of a “guide” so that you don’t make the same dumb mistakes other people have. Well, the 90-day rule is one I promise that you should be following if you want to build your business and find success. It’s also pretty brutal, but here it is: if you don’t get the results that your client wants, no matter how much they paid you, the amount of money spent is utterly irrelevant in this equation. If they pay you $500 bucks a month or they pay you $500,000 a month, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t get your client the results they expected you would in 90 days, you’re screwed.

Yep. I said it. You’re screwed and here’s why you’re screwed…

It’s because everyone has a clock ticking away inside their heads as much as we all want to ignore it. This includes every client you have now or will ever have in the future. To help you fully understand this rule, here’s an example that we can all understand- your child is off playing on the playground, and you’re kicking back on the bench. All of a sudden you’re like, “Hey, where’s my kid?” That little timer goes off in your head, and it tells you that you’ve not seen them and you should have. It creates some panic, fear, anger and maybe even distracts you from what you were doing just before the timer went off.

For a parent guarding their kid, it’s about 90 seconds, but when it comes to a client safeguarding their businesses success, it’s 90 days. The feelings, however, are all the same.

If you don’t think you can do what they want to happen or at least get them on a solid road to those results in 90 days, don’t take them on as a client. I assure you, it won’t be worth the money.

Wait? What did you just say?

I realize that you just thought in the back of your head that’s crazy because you need clients and you need to make money. It’s okay. I used to think that way too.

Here’s the thing- if you make a promise of improving SEO and getting them to page one and you honestly have never done that before, it’s going to smack you in the face pretty fast when you realize you can’t reach that goal.

Sure, you might make some progress but if this goal doesn’t meet the client’s expectations you’ve just shot yourself in the ass. You’ve overpromised SEO results and set that company on a path that says in 90 days they are going to see SEO magic happen but you know you can’t do that, you only hope you can. It’s like telling a kid you’re taking them to Disneyland but instead, you pull up at a Chuck E Cheese (WTF Mom).

This is why I tell our prospects “Give me your budget and give me your goals.” This way I can see if the things I am going to promise to deliver are even possible. When I have everything in front of me, I can assess if I can or cannot produce what you expect to the standards of my company. If I can’t produce it in 90 days I won’t accept you as a client because I know that you will more than likely cut and run, be upset, and in some cases, you’ll tell your friends and colleagues that my company didn’t deliver. You want to make sure that you are providing good value for your clients and over promising is not going to deliver the results either of you wants, and no one wants that to happen.

So here’s a quick tip.

Although I usually give tips geared to software companies and tech companies, this applies to everyone. No matter what your business is if a client hires you to provide a service to them and you do not give them measurable, reasonable results in the first 90 days, you’re screwed, and after a few years of doing this, you won’t be in business much longer.

Make sure that what you’re offering and presenting to the world as your capabilities will allow you to provide measurable results that’ll make them happy in the first 90 days. If you do that, you buy yourself more time. If you can get them to a specific mile marker, they will extend your time so you can “finish the race”, so to speak. Client relationships are like time trials. That’s how it works when it comes to any service base. Of course, if you have the tools or resources that you can knock their socks off with, and you can give them instant results, start with that. It’s okay to wow them, but it’s not okay to overpromise.

Smart businesses that serve others need to have measurable outcomes and defined parameters of what the organizations they serve can expect. So providing your clients their “ask” in that first 90 days is a must or you’re (as I clearly like to say)…screwed.

So if you’re reading this and are struggling with your marketing efforts and want some help from a company that you know won’t take you on unless they can get you results in 90 days or less, contact us at the info below. Happy to help.

Connect with J.C. via Linked in or by email at JC@infinitymgroup.com. Download his free eBook, “3 Essentials of Inbound Marketing”.

3 Steps to Compete in SEO as a SaaS Company

J.C. Granger August 16, 2018

Software as a service is an incredibly competitive market when it comes to search engine optimization. Over the last half-decade, the SaaS space has exploded and, thanks to all that growth, the fight for high keyword rankings is a brutal one. So what SEO strategies can your SaaS company use to stand out against the competition?

How Tech Companies Can Improve On-Site SEO

J.C. Granger May 25, 2018

SEO: Three simple letters that seem to confuse the hell out of even the most internet savvy tech marketer. But on-site SEO, or search engine optimization, can be simplified once you understand how search engines find and serve pages to their users. Search engines are a program just like any other, and once you understand the logic behind them, it becomes much easier to optimize your on-site SEO in a way that will rocket your tech company’s website up the search rankings.