0 What Does Organic SEO Really Mean?

• SEO
• by Marissa
• 04.16.2025

An "organic search result" appears on a search engine results page (SERP) because it is relevant to a browser's query. The search engine industry uses this term to make a distinction between results that satisfy the search engine's algorithm and paid results. Google calls an organic result a "free listing," whereas non-organic search results are called “paid advertisements." This is the standard definition you will find, say, on the Wikipedia page for "organic search." However, in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), the meaning of "organic" is more nuanced.   Why "Organic"? For most people the word "organic" conjures images of the bountiful fruit and vegetable displays at Whole Foods Market. For a select few, "organic" conjures a discipline in chemistry. Few people, however, are familiar with the word "organic" as it applies to search engine results and search engine optimization (SEO). For all of these examples, one definition of "organic" is relevant. According to Merriam-Webster, organic means “of, relating to, or derived from living organisms.” For the first two examples—produce and chemistry—the relation to "living organisms" is obvious. Of course, a search engine's results cannot be classified as living, carbon-based organisms. Nevertheless, search is alive. Six Pixels of Separation explains Twitter and Facebook's "living" nature quite eloquently: Twitter and Facebook are "living organisms that change, evolve and adapt based on who is putting what into it and how the content is being collaborated on and extrapolated." The same explanation can be applied to search engines results. Just like living organisms, search engine results "change, evolve, and adapt based on who is putting what into it and how the content is being collaborated on and extrapolated."   What is Organic SEO? To appear on the first page of search engine results, a website has two options: organic SEO or paid advertising. Organic SEO describes the use of certain strategies or tools to elevate a website's content in the "free" search results. Many websites use a mix of organic SEO and paid advertising to ensure placement on the first SERP. Organic SEO can be the most cost-effective solution for online marketing, yet SEO can take time to produce a first page result.  The goal of organic SEO is to maintain a high placement on the "free" search results. To do so, organic SEO as a discipline studies the search engine's ever-changing algorithms to keep up with the evolution of organic search. This work can be tedious and time-consuming.  As Wikipedia's helpful article on SEO notes: "According to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, in 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes – almost 1.5 per day." Google's goal is to increase the quality of organic results. Organic SEO, then, works with the search engine algorithms to produce quality content that satisfies the algorithm. Even then, the guiding principle of organic SEO is to "write for users, not search engines." Although organic SEO and search engine algorithms often focus on technical aspects of search, the goal for both, in the end, is to promote quality content to users.    Improve Your Site's Performance with Organic SEO If you're looking for an SEO professional who can enhance your website using organic SEO, look no further than SEO Sparta. You can contact our Bucks County, PA marketing agency at 215-900-9398.  

