SEO Toronto

SEO stands for search engine optimization, where a webpage is consciously optimized to rank higher on a search engine results page (SERP). The SEO definition focuses heavily on the word optimization.

Optimization: Attaining the best result possible with the most efficient and effective performance.

To achieve the desired results for any market, the process takes time. The time taken depends on the a number of factors, including competition, website health, previous legacy issues, and of course your budget. The process is not cheap, but the trade off is the ROI you can expect in your market.

We audit and reverse engineer a market to understand what is working right now. The best source of information is gaining an understanding how your competitors are winning, and simply doing what they do, but better.

Onsite SEO deals with anything that’s part of your website, such as site speed, technical SEO, onsite content, and so on. Offsite SEO refers to tactics that focus on factors external to your site, such as link-building, Google My Business listings, social media posting, and unlinked brand mentions.

Keywords still matter. But not exactly in the same way as they used to. We prepare keywords intelligently for your website content. How? By looking beyond the keyword and seeing the wider picture, this "topic modeling" approach ensures that we capture a wide range of keyword search queries and intents. After all, a single website page can rank for hundreds of keywords now since Google's algorithms are advanced enough to understand language semantics. Instead of trying to rank for any and every keyword that relates to your business, we develop an intent matrix. This means we look at the keyword opportunities and value their intent before targeting them.

Ensuring your website is technically sound gives us a strong foundation for SEO success. Because you could have thousands of backlinks and good quality content, it doesn’t mean anything if Google can’t crawl and index your site. We use a comprehensive 100-point checklist to foolproof your technical optimization, covering far more factors than any other SEO agency in Toronto. This comprehensive audit would typically be our primary focus during your first month with us.

The first step is to entice the click in the first place. We strive to boost your CTR ( click-through rate) by optimizing your meta titles and meta descriptions, as well as strategically including structured data (e.g., a 5-star average rating that appears in your SERP listing).

From there, we need to make sure readers will be satisfied with your page content after they click. We do this by providing the content we write that accurately and comprehensively answers their questions and satisfies their intent. We also help clients determine and fix any factors that could be pushing users to bounce (e.g., poor site speed, unnavigable website design, or spammy pop-ups).

Absolutely – even though Google have made it more difficult to do so. Their algorithm updates used to be major. Panda and Penguin shook the organic search world to its core. These days, the algorithms are advanced enough to update continuously and subtly. For example, with RankBrain, we saw the evolution of algorithms updating themselves using machine learning, much faster than they ever could have been updated by people. Oh, and Google is more secretive about their plans than they used to be, which doesn’t help.

However, we do have our ways. By monitoring industry forums and news, we still manage to keep stride with any significant changes that get rolled out. Our genuine passion and extensive experience in the industry certainly help a bit too.

Our approach to content involves looking at the whole funnel. This way, our content can cover every stage of the purchase journey, enabling us to monitor readers at the moments that matter most.

We accomplish this by working closely with our in-house content writing team. Read More

Also known as offsite SEO, link building is the act of getting other websites to link to yours. This can be done by partnering with brands who complement your business and developing links to each other. You can also contact websites that already talk about your brand and request that they backlink any mention of your business.

But the biggest tactic to create quality content is to ask other publishers to share it (or to be the primary publisher and to name it as a guest post by your website). Just keep in mind that quality is more important than quantity with backlinks.

With the ever-present intent of negatively scoring spam websites, search engine algorithms will identify the quality of your backlinks and rank you accordingly – so be careful who’s talking about you.

How users interact with your website also has an impact your search engine ranking. This online authority is user-generated from comments and reviews on your websites, and shares and mentions on social platforms – fundamentally, it’s your popularity and image.

Just like keywords, links are still important (they remain one of the top 3 ranking factors), but the tactics around them have also changed significantly over time. Our link-building strategies focus on quality over quantity; we’d prefer one backlink from a reputable publisher with high domain authority rather than ten links from low-value blogs.

How do we get high-quality links? With high-quality content, of course. We create hero pieces (such as infographics and buying guides) that influencers want to share with their audiences, building a natural and robust backlink portfolio for your site. We also invest time in research to identify the right influencers and understand the types of content they like to share.

While this is the most common, it’s important to understand that several other link-building avenues are available (e.g., links via sponsorships). We consider and explore each one to determine the best strategy for your website.

We measure and optimize the user experience with heat mapping, and A/B split testing. It’s important to consider how your user experience affects your website visitors because this can really impact your rankings over time. For example, if people frequently lose patience with your site, you’ll drop it. However, if people frequently lose themselves in your excellent content, you’ll rise.

