Well hey, there friend. Welcome back to Marketers Take Flight and this special podcast series called ModMarketing. If I haven’t done so lately, I want to take a moment and thank you for being a part of my community and joining me in each week’s episode. I genuinely hope that each episode gives you the exact step-by-step strategies you need so you can start implementing them immediately, and ultimately get to success quicker than I have.

And, I hope these ModMarketing episodes leave you feeling empowered to modernize the marketing at your firm, and maybe feeling less alone. I know that you’re often the only one at your firm or office doing the marketing so coming up with these new strategies feels lonely or like no one else around you gets it. My goal with these episodes is to let you know that you’re on the right track, that online marketing can and is working for AEC firms, that your feelings are valid, and you’re doing a great job, in fact, the best job that you can do.

So again, thank you for spending time with me. Thank you for sharing my podcast with other AEC marketers. And if you’re with me on Instagram, thanks for hanging out with me there as well. And, if you’re not, you can find me at @lindsaydiven. That’s where I share behind-the-scenes insights and stuff that I don’t typically share anywhere else, especially on my Instagram stories. So thanks a bunch!

All right my friend. Are you ready to dive into today’s episode? This is a good one.

In fact, this is the second part of a very important, but often confusing topic of SEO or search engine optimization.

In the last episode, episode 88, I shared what SEO was, how it works, and some ways you can optimize your own web pages for better SEO.

Now in today’s episode, I’m going to share what domain or website credibility is, why it’s important for SEO, and some ways to increase the authority of your website. And, I’m going to end this episode with a 3-step plan so you can get started improving your SEO today.

As you recall in that last episode, we focused on improving your own website through consistent content creation, SEO-friendly webpage structure, image optimization, meta descriptions, and URL structure.

But, what I’m going to talk about today is often referred to as Off-page SEO. It’s the secret sauce to improving your firm’s SEO off of your firm’s website.

Search engines like Google rank how popular a firm’s website is. If the firm’s content is popular, it sends a signal to search engines that it’s the best content, making it more of an authority in that topic area, thus a higher ranking. So, what makes a firm’s website popular? Let me introduce a few ways.

Authority Building Through Backlinks

One way to build authority in search engines is how popular they rank a firm’s website. One factor they use is called ‘backlinking.’ Backlinks are links from other domains that point to a firm’s website or a particular webpage. Each backlink is considered to be a “vote” of confidence for the content that’s being linked. Bottom line – you want other websites to be linking back to your firm’s website. Even better is if the backlinks are from higher authority domains such as those that end in .edu or .org.

Think about the various ways in that your firm’s website can be backlinked. Some might include:

Sponsoring industry conferences and events. Ask the host entity to place your firm’s logo on its website and link back to your website.

Write articles for industry websites. Then, make sure the article has a link back to your firm’s website.

List the firm in online industry directories. For example, the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) has a rather established one.

Google Business Profiles

This is probably the easiest task to improve SEO to make sure the Google Business Profiles (formally Google My Business) is set up for every office location for your firm. Make sure that the firm’s name, address(es), and phone number(s) are correct on the firm’s website and that they are also the same as what’s displayed on the Google My Business page. It sounds so simple but can be quite complex, especially the more offices the firm has and how often the offices move locations.

I talk about this at length with Amy Hollon and Amanda Roehl in episode 77.

Now that I’ve shared some ways to optimize your content and off-page strategies, how do you get started?

Getting Started with SEO

There is no exact science or formula to rank first, or even on the first page, in a search result. Basically, if the content provides value to the people searching for it, it will rank better. Here are some best practices to keep in mind as content is developed for your content marketing program:

Research for the keywords, phrases, or questions that your firm’s personas would be searching.

Conduct those same searches on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing to see what pages and content are already ranking high.

Review those pages and content to identify what qualities, format, content type, etc. that those pages possess.

Make sure to create content that is better than those!

And, if some of your firm’s content ranks high with those searches, evaluate those pages and content to see what’s working. Repurpose that specific content in new ways and create new content like that.

SEO is just part of your overall ModMarketing program. And it’s never really done. This should be something that you review as you’re creating new content and then monitor or check throughout the year. Maybe once or twice a year to get started. Here’s a 3-step process to get started and to go through when you want to review your SEO.

Step 1 – Research Current SEO Rankings & Competitors

Take your list of keywords and/or keyword phrases and Google them! See what types of content are coming up. A key here is to open a Chrome browser in Incognito mode so your previous searching, cookies, and IP data aren’t used to get the search results.

You’ll want to evaluate what’s ranking high and review those pieces of content and websites to get ideas for your own. Use those ideas to either create new content or ways to repurpose and/or adjust your existing content. Write all of this down and make a plan to make the changes or create new content.

Step 2 – Optimize Your Website and Content Pages

Go back and listen to episode 88 where I covered what website and webpage elements to review to increase organic traffic. Check your key content pages for the headings, meta descriptions, URLs, and the rest of the areas I’ve covered during this episode.

Note those web pages that need to be updated. Write those down, along with the changes that need to be made. Make a plan (with deadlines) to make sure those changes get made.

This is also a good time to review your Google Business Profiles and make sure they’re set up for every one of your offices.

Step 3 – Getting Website Credibility

This step is about building the authority and credibility of your website by using backlinks. Review all of this year’s and next year’s sponsorships. Make sure every place and every time your logo appears on someone else’s website you’re asking for them to link back to your website, or better yet a particular piece of content. To me, sometimes this backlink is the main reason to sponsor a certain conference, especially if that particular organization has a lot of domain authority or website traffic too!

This episode and the previous episode, just scratch the surface when it comes to SEO. But I don’t want you to get overwhelmed! If you need to, go back and listen to the parts of this episode or the previous one when you need it. That’s what I love about podcasts, you can listen as many times as you need to and skip or fast forward to certain parts.

And to make sure you don’t miss any new episodes of Marketers Take Flight, make sure to subscribe to the show.

Okay my friend, I cannot wait to see you again next week at the same time, the same place. Thanks for being here and staying until the end of today’s episode. I’ll talk to you again soon. Bye for now.