0 Boost Sales and Cut Costs with Organic SEO

• SEO
• by Marissa
• 04.06.2025

Even in today’s tech-obsessed business world, digital marketing is often discounted as a mere additional expense. Conventional wisdom tells businesses to limit costs, and many business owners see digital marketing as a risky investment—an expense that may or may not increase sales. When faced with the decision to invest in digital marketing, these same business owners inevitably choose to limit costs. In reality, you don't have to choose. Here is a secret that all successful online businesses know: Digital marketing—specifically organic SEO—can increase sales while reducing costs.   Digital Marketing: Quality > Quantity  Obviously, different digital marketing firms employ different techniques with varying results. For instance, some firms use traditional marketing techniques such as banner or website ads. These types of display ads reach many people, but the click-through rate for these ads have been plummeting for years. Of course, display ads can be targeted to specific demographics but demographics alone do not define a unique customer base. For most people, the Internet is inescapable, integrating, informing, and often defining daily lives. Display ads act as intrusions. Inevitably, we confront display ads in the wrong place at the wrong time, and often in the wrong state of mind. We use the Internet to be more efficient and to accomplish specific goals, so when we confront an unwanted ad, we click away. Are all advertisements ineffective? Alice Truong, writing for Quartz, notes a distinction between display ads and native ads: "Display advertisements on websites—the kind that stand apart from the content and invite you to click through for more information—are widely seen as ineffective and annoying. That perception is confirmed in a new study that found native ads, which blend into a website’s design and sometimes even offer related content, more engaging than traditional display ads." The study Truong references in her article also reveals that native ads are consumed in the same way as original content, and that consumers look at both native ads and original content for roughly the same amount of time. The distinction this study reveals between traditional ads and native ads speaks to an elemental point: Banner or website ads rely on quantity—reaching as many people as possible without concern about the consumer’s tastes or preferences. This is also called spam. Digital marketing, instead, endorses quality. Native advertising seamlessly blends into a website's existing content—content that a browser is already looking for. Why else would the browser click to the website in the first place? However, the challenge of attracting visitors to the website still remains. The Internet empowers businesses small or large, local or global, to profit from direct and immediate access to targeted customers. However, no company will realize this singular benefit merely by creating a website. Most websites, even newly-developed websites, are not effectively marketed. In fact, most websites amount to little more than a high-priced digital business card. The key is finding a digital marketing strategy that makes sense for your business. If your concern is cost, the best possible solution is organic SEO. Organic SEO is not a technology, it’s not a tool, and it’s not special equipment. It is a strategy applied to a website’s content, and partially to technical development aspects, that empowers the site to be easily “crawled” by Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines. Search engines like Google are always hungry for new, exciting, and informative content. You never know what a visitor has in mind when browsing your site. You can only hope your content, including text, images, and video, will transform your visitor into a customer—a conversion. Likewise, your website should offer the best experience for visitors. Speed and reliability matter. If your website loads quickly, visitors will easily navigate between pages, and will be less likely to visit other websites for the same product or service. In working with the search engine algorithms, organic SEO practices targeted marketing. Banner ads may or may not reach your intended customer. Organic SEO, on the other hand, helps your intended customers find your website with ease. Unlike advertising—both traditional and native—organic SEO is not tied to any specific cost. You can perform your own search engine optimization by using the tips and tricks detailed on this blog.   Let Our Professionals Enhance Your Site with Organic SEO If you're a website owner in need of SEO, we suggest calling SEO Sparta today at 215-900-9398 because organic SEO is our specialty. If you're hesitant to try SEO, or don’t know where to start, we can provide you with a free website audit that shows you all the areas where your site has room to improve.

0 How SEO and Customer Service Go Hand-in-Hand

• SEO
• by Marissa
• 04.01.2025

SEO is not commonly paired with customer service. We tend to think of SEO (or marketing, in general) as the work that attracts customers. We tend to think about customer service as the work that retains customers. Yet the two practices should not be viewed as independent. Good SEO is good customer service—and vice versa. To attract and retain customers, you must practice both in equal measure.   Save Customers Time with Good SEO One difference between traditional marketing and SEO is that traditional marketing often tries to convince a customer that they need something new, while SEO, on the other hand, simply helps customers find what they're already looking for.  The great misconception about SEO is that website optimization is somehow similar to spam. The opposite is true. Spam works by quantity. By blasting emails, for example, spammers play the numbers game, hoping for minimum conversions: 1% or less. Spam is so annoying because it applies a blanket approach to marketing: emailing everyone, regardless of the recipient's preferences. SEO is, by nature, targeted marketing. Good SEO saves a customer time by promoting the most relevant, quality results for any given search. In fact, in this way, SEO works in tandem with search engines, which aim to streamline search, yielding only the best results. Instead of clicking pages deep, today's browser expects quality on the first page. By saving customers the hassle of browsing multiple pages, SEO and search engines promote good customer service Internet-wide.   Good SEO Creates a Pleasurable Customer Experience A well-optimized site is not merely easy to find, it is also easy-to-use. We know that the better a site's structure, the better the user experience. We also know that ease-of-use is a crucial determiner of a website's ranking. As Nomensa explains: "A positive UX (user experience) enhances user engagement, as users are more likely to spend time on a user-friendly and visually appealing website that provides relevant information. This increased engagement often leads to users sharing the website with others, resulting in more traffic and improved search rankings.” By nature, then, the top-ranked sites (with good SEO) provide a pleasurable customer experience. Imagine your favorite grocery store. You likely enjoy the store for its navigability—you find the foods you want easily, the aisles are wide, and the shelves are stocked. To replicate this positive shopping experience online, optimize your website structure. Each page should provide easy-to-find links and each page should itself be easy to identify and discover.   Good Customer Support Amplifies SEO This is a no-brainer. If you offer easily-accessible customer support—via chat, responsive email, or a quality call center—your website will likely convert many potential customers. The more customers you convert, the more customers will return to buy more. The more returns, in turn, will improve SEO, creating a positive cycle of clicks and conversions. The key here is to maintain a consistent level of quality. According to Neil Patel, "71% of consumers have ended their relationship with a company due to poor customer service." Poor customer service will lead to decreased visits—negatively influencing SEO. To succeed in business, you must follow the wisdom of this Mo Hardy quote: "Customer service is an attitude, not a department.   An SEO Company That Understands Customer Service: SEO Sparta To build an effective customer service campaign, you need a web development company that also understands SEO. SEO Sparta is the rare company that understands the value of customer service. Contact SEO Sparta in Bucks County, PA today to learn how you can improve your website's performance: 215-900-9398.