For the purpose of improving UX, we have a team of in-house designers and developers who can make cosmetic changes to your site.

Constantly, that’s how. The organic search landscape changes every day, so our experts are always researching, blogging, and obsessively updating themselves with the latest and future trends of SEO. You can chat to a member of our Toronto-based team to find out more about the future of SEO or head to our blog where we deliver useful tips and tackle recent myths and trends.

Transparently and comprehensively. We don’t sweep any unflattering stats under the rug – we’d rather shine a spotlight on them so we can work out how to adapt and improve.

Similarly, when results are good (spoiler alert: they usually are!), we don’t just give you a green ‘up’ arrow and expect you to be impressed. We’ll explain in detail what’s working, why it’s working, and how we’ll make sure it keeps working in the future.

We work on a monthly retainer that does not include a contract, so at any time after the month, both parties have right to review, amend, and cancel the agreement. This means that you have flexibility with your risk. We do however recommend a 3 month minimum, to give us the time to prove our worth.

Each campaign and industry has different thresholds, so it’s best to get in touch to find out what it will cost.

How long is a piece of string? There a countless factors that will affect the ‘right’ or ‘best’ amount you should invest in SEO. This is why it’s essential to speak with an expert. By understanding your business and circumstances, we can help you determine an investment figure that will deliver optimal ROI.

Not yet. Not by a long shot. Searches are still on the rise and organic click-through rates still completely overshadow paid clicks. As long as search engines continue to dominate the market as a resource for finding information about products and services, SEO will remain one of the strongest marketing channels available.

To give you some insight into how valuable SEO still is, consider how much it costs to reach your audience through search.

The average cost to reach 2,000 people is:

$900 for direct mail 

$500 for magazine advertising 

$150 for broadcast ads Just

 $50 for online search.

Link building via link purchasing went out of fashion quite a while ago. Our link-building tactics focus on earning links – typically by developing standout, shareable content and building strong relationships with influencers. This is considered a white hat link building tactic that Google is OK with. Anything that attempts to manipulate the algorithm (black hat link building) would be frowned upon and not carry much link equity, or more importantly value to your business.

It means understanding what search engines like and showing them content that satisfies their tastes and requirements. These are the requirements you’ll need to uncover before putting together your SEO strategy.

Your Orchestra (Website)

Imagine your website is a full-piece orchestra and Google is a music critic. There are strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and keyboards you’re conducting. Each section harmonises to create their own sound, while also synchronising with other sections to build and perform the composition – your webpage.

From any search query typed into the Google search bar, Google bots will listen to every webpage composition and rank who performed it better.

You can have one part of a webpage working well (quality content), but if users aren’t having a positive experience interacting with it (poor user experience), then the sound is terrible – and Google won’t highly grade its performance.

The ultimate goal of an SEO strategy is to boost the overall SEO authority and page rankings. The better optimised your website is, the higher and more frequently it will rank on a SERP, likely increasing the amount of traffic generated from initial searches. This is achieved with both content and technical SEO actions.

So, what makes an incredible sounding composition? What ranks? Well, there are 3 main factors:

1. Quality content
2. Trust and authority
3. Technical strength.

Great search engine optimization also requires a conductor who continues to learn and develop their skills. And who also keeps a close ear to changes in technology and the industry.

Whether you manage your own SEO or utilize the services of a digital marketing agency, it’s an ongoing performance – and the critics’ tastes are always changing.

1. Quality Content

The words, titles and links published on a website matter. They form the content that search engines read, index and rank. The content you create forms a huge part of your SEO, meaning you have to pay close attention to what you say and how you say it.

To build quality content, you can conduct keyword research to gather an understanding on what your target audience is searching – and place these words into your content.

Search engines use keywords to determine if you have the specific information a searcher is after. Therefore, you must ensure your website contains the information necessary for search engines to identify and retrieve in their organic listings.

They’ll identify:

• Which keywords you use
• Where they’re displayed (page titles, meta descriptions, headings, body)
• How they show up (exact matches, if they complement each other)
• Whether similar keywords (latent semantic keywords) are used.

The balance in your content will be between writing copy that’s more engaging than what competitor websites publish and effective keyword targeting. This comes down the layout and structure of the copy, how well it’s written and the quality, quantity, and placement of your keywords.

Keywords placed in H1, H2 and H3 headings have a stronger effect on ranking than keywords placed in the body. However, a combination of both is advised.

