Real Local SEO with Omaha SEO Experts - Kim & Conor Treacy
There are thousands of Search Engine Optimization service companies on the internet and dozens in the Omaha, Nebraska market, but how many of them can say that the FBI contacted them for help explaining how SEO works? Happily, we’re one of those companies!
Yes, we were contacted by the FBI when they were working on a case regarding promises made by an SEO Company, and they needed to know how everything worked. What could be done, what can’t be done, where the tricks lay, and if what one SEO company is saying is true.
That’s one of the best things about working with us at Big Red SEO; we’re down-to-earth, knowledgeable, and transparent on how SEO works. If you need to learn about organic traffic, seo strategy, page content, targeted visitors, and business goals, we can help!
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
In its simplest form, Search Engine Optimization is the process of getting your website found or ranking on the search engines. While we say Search Engines, it’s really all about Google these days. If you’re not found on Google, let’s be honest, you’re not really on the web!
There are many moving parts to Search Engine Optimization, but it boils down to three main parts;
- Local SEO Services (local business getting found on Google Maps)
- On Page SEO or On Site SEO (all the things that happen on your website directly)
- Off Page SEO or Off Site SEO (all the things that happen on other websites that affect your site)
Whether you’re targeting a local audience, regional or national, SEO can play a part in getting you exposure. At the end of the day, the goal is to have your business, product, page, or content, on the first page of Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Ideally, you want to be ranked in the number 1 position. This is all referred to as Organic SEO.
Don’t let other seo marketing folks trick you into a guaranteed #1 ranking! It is possible, but usually, you’re buying Ads at the top of Google. Once you stop paying, your ad listing goes away. Yes it’s at the top, but this is not SEO. That’s buying Ads!
The other way that “seo experts” may trick you in organic rankings is that you’ll rank #1 for your business name or a phrase that nobody is searching for. While technically you’re ranked #1, it’s not going to help with sales or exposure! Running a keyword audit and getting actual search volume (nationally, and within your metro/region area) is the only way to determine if the keyword phrase is worth targeting.
The last method that is used is known as Black Hat SEO. Tricks and spam that get Google to notice you, and it does work – but for a very limited time. And depending on which Black Hat tactics were implemented, your website could be permanently banned by Google from ever listing again.
At the end of the day, if you’re tricking Google into ranking your website, people will notice, and Google will too. Eventually, you will be punished.
Why Do I Need SEO?
If you want to get found by people in your area, you can put your website online, and Google should eventually find you. If you have a physical office location, you can also get a Google Business Places account, which will help get you found on the maps.
While it sounds like that’s all that needs to happen, it’s unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg. Basically, at this point, you’ve just put out a doormat at your business location. You can stand outside your door and yell to passersby that you have a pretty doormat, but you’re not going to attract your target audience and certainly not get found outside your immediate street.
So what’s next? You’ll need to get listed with various directories (if you have a physical office), generate content for your blog and site, optimize any pages or products on your website, ensure all the technical code is correct for Google to find you, submit sitemaps to Google, and once you start getting found in the search engine results page (SERPs), you’ll start getting the phone calls! Maybe. Conversions happen based on great website design, products, and prices, and while you may get some traffic, they may not be buyers. More work is needed.
I don’t want to overwhelm you, but there’s more to SEO than even what I listed above! There are things like SCHEMA, Open Graph, Rich Snippets, HTML Markup, and let’s not forget about mobile compatibility or website speed that also needs to be looked at. These all play factors in search engine ranking and SEO too.
And after you’ve got everything done for that particular phrase you wanted to rank, you now have to repeat the process for other phrases on your site.
With all that said, there are many things you can do yourself as a business owner and not have to spend money to hire an SEO Company to do the work. Sometimes you just need guidance on what to work on for this week/month and leave some of the more technical SEO work to the SEO companies.
That’s where having an SEO strategy will come into play!
What Is An SEO Strategy?
As Hannibal Smith used to say on the A-Team – “I love it when a plan comes together!“
While Conor is no Hannibal Smith, he does love his cigars! He’s also the person who comes up with the initial digital strategy for optimizing the site for organic traffic to the website. Much of this is based on researching competitors in your niche and reviewing similar businesses in other locations.
In short, an SEO strategy is a plan of action designed to improve a website’s visibility and organic search ranking. An SEO strategy aims to attract more visitors to a site by improving its position in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
For everything to happen correctly, an SEO strategy typically involves researching relevant keywords, optimizing web content for those keywords, and building backlinks from high-quality websites.