0 What Sets Good Writing Apart from Good SEO Writing?

• SEO
• by Marissa
• 03.24.2025

What is the difference between good writing and good SEO writing? In a word, keywords. Unfortunately, many writers neglect this simple fact, especially so-called "serious" writers. Yet, the fact remains—to attract organic attention, a good piece of writing must include keywords. Not merely keywords, but the right keywords. I'm reminded of the famous quote from Raymond Carver: "That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they can best say what they are meant to say." Adapted for online content, this famous writing advice is the key to SEO. To attract organic attention, all you have, finally, are keywords, used judiciously, "in the right places so that they can best say what they're meant to say." Now, to writers of the MFA ilk, this appropriation of Carver might read as heresy. I've spoken to fellow graduates of my own MFA program about SEO and some call the practice, especially the use of keywords, "manipulative." Their reasoning, I gather, is that the use of keywords is, by nature, contrary to Carver's appeal to use "the right" words. What if, the reasoning goes, a keyword turns out to be the "wrong word" for the sentence? By the mandate of SEO, the keyword must be included. The keyword is then arbitrary—not at all the "right word." In practice, this thinking is nonsense. SEO writing is a "form" of writing—a form delimited by its emphasis on keywords. From poetry to sculpture, "form"—the more or less established structure, pattern, or scheme followed in shaping an artistic work—classifies art. Form structures the creative imagination. In art, form is necessary, especially for young artists. In his poem "First You Must," Dean Young writes: “First you must build a cathedral of toothpicks. Write nothing but sonnets for a year.” Young's implication is that art is learned, and sustained, through form. The tedium of a toothpick cathedral, a year of sonnets—this is art's apprenticeship and practice. The tedium of keywords—this is the practice of good SEO writing. What separates good writing from good SEO writing, then, is not an arbitrary emphasis on keywords. In fact, the pursuit of the "right keyword," however tedious, is a form of art. When researching the right keyword, you clarify your purpose. You ask yourself: "Who is my audience?" Good writing might attract an audience but good SEO writing will attract the right type of audience. As Moz writes in its keyword research guide: "It's not always about getting visitors to your site, but about getting the right kind of visitors." Now, Moz does continue from here to describe keyword research in explicitly market-driven terms: "The usefulness of this intelligence cannot be overstated; with keyword research you can predict shifts in demand, respond to changing market conditions, and produce the products, services, and content that web searchers are actively seeking. In the history of marketing, there has never been such a low barrier to entry in understanding the motivations of consumers in virtually any niche." This is the sort of SEO speak that turns many writers away from the enterprise. Yet, this turning away is a knee-jerk reaction that has little to do with the implicit goal of any writer: to be read, widely. Yes, no matter how "serious" a writer assumes himself to be, what he really craves is readership. After all, without readers what is the use of any piece of writing (beyond an exercise in solipsism)? However, keywords are only as effective as the writing that surrounds them. Without a backbone of good writing, no piece of content—no matter how it is optimized with keywords—will perform well in the rankings. Of course, once you have created a good piece of content, optimization can only help. The key; however, is to focus on the quality of your writing before you worry too much about optimization. This advice runs counter to Moz's advice to research keywords before writing.  However, we believe the initial act of writing can, and often should, be performed without any thought of keywords. In this way, you write to your point and not to your keywords. After you have written your first draft, then perform your keyword research. In revision, you can go back, clarify, and revise certain words or phrases to match your keyword research. You can create your form. In the end, the only implicit difference between good writing and good SEO is this extra bit of work. Are you willing to perform this extra work to reach more readers? If not, you're wasting the effort you put into your writing, no matter how good it may be.   SEO Writing Professionals You Can Depend On If you're looking for an SEO company that understands how to effectively promote websites with carefully chosen keywords, we suggest contacting SEO Sparta of Bucks County, PA at 215-900-9398. We can provide a free website audit that targets all the areas where your site has room to improve.

