SEO Plan: The First 90 Days

NOTE: this only applies to existing websites– if your website is new you shouldn’t have any backlinks

Need-to-Know

A backlink is a link placed on one site, and pointing to another.

For the purpose of this example, please consider your own business website: links from your local Chamber’s website or Yellowpages.com are a great thing that will directly help your SEO over time.

Google’s Problem

Because of their power, Black-Hat SEOs would create lots of backlinks to their client websites using spammy and low quality links, just to trick Google into thinking the site is more reputable.

Google has long since warned webmasters and SEOs against this practice, but it is only recently that they have actually been able to update their algorithm to support the feature.

Google’s Spammy Link Update

Google released a major spammy-link update the final quarter of 2021, the point of which is that Google can now understand the nature of the links that are pointing to your site.

These backlinks can also be created by competitor SEOs to trick Google into thinking your are a spammy or illicit site.

What’s the Point?

Another way to think of this is that your backlinks effect Google’s opinion of your website, which directly effects ranking in a big way.

The long-term solution is to have an SEO stay on top of tracking any spammy or illicit links that are pointing to your site and ensuring Google doesn’t take them into account by disassociating them from your domain.

How to Perform a Backlink Audit

Looking at the graph above, you can see a steep rise in backlinks during first part of 3rd Quarter 2021, showing the illicit attack.

Unless you are performing or paying for an ongoing link-building campaign, any link during that timeframe is automatically suspect.

By sorting your backlinks by reverse Spam Score, as shown in the video, you are able to easily detect harmful backlinks to your site.

If you are under a spam link attack, be sure to contact us today to get you back on track.

Resources

Ubersuggest Backlink Audit Tool

Need-to-Know

Optimizing your Google Business Profile is an essential element of SEO; for a deep dive into the nuts & bolts, please read this article.

The following

1. Posts: Posting regularly to your Google Business Profile is essential to improving your ranking. My team will create one or two quality posts with proper keyword optimization to give you a model to use moving forward.
2. Info: My team has optimized over 5,000 Google Business Profiles, & has tested which elements to optimize in order to achieve maximum results. This includes but is not limited to Covid-19 Updates, vacation hours, & your Google Business description.
3. Reviews: Having an ongoing process to source reviews is another essential element to not only your ranking, but to your conversion rate since 93% of users said reviews effect their buying decision. Responding to all reviews is good for your ranking, & good for business. We will ensure all reviews have been responded to appropriately.
4. Enable Call Tracking: Since customers can’t see your business number from your Google Business Profile, it doesn’t matter if we redirect their call when it comes via your Google Business Profile so that you will know the source of the call. Since many users may call you directly without even visiting your website, it is essential that you can track the value your SEO is bringing to your lead generation campaigns.
5. Messages: Google is trying to drive traffic directly to your business from your Google Business Profile, & enabling the Messaging feature will allow leads to send you a message through the Google Maps app, by which you are able to respond directly & immediately. We highly recommend enabling this feature.
6. Photos: Uploading photos is another way to post relevant content, & we highly recommend creating a process by which photos are uploaded regularly to your profile.
7. Bookings: Enabling this feature allows you to book client appointments directly through your Google Business Profile. We recommend enabling this feature if you find it relevant to your needs.
8. Products: If your business features a product line, we will ensure your visitors are able to understand which products your brand features.
9. Services: If your business features a services, we will ensure your visitors are able to understand which services your brand features.
10. Website: Optimizing the free website Google offers is the final piece of the puzzle. We will ensure your Google Site is built per Google’s recommendations.

In addition, we will also be creating over 75 high-quality NAP Citations, as well as a smattering of Google Maps Citations so that we can start sending Google additional signals that will increase your ranking in the coming months.

Let us turn our attention to the next Off-Page SEO Element in our description for month 2: NAP Citations.

Need-to-Know

A local SEO citation is a listing of your company’s name, address, and phone number (NAP).

Note that your website is the single most important aspect of your citation and is always included here.

Local SEO citations aren’t actually meant to drive traffic to your website; however, in the case that they do… that is great.

Citations are mainly to demonstrate to Google, Yahoo, Bing that you are a real live company in a particular local area and the more citations you have, the more Domain Authority and Page Authority you will build for your website.

In month 2 of your SEO Plan, we will perform over 300 Local NAP Citations with links to each citation included in an Excel Spreadsheet for verification.

We will also include a smattering of social profile backlinks & low-level SEO backlinks with your order to increase your ranking.

Need-to-Know

Google Maps Citations are the focus of Month 3, & we will create over 12,000 of these for your order.

You will learn more about this element when you receive your report– we don’t like to tell all our secrets to just anyone 😉