The rules of search engine optimization have changed dramatically in the last few years. Google responded to the glut of low-quality content with Panda and Penguin, algorithm updates that placed an emphasis on quality content and organic search engine optimization rather than keyword-stuffed articles and manipulating site code.

The most important thing to think about when creating an SEO strategy for your website is the visitor experience. This wasn’t always the case; until recently, Google wasn’t concerned about the user experience when determining site rankings. This has changed, as Google is smarter about reviewing sites in a way that mimics how users interact with the site. In short, the best way to improve your link popularity is to have a website that provides useful content and information to visitors.

Adapting to the new SEO landscape means rethinking old tactics that were considered to be the industry standard just a few years ago. Here are four examples of how SEO strategies have shifted recently:

Build Blog Relationships Instead of Buying Links

While Google still places a high value on having your site linked on other sites, the concept of “buying” a high volume of  low quality links via a link network is no longer considered to be a good SEO strategy. In fact, if done incorrectly, you might get punished by Google for this. Instead, you should focus on doing outreach to blogs that are a natural fit for your site. Reach out to them and try to enter into a mutual relationship where you provide their readers with interesting content in exchange for links.

Focus on the On-Screen Design of Your Website

It’s still important to have a website that has a common sense architecture and that has a solid internal structure. But it’s now just as important to have a site that looks great and has content that flows naturally. Google’s spiders can read sites to analyze where and how content is displayed and you need to have a website design that takes advantage of this.

Expand Beyond a Limited Set of Keywords

Until recently, the prevailing method that search engine optimization consulting services used to increase a site’s page ranking was to focus on a limited amount of keywords and use them in the page content, title tags and header tags. Google is now smarter about how it evaluates keywords for rankings. It’s better to come up with keyword groups of related words and use them organically in your on-site content.

Concentrate on Branding

Google frowns on paying for anchor links on unrelated sites. Instead, it wants to see your company’s brand have strength. If this occurs, the power of your brand will give an extra boost to your related page rankings.

President Obama has declared June 16-22 as “Small Business Week” in America. It’s a way to recognize the small businesses that drive the American economy. This isn’t the first Small Business Week – it goes back to 1963 – but this one is particularly important because of the impact the recent economic downturn has had on small businesses. In the current economy, small businesses need to use every tool necessary to stay ahead of larger competitors.

If you are a small business owner, one of the ways you can do this is to leverage the Internet. Small business Internet marketing can help your small business reach customers throughout the world. However, if you are in a competitive market, you’ll need help to make sure that people can find your website. eVisible specializes in helping small businesses gain visibility online by using a variety of proven of tactics including:

SEO: Getting your website to rank highly for specific keywords is about more than just luck. You need to research which keywords will be the most effective to target and have a dedicated game plan for how to increase your page rankings. By doing search engine optimization correctly, your site can rank higher than larger competitors and get more clicks from curious customers.

Social Media: Establishing a strong social media presence is a highly effective online marketing tool for small businesses. By leveraging outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, you can make a personal connection with potential customers that makes you stand out from larger competitors. A strong social media campaign lets happy customers spread the word about your company to their friends, one of the most powerful forms of marketing.

Directory Submissions: Local directory submissions help to ensure that potential customers have all the information they need to choose your business for their needs. Customers want to know as much as they can about any small business, including positive reviews, pictures and contact information.

eVisible wants to help take your small business to the next level. Find out more about our small business services <https://www.evisible.co/small-business-solutions/> and contact us today for a free consultation.

It’s easy to make the assumption that the search engine optimization strategy for Enterprise SEO — when you are working with a large corporation’s website — would be the same as SEO work for a startup or smaller company. But while many of the same principles remain, there are several major differences between standard SEO and search engine marketing at an Enterprise level.

Many of these issues come from the challenges of doing SEO work as part of a large business. As P.J. Fusco wrote about for Search Engine Watch, departmental barriers often make it difficult for someone doing Enterprise SEO (https://searchenginewatch.com/article/2236950/Enterprise-SEO-in-2013) to produce acceptable results from their SEO campaigns. When someone does search engine optimization consulting for small businesses, they have few approvals to get and can alter their SEO strategies quickly to react to changing search engine algorithms and other factors.

This isn’t the case when you are doing SEO consulting services or working in-house at an Enterprise-level business. The layers of management and departments means that you need “buy-in” from many people to implement an SEO campaign or to make changes to an existing campaign. This can be a major problem — especially if some of the people you need to work with are unfamiliar with the concepts of professional search engine marketing.

So how can you overcome these obstacles? One good tip was recently shared by Ray Comstock in Search Engine Watch (https://searchenginewatch.com/article/2234928/Defining-an-Enterprise-SEO-Strategy). Comstock recommends that you break your campaign up into two parts — a “foundational” stage where you are doing the keyword research and other background along with the early implementation and a “continuous” phase that includes the steps needed to keep your campaign moving through the long haul. This can include link acquisition, social media marketing services and more. Content writing services are a major part throughout all phases.

Another way to reduce headaches in Enterprise SEO is to conduct training with the key personnel who will be involved ahead of time. Chances are that you are the expert in online marketing services within your company, so you need to educate other people on what you know. Everyone understands the importance of ranking highly but they might not grasp the steps that need to happen to improve your search engine ranking. Getting people inside and outside of your circle educated on the different elements of Enterprise SEO will allow you to all speak the same language and improve communications as you move forward with your campaign.