0 Why Text-Based Content is Essential for Website Optimization

• SEO
• by Marissa
• 03.18.2025

Today we want to focus on our favorite form of content: text. Of course, a great website should contain a mix of content, both images and text. However, in reality, search engines continue to favor text-heavy sites above all others. The advantages of a text-heavy site are clear.   Load Time & Page Speed  First, in the absence of bulky images, a text-heavy site will load quickly. The SEO world knows from experience that search engines favor sites with simple codes and speedy load times. Google has even developed a tool, PageSpeed, that helps webmasters "identify ways to make your site faster..." Although load time (or page speed, to use Google-talk) is only one of over 200 ranking factors, it tends to receive a lot of attention from SEO specialists. The reason is simple: page speed not only affects your page ranking; it also influences your browser's perceptions of your site. Years ago, KISSmetrics reported that 47% of all browsers expect a page to load in two seconds or less. No doubt, in the age of mobile SEO, this number has increased. Stripping your site of all the unnecessary frills, like excessive images, can dramatically improve your site’s load time. If you do use images, make sure you optimize each image for SEO. In the end; however, for browsers and search engines alike, the appeal of a text-heavy site is clear. Text is clean, simple, and fast.   Voice Search Compatibility As the value of keyword-based optimization diminished, search engines continued to prefer "long-tail keywords," three- or four-word phrases that more accurately specify the nature of a certain search. In the distant past, a browser looking for a gray sweatshirt might have typed "gray sweatshirt." Over time, most savvy browsers learned to be more specific: "slim-fit gray sweatshirt," for example. However, today voice search is changing SEO. A voice-based search has a different goal than a traditional search. Instead of "browsing," per say, most voice searches attempt to ask a question or state a problem. Instead of revealing sites based on keywords, today's search engines attempt to answer questions and solve problems. This is most easily seen in Google's semantic search, introduced around the time of the Hummingbird algorithm, which analyzes the spoken word to attempt to discover the intent behind any given search. Naturally, a text-heavy site will be more likely to meet the demands of voice search. An image will not necessarily answer a question or solve a problem. The key is to make sure your text counts. When thinking about your content, try to answer your ideal customer's questions; try to solve a crucial problem. Answers. Solutions. This is why you built a business in the first place, right?   Mobile Compatibility  A text-heavy site will also be easily compatible on all devices, including a desktop, tablet, and most importantly, a mobile phone. In the past we’ve reported on the necessity of optimizing for mobile. Today we can safely say: of all possible search venues, mobile is the most important. Since 2014, mobile search has exceeded desktop search. This is likely due to its convenience, a fact that can be observed on any pedestrian street, and, unsettlingly, on any highway in America. One only needs to glance aside to see another person looking down at his or her phone. If convenience is the name, you want to make sure you’re playing the right game. Simply put, a text-heavy site will be much easier to read on a mobile device. Of course, we're not advocating a total disavowal of images (and other forms of content). Even text itself can be made to look like an "image." Today's programming languages are so sophisticated that a knowledgeable web developer can transform text to look like an image with simple CSS styling rules. But it is important to remember that most browsers are looking for text-based information, and the clean presentation of text is often the quickest path to a high page ranking.   Need Mobile SEO Help? Call SEO Sparta We believe that ecommerce is now a mobile game! To navigate the rules of mobile SEO, you might need to hire an SEO specialist like SEO Sparta. If you sell a high-quality product that deserves customers, you also deserve a well-optimized mobile website. Do not let the changing search landscape compromise your sales. Now, more than ever, you need the astute wisdom of a professional search engine optimization professional. SEO Sparta currently offers a free website consultation. Contact SEO Sparta today to learn how you can improve your website's mobile performance: 215-900-9398.