Now we’re not talking about buying links from hundreds of websites in order to trick the search engines into thinking you’re a popular place. Instead, we’re talking about link acquisition or link outreach. It involves contacting places or providing other websites with useful content located on your website and asking them to link to you.
Google has made it very clear that purchasing links is a violation of their terms of service. If caught, your pages could be deindexed, or, in bad cases, the entire site can be banned. Every case is different, but if you’re tricking Google into thinking you’re popular, it’s a bad idea. If required, the Google Disavow Tool, or backlink removal process that can be used to help block spammy sites from hurting your rankings.
Keywords and choosing the correct phrases people search for are a big part of any SEO marketing strategy. While you may know the difference between “windows installation” for a home, could Google possibly think you’re installing Windows on a computer? What about “pancake mix”? Did Google correctly determine the difference between “mix” and “mixer”?
There are a number of areas where the wrong content on a page can send the wrong message to the search engines. This is where an SEO Expert is going to be able to help. They monitor the latest trends, perform competitor analysis and assist with implementing high quality content, so your business shows in the search results.
For an SEO Strategy to work, qualified traffic must arrive at your website, and increased traffic can lead to more conversions and higher sales. So, an effective SEO strategy is essential for any business that wants to succeed online.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO is one of the primary services we offer at Big Red SEO. It’s a form of search engine optimization aimed at helping a local business get found in Google and other search engines, whether for services or foot traffic to their physical location.
Just like traditional SEO, local SEO focuses on optimizing website content, building local links, and improving the overall authority of the site. However, local SEO also takes into account factors like location-based keywords and reviews from local customers.
Reviews play a critical part in improving the visibility and ranking of websites on Google Maps specifically. There are things you can do and things you can’t do when asking for a review, so make sure your Local SEO guide is up to date on Google’s Guidelines.
One of the biggest pieces of advice we see being given to business owners is to offer a reward or discount if the client leaves a review. This is a direct violation of Google’s Guidelines, and it can get the review removed and potentially your business blocked on Google Maps. Never offer an incentive to the client for a review.
You’ve likely seen on Social Media pages where people ask followers to; like this or review that and be entered into a giveaway – well, this is a violation of Facebook and other social media platforms’ guidelines also.
We’re not a social media company. We are an SEO company, so let’s get back to Local SEO!
Another part of Local SEO, specifically on Google Maps, is making sure your information is up to date. Make sure your hours of operation are clearly stated. Upload pictures as needed, verify categories your business is listing in and validate any changes made to your location information.
Any user on the web can suggest an edit to your business page, and if you don’t approve or deny the change with Google, they can automatically implement the update. A constant vigil needs to be performed on your Google Business Places information.
There’s a lot more to Local SEO, but the content on your website will play one of the biggest factors. Testing and verifying different content and ensuring you have the optimal length of content on the correct topic are all areas that need to be reviewed and monitored.
We Are Not An Omaha SEO Agency!
This is pretty important to us. We are a husband and wife team, we are not a digital marketing agency. This means you get Kim and Conor directly! We don’t outsource our work to other developers and programmers. We don’t have a large team of people for whom we constantly need to be billing. We are very proud NOT to be an agency!
It seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? So many companies want to appear bigger than they are. Some are proud to have 20 staff members working on everything from social media, video, web design, search engine optimization, pay-per-click Google Adwords campaigns, and everything else in between. We’re just not into it!
We create awesome web design layouts for clients, perform amazing SEO services, and create content when needed, but that’s it! We don’t handle photography, or logo creation or branding campaigns. We do web design and SEO. For that matter, we specifically create and program websites in WordPress.
Years ago, we used to perform search engine marketing via Google Adwords and PPC, but that world has changed a lot. It’s changed so much that digital marketing is just not exciting for us to perform. As a result, we stopped. Of course, many years ago just modifying meta tags and adding a few basic search queries to a page could lead to a first page ranking. Those days are long behind us!
But let’s get back on topic, we’re a husband and wife team (Kim & Conor) and not an agency!
How Does SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Work?
As an Omaha Nebraska SEO company, our goal is to help you find and keep more customers through Internet Marketing.
Our custom Search Engine Optimization services will help you in three ways:
- Get more visitors in the door with top search placement and Online Marketing.
