Are some really important keywords your customers frequently use? Your products are the solutions to those keywords, and you want people to see your website when they search on Google. You know you can solve their problems better than your competitors, but you’re frustrated that those competitors’ websites are showing up above yours. What do you do?

If you’ve ever had those thoughts, you’re not alone. Many business owners and managers are frustrated by where their websites show up (or don’t) in the long list of Google results. When they begin to look for solutions, they encounter a bunch of digital marketing jargon that leaves them more confused and frustrated than before.

I’m not a fan of marketing jargon or smoke-and-mirrors answers either. The Riviea name is derived from the Greek word for exactness, and that’s what I want to bring to the topic of showing up higher in Google.

You have two routes to take: PPC & SEO

There are two ways to show up higher in Google. One way is through a type of digital advertising known as pay-per-click or PPC. With this channel, a business must craft sophisticated campaigns in Google Ads that reach customers based on the keywords they’re using. The benefit of PPC is that it’s nearly immediate. Assuming you have a landing page, budget, and a sense of what people search, you can instantly start driving leads or e-commerce transactions.

But isn’t showing up in Google free? Why should a business have to pay to be there? That’s where search engine optimization comes into play. Yes, Google (and other search engines) will automatically index and display websites on results pages. However, there are tactics website owners can employ to improve how their sites display. That’s the core of SEO.

SEO isn’t just about creating content

You’re probably already familiar with the idea of SEO. If you are, you’ve probably seen “experts” espouse the importance of creating great content to use to attract new customers. While creating content is a part of SEO, it’s not the only thing that matters. Furthermore, your competitors may be creating “great content” too. If everyone is creating content, doesn’t that just lead to noise for consumers and search engines alike?

An SEO strategy has to address technical aspects of a website as well. This is where a lot of people stumble. Things like schema, Core Web Vitals, and canonicalization can cause fits, especially for those without coding capabilities. To help demystify this, I’ve put together a sample of technical topics website owners should consider including in their SEO strategies.

Schema

Schema is HTML markup that helps search engines make sense of the content of a website. While a human being is able to implicitly understand when a webpage is intended to be used to purchase a product versus review it, a search engine might not be able to tell. Schema informs the search engine of the difference. Most search engines, in turn, use this information to display website content in unique ways on results pages.

Canonicalization

Like schema, canonicalization is HTML markup. Specifically, it’s a snippet of code, usually placed next to a page’s metadata, which identifies the original source of the content on that page. Often, canonical tags are self-referencing. However, businesses that syndicate content (e.g., a press release) may want to indicate that the copy on their website is the original by asking the syndication partners to add canonical tags on their own press release pages to point to the original.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics Google uses to assess the speed and user-friendliness of a given URL. Google rewards sites that meet their criteria for good Vitals with higher rankings. Good Vitals reflect that pages load quickly and don’t shift content around the screen as the browser loads all of the page elements. These metrics are calculated for both mobile and desktop devices, making them representative of a wide range of potential users.

Alt Text

Alt text refers to tags added to a website’s imagery which describes the image in detail. These tags are frequently used to make a website accessible to those who may face visual challenges or impairments. Furthermore, these tags allow search engines to make sense of imagery. Search engines regularly index images and drive traffic to sites because of them, so optimizing alt tags is critical.

Conclusion

Although making a website show up higher in Google may feel like a daunting task, the necessary effort can be broken down into smaller chunks or outsourced to experts. While you may feel like you lack the expertise to execute the necessary tactics yourself, there are an abundance of experts who can build out successful PPC campaigns and/or thoroughly optimize a website for organic search. Riviea can help with this too. If you have questions about how to do this more effectively or simply need help, don’t hesitate to reach out!