0 Understanding the Elements of 'Good' SEO

• SEO
• by Marissa
• 03.11.2025

"Build for users, not search engines." This popular maxim has been a guiding SEO principle for many years, and for good reason. The goal of algorithm design is to improve the specificity of search results. The goal of a good SEO firm is to deliver an optimized website with content tailored to a specific audience. When the two disciplines come together, all stakeholders benefit: the search engine, the website, and the user. The maxim is true: Good SEO is built for users. This truth, in theory, should inspire more people to use SEO, especially any online business focused on customer service. Unfortunately, SEO is often viewed as counter to the user experience. Many view SEO as a manipulation of algorithm design—a way to trick the system. Those outside the SEO community often dismiss SEO talk—algorithms, alt text, anchor text, just to name a few—as simply technobabble. For many people, SEO is sheer manipulation of code. They flip the guiding principle on its head, thinking SEO is built for search engines, not users. In our experience, this misconception is the primary reason so many websites do not take advantage of SEO. As Alex Stepman of SEO Sparta says, "You would be surprised by how many website owners dismiss SEO as a manipulative practice. They view SEO as counter to the goals of the search engines." The problem, Stepman notes, is that too many people associate modern SEO with the black hat practices of the past, like unethical coding, spammy link-building schemes, and domain jacking. In fact, when asked, "What is black hat SEO?" Google offers a definition from Webopedia: "In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, black hat SEO refers to the use of aggressive SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus only on search engines and not a human audience." Black hat SEO builds for search engines, not users. This distinction is important—there is a difference between good and bad SEO.  Elsewhere, on its own page focused on SEO, Google discusses the difference between a good and bad SEO: "Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site." Many website owners take the wrong idea from this quote, viewing SEO as an either/or proposition—improve your site and save time vs. risk damage to your site and reputation. However, when practiced ethically, good SEO is not an either/or proposition. From Google's (and other search engine's) perspective, algorithms reward organic SEO efforts. At the same time, algorithms dissuade back hat SEO practices. What Google is advising is to perform your own research to find a good SEO company that understands the value of users (customers). Ask any potential SEO: What can you do for my customers? How can you attract my unique customers? What do you know about my customers? If an SEO cannot speak to the human side of online marketing and SEO, look elsewhere. Is SEO Worth Your Money? To navigate the complex world of SEO, you might need to hire an SEO specialist like SEO Sparta. Do not let the changing algorithms compromise your sales. You need the astute wisdom of a search engine optimization professional who can help you answer the question honestly: Is SEO worth your money? Contact SEO Sparta today to learn how you can improve your website's performance: 215-900-9398.

0 Why SEO Specialists Are Essential for Your Business

• SEO
• by Marissa
• 03.03.2025

If you need a haircut, you see a hairstylist. If you feel a pain in your chest, you see a doctor. But what if you need to embed EXIF in your website's images? What do you do? We see specialists because we trust others to perform the work we cannot perform. An unfortunate truth about SEO; however, is that website owners rarely trust specialists to perform the crucial, yet often tedious, work of website optimization. In many cases, website owners simply do not perform SEO at all, and their websites languish in the rankings. Or worse, website owners pay amateurs to perform SEO, and the amateurs actually harm their website rankings. We cite the examples of a stylist and doctor to prove a point. If you're like most people, you trust your beauty and health to professionals. So why not trust your website's rankings to a professional? We cite EXIF to prove a point, too. The work of website optimization is often tedious, and the associated terminology can sometimes seem downright arcane. In reality, EXIF is a relatively simple concept: “EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) files store important data about photographs. Almost all digital cameras create these data files each time you snap a new picture. An EXIF file holds all the information about the image itself — such as the exposure level, where you took the photo, and any settings you used."   SEO Specialists Unlock the Mystery of Website Optimization The world of an SEO specialist is replete with concepts like EXIF. Robot.txt? SERPs? Website crawlers? These are just a few of the more popular SEO terms. For the layman, these terms might seem complex and mysterious. However, for the SEO specialist, these terms are old hat. Fortunately, if you're a website owner with a quality product, and you truly want your website to attract the traffic it deserves, you do not need to suffer the confusion of learning SEO. You trust your hair to a hair stylist and your health to a doctor, so why not trust your website's performance to a professional SEO specialist? If you’re a website owner in need of SEO, we suggest contacting SEO Sparta today. You can contact our Bucks County, PA office at 215-900-9398. If you're hesitant to try SEO, or are not sure where to start, we suggest reading our series of articles for website owners: How SEO Can Help You Clarify Your Business Offering How to Build an Optimized Website: Website Development Why Updating Your Website is a Key SEO Strategy Content is King – SEO Content Marketing Strategies  

