We see a lot of web design and other digital marketing sites highlighting that they offer SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services.  We have intentionally not labeled it as a separate service that we offer.  We have done that for a couple of reasons:

• As a small or mid-sized business owner you may not know what SEO is, why it matters to you, or what constitutes a good SEO service
• Why would you have a web site and NOT want it optimized for search engines to display your content to customers and prospects?  Why would it be something separate from web site design and development?

Yes, we offer SEO services, but as an integral part of our Design and Development services.  As a business owner, you shouldn’t have to care about the technical details of how web sites get optimized for search engines.  But you should care that your valuable, relevant, compelling content is being displayed to customers and prospects when they search for information.

We use WordPress as the primary tool to develop web sites.  With that, there are some other tools and techniques that we use.  (And we think you should look for them as part of any web design and development project.)

It's primarily your content

If someone else is speaking with you about SEO and not starting with your content, they are too far down in the weeds of technology.  A blog may be your most important tool for SEO.  The first and most important way to be noticed effectively by search engines is to have plenty of well written content.  It should be written in the way that your customers and prospects look for information on the Internet.   It should be embedded in links and images as well.  And your site should use good, straightforward navigation links.  Your site and content are deemed more important if they are also linked to by others, including social media.

Other tools and techniques

• Meta tags provide search engines with places and content to index
• robots.txt help search engines know where to look for content
• WordPress categories become technorati tags and others can be added
• Permalink make it easier for search engines to find your content
• A sitemap may also enable a search engine
• Search engine submissions may also be helpful to raise the visibility of your content

So, yes, you should care about SEO.  Start with your content and we can assist.

Quicksprout has put together this very useful infographic as well:

SEO