Alright, Fam
Get your snacks, juice or whatever comfort food you like to eat because this is one of the trickiest things in internet marketing to explain. The goal of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to be on the first page of Google. Forget Yahoo and Bing, we along with all with the rest of the internet marketing industry don’t care about them. (Yes, Yahoo and Bing knows this as well). When someone types something onto Google they are looking for something, be it advice, instructions, consulting, recipes, workout routines and yes even products. When people search these things are you appearing first above your competition? For that is the name of this game. Problem is, this takes time. Like slow cooking a roast.
Before we continue, some SEO techniques can work and deliver fast results but those techniques are more than likely for affiliate websites not for brands, or companies with storefronts. Because the LAST THING you want to be is blacklisted by Google. You can recover from such things but that’s more advanced SEO type of stuff. We’ll be covering the basics in this blog post.
If were to sum up the process on how to rank higher in Google’s search engine it would be summed up in these three points:
- On Page SEO
- Authority of your website
- Off Page SEO
We won’t be able to cover all three of these points in full detail in this blog post but keep reading for we’ll be sharing the knowledge you can apply right after you’re done reading this.
What the heck is On-Page SEO?
Let’s use this case scenario, remember wanting to invite friends over to your house and as soon as you asked your parents if it’s ok and they may have said/asked one of the following, “Is your room clean?”, “Is the house clean?”, “Did you finish your homework?”
Think of On Page SEO as a means of cleaning up and/or organizing your house before inviting guest over. Here’s some vocabulary to add to your repertoire.
Meta Title – The title that is used as the name of the page or post on your website.
Meta Description – The small description used as a summary of what the page/post is about.
Normally any website builder allows you to edit the Meta Title and Meta Description of any blog post and page of your website. Changing these two things is the start to rising higher in the search engine. You may be asking, what do I write? We answer your question with a few of our own, What do you do? What do you sell? Where are you located? This is the beginning of what is called “keyword research“. Look again at the picture above. First, pay attention to the search we did. We searched for car insurance. Notice how in the Meta Title there’s the phrase, “Car Insurance” and you see it bolded in the meta description twice. This is Google pointing out to you the reader that this page is about car insurance. And you can see car insurance is mentioned in all the other meta titles and descriptions in that entire image. This is no coincidence. This is done on purpose to rank higher in the search engine. Let’s use another example, we searched the phrase, “prevent razor bumps”.
According to Google Keyword Planner which can be found in your Google Adword account, (see picture above) this EXACT phrase get’s searched 1,000 to 10k times per month. People are also running Google Ad campaigns to appear on the 1st page for this keyword phrase. Google also says that the LOW cost to appear at the top of the page of Google costs $3.90. Let’s use this number in our calculations. Let’s say conservatively 3,000 people search this phrase on a monthly basis. We are going to multiply this number by $3.90 which equals 11,700. That’s $11,700 worth of traffic according to Google for that is what the marketplace is willing to pay. If you were running a Google Ad campaign and this is what you’re paying on a monthly basis this can get expensive quickly. But see the picture below. Pay attention to the website that is boxed in red.
That’s Bevel, a black-owned shaving company. On this list, they are ranked number six from the top of the list. Every month Bevel along with everyone on this list is seen by roughly 3,000 people and all of them are getting $11,700 worth of FREE traffic from Google. And are you paying attention? Read what’s in almost every meta description, prevent razor bumps. Again this was done on purpose. This is not an accident. So changing your Meta Title and Meta Description is a good place to start when doing your On Page SEO. Let’s move onto Authority.
Authority of your website aka – Put Some Respeck On My Name
We don’t mean to drop no names but we’re gonna do it for the sake of education. Since Lebron just went to the Lakers. Who do you trust more to get the Lakers to win a game? Lebron or Lonzo? Exactly. Regardless if you are a fan of Lebron or not, you’ve seen him play on two NBA teams, you’ve seen him win championships, you’ve seen him hit buzzer beaters, and score crazy amounts of points in a game. Lebron has been around long enough for people to trust his capabilities. Google wants the most trusted and proven websites to suggest to their audience. This is why the age of your domain name plays a part in ranking higher in a website. Yes you can rank newly created websites but it’ll be easier with aged websites.
Next, who are referring to your website? What kind of backlinks are you getting to your website? Have you linked your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media accounts to your website? You want to do this if you haven’t done it already. Now, this is one revenue stream for bloggers, their SEO. Sometimes it’s not the audience that bloggers are selling it’s the authority they’ve built with their website in whatever niche they may be in.
Some SEO experts may disagree but according to Moz, two of the most common ways to measure authority is through Domain Authority and Page Authority.
Domain Authority(DA) – predicts how well the website as a whole will rank in the search engine.
Page Authority(PA) – predicts a specific page or post on a website will rank in the search engine.
Let’s use Digitally Black for example.
As of the writing of this blog post, digitallyblack.com has a DA of 5 and a PA of 4. DA and PA are ranked from 0 to 100. So we are rather low on the totem poll in terms of authority and we will be increasing these numbers over the years. *uses Drake voice* Just wait on it 😉
Believe it or not, we have a higher DA and PA than some blog websites. And some of those websites are charging $150 for a blog post and backlink. This is not worth the money. Since our DA and PA is not that high, this is one of the main reasons why we do not charge money to list businesses on our website because of these SEO metrics. Our audience is rather small too so we don’t have much value to share. Thus why we are writing these blog posts because this is the only value we have at the moment 🙂 As this increases we will be charging businesses to be listed and now you know why.
Oh you’re still here reading this? We’re glad you’ve found this blog post informational enough that you’re still here with us 🙂 onto the last part.
Off-Page SEO – Telling People Where You Live
That is pretty much in a nutshell what Off-Page SEO is, telling people where you live. The first thing you want to consider is who you’re telling it to. Because let’s be real not everyone is gonna care about what you do. So you have to find places where your info, products and/or services will be welcomed. Like you wouldn’t go to a Democratic meet-up with the intent to make connections with people who playa video game called NBA Street. But you would go to a video game meet-up to connect with people who play sports video games. The same applies with SEO. Find websites that are in your niche. Be it psychology, home improvement, health, interior design and the list is endless.
This is also where social media comes into play. Anytime you’ve read an article that was informative to you and you felt the need to share it on Facebook because others should be informed. This too, plays a part in your Off-Page SEO. If people aren’t willing to share your info with other why should Google share it to the world? Make sense? Moving on, there are plenty of places to tell your website to others, there’s forums, there’s guest posting on other people’s websites and the list goes on.
This pretty much wraps up the basics of SEO that you need to know. We’ll be more than happy to expand on this topic for there are many sub-sections of SEO that we’ll need to cover. As always, if you found this article informative please share with your friends, family and colleagues. Of course, if you’re looking for to find black owned busineses, Digitally Black strives to be the go-to place for anyone looking for such businesses.