0 Why Bad Links Can Spell Disaster for Your Website

• SEO
• by Marissa
• 02.24.2025

Link-building has been a hallmark of SEO since the beginning. For a search engine like Google, links between sites offer clues to the relevancy and popularity of every website. Attracting quality links from well-respected sites has traditionally been one of the best ways to improve a site's placement. Today, most well-optimized sites enjoy a variety of quality links from across the Internet. Unfortunately, link-building has been abused over the years by certain Black Hat SEO specialists. In fact, if not for link-building abuse, Google might not have ever created its Penguin algorithm. At the time, Google clarified its definition of a "bad" or "artificial" link: “Any links intended to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme.” Many SEO specialists lamented this change. Some even wondered, "is link-building dead?" However, we here at SEO Sparta rejoiced! After all, the purpose of the algorithm, to punish those websites and SEO specialists that built bad or artificial links, could only advance the work of the legitimate SEO specialists who had played by the rules and built links based on relationships, integrity, and quality content. In our opinion, a true SEO specialist would never, ever build a "fake" link.   Understanding Fake Links "What is a fake link?" You might ask. "And how can a link be fake if it works?" Well, it's partially related to a link's traffic flow. To Google and all other search engines, a "real" link is a one-way link—a link that points directly from one site to another. In the past, Black Hat SEO specialists had created links to a site in exchange for a return link. Google delegitimized this sort of link-building, but many crafty website developers knew about this limitation and tried to bypass Google with SEO tricks. One especially destructive trick populated the Internet with loads of bad sites. Black Hat SEO specialists created multiple websites, sometimes up to ten or more, all with the same owner. These websites were built for the explicit purpose of creating links back to the primary website. With all the incoming links, the primary website leaped in its rankings. Of course, this trick did not work for long. Google launched an algorithm update to punish this sort of link scheme. With Penguin, it appeared that this type of Black Hat practice had become "old hat." As we noted above, the Penguin algorithm only helped the first-rate SEO specialists who had worked hard to create quality websites that attracted quality links. The only links that have ever truly mattered are those that arrive from relevant and high-quality sites. Links from sites that aren't relevant to your own simply confuse browsers, and can now potentially hurt your site's ranking. Has your SEO specialist removed your site’s bad links? If not, you're in trouble. Now's the time to contact a skilled SEO specialist, like SEO Sparta of Bucks County, PA. We'll not only remove the bad links, but also provide a free website audit that pinpoints all the areas where you site has room to improve.

