Search engines look at three primary factors when trying to understand all of the websites in their index: authority, relevancy, and crawlability.

Authority is a measure of how reputable your website is in the eyes of Google and other search engines. Relevancy helps Google to understand what your website is about so it can send the right people to your website. Crawlability is the ease at which search engines can access areas of your site.

If you type “cars” into Google, Google will sift through trillions of web pages and order them based on how trustworthy they are, and how relevant they are to “cars.” SEO is all about helping Google to better understand your website, while also increasing your authority so you start appearing for the search terms that are most valuable to your business.

The ROI of SEO varies from one industry to the next. How valuable would it be to your business to come up as the top recommendation when your customers are actively searching for you?

Let’s look at an example. 320 people search for the exact phrase “event venue Denver” every month (not to mention those who search for slight variants, like “event venues Denver”).

Being the first result on Google would bring ~110 people to your website every month who were actively searching for event venues in Denver, many of whom had never heard of your brand before. Assuming 0.5% of those people booked an event venue JUST ONCE, this one search term would bring you 6-7 new customers every year.

Our best advice here would be to talk to an SEO expert to get their opinion. That being said, a good general rule of thumb is to check your website’s domain authority using the Moz toolbar.

In most cases, if your site’s authority is less than 40, you should focus on the Authority side of SEO (i.e. getting more reputable websites to link to you). If your site’s authority is greater than 70, you should probably focus on the Relevancy side of SEO (setting up a proper SEO foundation).

If your site falls somewhere in the middle, then do a search for five of your biggest competitors, and compare your domain authority to theirs. If your domain authority is higher than theirs, then it’s probably best to focus on Relevancy. If your domain authority is lower than theirs, then it’s probably best to focus on Authority.

Struggling to decide which makes more sense? Set up a call with us and we’ll point you in the right direction.

Content marketing is the cornerstone of SEO.

Search engines like Google are obsessed with giving searchers what they’re looking for. When search engines find websites that provide useful information, they reward those websites by ranking them higher in search results.

The more high-quality content you write, the higher you will rank for the search terms that your customers are looking for.

Not necessarily, but how much is 50% of your total website traffic worth to you?

Similar to almost any other profession, you could do it yourself, but you’ll see the best results when you bring in experts to help. You can do your business’ taxes on your own, but probably choose to hire a professional because you know that they will be worth the investment.

If your business’ marketing budget is less than a few hundred dollars per month, it probably makes sense to take the DIY approach to SEO. Any “expert” charging less than a few hundred dollars per month is going to be a risky investment. They may land you in some hot water with Google.

For those who would rather hire a professional, come explore our guide to hiring an SEO company to ensure that you hire a trusted professional.