- Turn visitors into customers with clean design and user-friendly navigation.
- Turn customers into followers with engaging, regular blog content.
Of course, this is a simplistic explanation of what we do. Your business is 100% unique, so the SEO process won’t always be exactly the same. Since we only work with one business per niche, per market, it’s crucial for us to learn what YOU want and need before starting an SEO campaign. Fortunately, one of the benefits of working with a local SEO services company in Omaha is that it’s easy to meet face to face.
Whether we talk in person, via video, or over the phone, before we start any project, we always take the time to make sure that we’re both on the same page. This means a detailed analysis of where your website currently stands and a projection of where you want your site to be in the near future.
Do You Only Work With Local Businesses in Omaha Nebraska?
The beauty of today’s digital age is that “local” is a very relative term. While we are based in Omaha, and we do a ton of Omaha SEO for local businesses, we’re not tied only to this market.
Over the years we have worked with clients in 32 states and 4 different countries. In 2022, the majority of our clients are in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Arizona, Florida, and California.
The beauty of today’s internet world is that we can literally be anywhere, and our clients can be too! We handle 90% of our meetings via Zoom, Google Video, or phone, but for those that want to meet in person, we’re available for that too.
We have a physical office in Omaha but we’re also happy to travel to your office location if needed. We’ve found the majority of people are accustomed to video calls, but there are some people, especially those from the corporate world, that operate better with a face-to-face meeting.
How Does An SEO Audit Work?
An SEO audit is a process by which we take a look at your website and analyze it for any potential errors that could be holding you back from ranking higher in the search engines.
This includes, but is not limited to:
- On-page optimization
- Technical SEO
- Content analysis
- Link building analysis
- Competitor review
- Keyword research / search term analytics
- Review other marketing efforts
There are a ton of different factors that we take into consideration when conducting an SEO audit. Some of these will be more important for your website than others, and that’s why it’s important to have someone with experience performing the audit.
Do I Need An SEO Audit?
If you’re not sure whether or not you need an SEO audit, the best thing to do is reach out to us and we can take a look at your website.
In most cases, we can quickly tell you whether or not an audit would be beneficial for your business. In general, we recommend that all businesses have some version of an SEO audit performed at least once per year. It doesn’t have to be a full dive technical audit, after all, that’s hopefully already been fixed, but certainly having a look at the competition and how you can better position yourself is something worth reviewing on a somewhat regular basis.
A Content Audit can help to ensure that your website is always up-to-date with the latest and greatest information in your industry. As we said earlier, Search Engines want to show the most relevant results to their users, so it’s up to you, and us, to make sure that the right information is being found. Some information may be out of date and needs to be updated, and other information may need to be deleted altogether. That’s what a Content Audit will help determine.
Once the SEO audit is complete, we will schedule a meeting with you to go over our findings. During this meeting, we will discuss what changes need to be made in order to improve your website’s ranking.
Basic Steps We Follow Before Any Omaha SEO Campaign
- Website Audit – How search engine friendly is your website? Where does it currently rank in Google and Bing?
- Usability Review – Is your website easy to use for a first-time visitor who doesn’t know anything about you?
- Content Analysis – How engaging is the content on your website? How likely is it for visitors to turn into customers?
- Design Review – Is your website memorable? Is it marketable? Will it encourage visitors to explore your site?
- Technical Review – Is your website structured how Google and Bing want to see it? Does it allow for customization?
Get Your Local SEO Optimization Started With Big Red SEO
As you can see, there is quite a bit that goes into Google rankings and local SEO, and just because we’re not in your physical town, that doesn’t mean we can’t help dominate your local competition.
We’re focused on business growth for your online services or local company exposure. Some of this requires web development, others may require just SEO service itself. At the end of the day, we’re here to build long term relationships and generate more traffic for you.
You’ll get much more than just technical SEO when you work with us. Our goal is to increase your website traffic and help your business grow. Much of that work is done by an SEO expert behind the scenes, but we love to help new customers understand exactly why something is being done. So many search engine marketing companies try to hold on to their secrets, but there’s no secret to service pages, the correct keyword phrase, or general on page content optimization that you can do yourself.
Local SEO can be a complicated subject, but with our knowledge and years in performing search engine optimization for clients, we are happy to answer and provide guidance on any SEO questions you may have too.
Contact our Omaha SEO team today via our contact form, or call us at (402) 522-6468 and let us know what you need help with.
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