Convert Google Searches to Paying Customers with Kalamazoo SEO Services
On the surface, it all used to seem so easy: when you put a website up on Google, people find your website. Search engine optimization was much simpler, too; grabbing a list of hundreds of keywords and loading them on your site got your website found.
Google, though, has changed since then—and for good reason. “Keyword stuffing” is the practice of forcing as many keywords as possible onto a website with little to no regard for user experience. Not only did this practice rocket undeserving sites to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), but it also led to dissatisfied would-be customers and the burying of productive businesses.
At Blue Fire Media, we believe that every business deserves an honest and fair shot in the online marketplace, which is why we partner with over 280 small businesses to give them some of the best SEO services on the market.
In today’s blog post, we’ll be discussing a brief history of search engine optimization (SEO) and how we at Blue Fire Media work to get local businesses listed at the top of Google.
How the SEO Services Game Has Changed
Search engines like Google caught on pretty fast to the fact that the way they built their search engines didn’t give users the best results, just the easiest ones to find.
Picture this. You walk into a library and ask the head librarian for a book on how to skydive. But when the librarian takes you to the “skydiving” section of the library you don’t see shelves of neatly ordered books. Instead, the librarian shows you an immense pile of books stacked on top of each other all the way to the ceiling. The librarian then climbs to the top-most book and tosses it down to you. When you open it, you see it’s not a book explaining how to skydive, but a book about famous skydivers with a page at the back repeating the words “how to skydive” 200 times.
This is the way search engine optimization used to be done.
Today, search engines like Google have a much more sophisticated way of determining if content—like the skydiving book—would be helpful to you or not. Ever since the Google Hummingbird update in 2013, Google began considering the context of the words you’re searching, instead of just the words themselves.
This is only a brief overview of one of the biggest changes to have come to how SEO services are done. While there’s certainly more to the story, let’s switch gears to how we at Blue Fire Media have adapted to make the current Google algorithm work for you.
Blue Fire Kalamazoo Web Design and Development
The latest major change to online marketing is none other than Google Analytics 4 (GA4). While Google has singularly relied on Universal Analytics (UA) since October 2012, UA is being retired one month from now, on July 1st, 2023.
At Blue Fire Media, not only have we already made the switch over to GA4 in advance, but our writers are all GA4 certified through Google’s official GA4 certification program. But how do we use tools like GA4 to direct customers to your business?
Well, in the modern age of search engine optimization, it’s often said that content will always be relevant in the digital marketplace. In 1996, Bill Gates almost prophetically wrote an essay called “Content is King,” in which he says, “Content is where I expect much of the real money to be made on the Internet.”
Today, the “Content is King” rule still holds true, and Google rewards websites with engaging content by directing more traffic their way. Using GA4, we can analyze the changes in traffic over time to see how your content is impacting your site traffic.
In fact, if you’re reading this article right now, you were likely directed to our website instead of someone else’s because Google found that this blog post has informative, engaging content.
What is informative, engaging content? That’s a big question, but it boils down to a few main factors. Primarily, strong content will:
- Answer questions the audience has (also known as User Intent)
- Cite and link to reputable sources on relevant topics
- Break up content for easy reading using pictures, headings, and bulleted lists
These are just a handful of the factors that keep people reading and get Google to direct paying customers your way.
We’ll be honest with you: the way that SEO used to be done in the 2000’s is never coming back—and that’s for the better. That being said, converting google searches to paying customers really can be as easy as it once seemed to be. Contact us today so we can help you bring your services to the broader Kalamazoo community.