2. Trust and Authority

In order to have search engine bots see your webpage as containing relevant and credible information, you need a trusted online presence and authority on the topic your keywords indicate is your industry. That’s because a search engine will want to show information from a highly trusted source, compared to a page that has bad reviews, low traffic and short time on site. This is where link building comes into play.

But what is SEO link building and how can you do it?

Also known as offsite SEO, link building is the act of getting other websites to link to yours. This can be done by partnering with brands who complement your business and developing links to each other. You can also contact websites that already talk about your brand and request that they backlink any mention of your business.

But the biggest tactic to create quality content is to ask other publishers to share it (or to be the primary publisher and to name it as a guest post by your website). Just keep in mind that quality is more important than quantity with backlinks.

With the ever-present intent of negatively scoring spam websites, search engine algorithms will identify the quality of your backlinks and rank you accordingly – so be careful who’s talking about you.

How users interact with your website also has an impact your search engine ranking. This online authority is user-generated from comments and reviews on your websites, and shares and mentions on social platforms – fundamentally, it’s your popularity and image.

3. Technical Strength

Good content is one thing, but it needs to discoverable. That’s the goal of technical SEO.

Having the intricate details of technical SEO explained would take a long time to get through. But, to put it simply, the technical strength of your website refers to your website’s online structural integrity and its level of navigability.

The overall idea is to create an easy-to-navigate online landscape for both users and bots. This involves logically flowing internal links, sitemaps and labels on pages for bots, giving specific information about the page.

There are a many things you’ll come across when addressing your technical SEO. Some of these include:

• Internal linking
• XML Sitemaps
• Canonical Tags.

If your website is a house with rooms full of content, you’ll need doors, right? Internal links work as doorways between your pages that both users and search engine bots use to traverse your website. Internal linking is one of the principles of SEO, making your pages reachable.

A page with no internal links will be undiscoverable by users and search engines. These are called ‘orphan pages’.

An XML Sitemap provides search engine bots a roadmap to navigate through the essential pages of a website. This enables the search engine to easily find and retrieve information on the pages you believe to be most important.

A little more technical is a Robots.txt. Webmasters create and use this text file to instruct visiting bots on how to crawl pages on the website. It can quickly let bots know which pages should be crawled, and which should not. This is done with an “allowing” or “disallowing” command.

It’s quite likely there’s duplicate content on your website. Not that you have a dozen homepages, but you may have numerous URLs for your homepage. This ‘duplicate content’ can have a negative on SEO, meaning a search engine may display the less-preferred URL is a result. Canonical tags solve this problem by communicating to search engines that one page is the primary version.

A search engine is a software platform designed to retrieve all information available on the World Wide Web – which is over 1.5 billion websites’ worth. They are the single largest source of web traffic, with Google, Bing and Yahoo headlining the pack.

Spider Bots

Move over Spiderman.

Search engines operate by running their own crawling program. This program sends out spiders (or bots) with the task of visiting every website and sending back information about them to a database (known as the search index). In order to navigate through the whole web, spiders will follow every single hyper link they come across.

Search Query

Now that the search engine has an extensive search index, when a user types in a search query, the engine has a pool of data to work with. If a user types the phrase search engine optimisation into the search bar, the search engine will explore its index for webpages containing those keywords.

But, as you can see above, there are likely to be millions of websites containing those keywords. But search engines want to show a user a page with the most relevant content, so here comes the step that the principles of SEO are based on: ranking.

Ranking Results

Now that Google has 264,000,000 results to work with, it gets stuck into working out each one’s relevancy. It does this by running its world-famous, complex algorithm. SEO strategies are built on identifying key parts of this algorithm and feeding it the requirements it’s looking for to rank the best.

But most of all, it will test the quality of the content, the website’s level of trust and will certainly appreciate a technically superior website. The results of this will form the organic part of a SERP.

With so many search engines used every day, you may be wondering: how does Google SEO work, compared to Bing, Yahoo? Well, search engines are based on similar principals, however, they each own and run individual software. They scour the World Wide Web with their own spiders, and they each use their own ranking algorithm.

With different algorithms, Google, Yahoo and Bing will put value in different areas of your webpage and will produce slightly dissimilar results.

So, what does SEO mean in regards to online marketing? Well, you want traffic and search engines want to provide users with the most relevant content possible. SEO identifies and provides that relevant content, while increasing your website’s level of trust.

Knowing what is SEO and how it works is vital to your online performance.

If you want to find out what the best SEO strategy is for your business, get in touch with our digital marketing experts today.