0 The SEO Specialist: Your New Best Friend

• SEO
• by Seth Pollins
• 06.09.2022

The SEO Specialist: Your New Best Friend When first learning about SEO, many enthusiastic website owners assume that they can do the work of optimization without the help of a trained specialist. This is an admirable pursuit, and to the extent that this is possible, we support website owners in their quest to optimize their websites. In fact, we write The Organic SEO blog not merely for our peers in the SEO community but for website owners who wish to learn more about natural website optimization.  If you are a website owner, especially a new website owner, we strongly urge you to browse our blog. Learn as much about organic SEO as possible! At The Organic SEO Blog, we also value specialization. For example, this blog is supported by Alex Stepman of SEO SPARTA. Alex is a gifted SEO specialist with vast experience. However, although Alex certainly provides inspiration and ideas for The Organic SEO Blog, he understands that writing is not exactly his strength. For this reason, Alex hires a small team of professional copywriters for this blog and all of his content-driven SEO work. Of course, to Alex, it just makes sense to focus on his strengths and outsource his weaknesses to others. Now, if you own your website and feel you have the time and patience to optimize your website's structure and content--well, more power to you! We share a democratic view of optimization: SEO is a talent anyone can understand and apply. What many website owners do not understand, though, is that the work of an SEO specialist is a full-time occupation. Most of this work is about keeping up-to-date with the changes in search engine algorithms--especially Google's algorithm. To maintain a website's first-page ranking (and any website that employs an SEO specialist should maintain the first-page ranking), an SEO specialist will use his specialized knowledge of search engines, algorithms, website structure, and content to make necessary changes to a website. Changes might be a daily requirement. If you're a website owner, you likely have other problems to worry about, like the quality of your product or offering or the productivity of your employees.   Stay up to date with the search engine algorithm requirements.  "Google's algorithm evolves over time. Over the years, we've seen a few entirely new algorithms and many 'updates.' However, even as Google's experience improves, the algorithm changes might not be apparent to most browsers. For the trained SEO specialist, though, even the slightest change should be apparent." For a view of how often Google updates its algorithm, check out the fascinating Google Algorithm Change History. The site notes, "Each year Google changes its algorithm around 500-600 times." Should an SEO specialist know and understand each one of these changes? You better believe it! Suppose you're a website owner considering performing your website's SEO work (or you're considering giving your "tech guy" the SEO work). In that case, we urge you to take a moment to browse the Google Algorithm Change History. Do you understand what you're reading? If not, you're not alone! Believe me, as a copywriter, I have no idea what I'm reading on this site. Here, for example, is the entry for July 19, 2013, in full: Knowledge Graph Expansion — July 19, 2013 Seemingly overnight, queries with Knowledge Graph (KG) entries expanded by more than half (+50.4%) across the MozCast data set, with more than a quarter of all searches showing some kind of KG entry. Say what? We write The Organic SEO blog intending to simplify SEO. However, we also believe that any website owner who wishes to achieve even moderate success should consult with a qualified SEO specialist. If you wish to learn more about organic SEO from a trained SEO specialist, we urge you to contact our sponsor, SEO SPARTA.

0 Why Updating Your Website is a Key SEO Strategy?

• Website Design
• by Alex Stepman
• 04.24.2022

The Internet can be defined in many ways, but the sheer quantity of available experience begs a simple definition. At the Organic SEO blog, we prefer to call the Internet "a dynamic space." Like humanity, the Internet evolves; unlike humanity, this evolution is speedy. To keep pace with the evolving, speedy nature of the Internet, the best websites continually offer new content. The best websites also periodically update their look, feel, and functionalities. Think about your favorite website. How often does your favorite website update its content? How often does your favorite website update its design or layout? The answer to both of these questions is "quite often."   The crucial lesson of organic SEO Optimize your website for both search engines and users. By maintaining fresh and relevant content, you will continue to attract new and returning visitors. You will also impress search engines. Remember, from Google's perspective, the goal is to deliver the most relevant results and ensure the user is 100% satisfied with these results. Beyond content, however, minor changes to a website's infrastructure can make the website more appealing to users and search engines. For example, think about your website's ease of navigation. Improving your website's layout will satisfy your visitors, and when you satisfy your visitors, you satisfy the search engines. To a search engine like Google, change is good. Google, the great beast of the evolving Internet, is always hungry for new information. This information might be new content, but it also might be a new design or development element. Google does not distinguish between types of change; it makes no difference if a change is applied to website content or website design. As long as the website is not outdated, any change is considered new content. If you have not updated your website's design recently, this should be your timely reminder. If you operate an industry-specific website, please remember: that your website has likely been optimized for your specific industry, so any change should be relevant to that industry. Now, SEO is not the only reason to update a website. As a leader in website optimization and online marketing, we strive to make it easy for others to keep their websites up-to-date. Many websites follow our FREE recommendations for organic website optimization, and many websites have used our helpful information to maintain daily online success. Browse our Organic SEO Blog for helpful advice if you're new to SEO. SEO is a marketing strategy applied to the website's visual elements and structure that makes your website discoverable in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to the point where your website becomes your money-making tool.