This is Part 2 of 6 in a Search Engine Marketing webinar series by Kim Evenson, Chief Marketing Officer of Legacy. The webinar in its entirety can be found here.

In Part 1 of the series, I shared that Google makes more money when user clicks are more relevant. It’s not about what’s fair or what’s right, it’s simply about math. The math that Google uses to figure out the relevancy of a click is often referred to as an algorithm.

Trying to figure out Google’s algorithm can seem intimidating. Let’s simply think of it as a math equation. This equation is constantly being changed and updated to make sure each click is the most relevant. While no one knows exactly what the Google algorithm is, SEO experts have determined high-level categories that affect how your business shows up in search.

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Link Signals

Websites have networks the same way we do. Remember the high school example from Part 1? If all your friends are cool kids, chances are you are also a cool kid. Online, the websites that link to your site tells Google how trustworthy and relevant you are to different topics.

Domain Authority is a score (on a 100-point scale) developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engines.

Google will look at the domain authority of a particular site and whether they’re driving traffic to your website. How the link is configured on their website tells Google how much they trust you. The information Google receives from these link signals make up 20% of what the algorithm looks at when determining search results.

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External Location Signals

External Location Signals refers to the information that’s out there about your business. The big things to pay attention to are your funeral home’s Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP for short). Google relies on this information to make sure it’s providing the most accurate information to its users. For example, when someone is looking for directions to your funeral home, Google wants to show them an address and feel very confident that they’ll show up at the right place. If Googlebot senses that there are two different addresses listed for your funeral home, it won’t be able to trust that information.

Whether it’s for your families or for Google, the big takeaway is to give your visitors consistent and accurate information across the Web.

Review Signals

Googlebot takes direct feedback from humans about a business in the form of reviews. Specifically, it looks at the types of ratings you’re getting and the rating velocity, or how frequently you receive ratings. Google uses the same kind of math that allows credit card companies to detect fraudulent purchases to make sure the reviews about your funeral home can be trusted.

Social Signals

Similar to the other kinds of signals in this group, Social Signals gives Googlebot feedback about the trustworthiness and relevancy of your website. It compiles information about the kinds of ratings, comments or links are coming to you from social media sites.

On-Page Signals

On-Page Signals are the most direct way to influence SEO. These are things that you can control by altering the information on your website.

    • Make sure your NAP is prominent
    • Add keywords that are relevant to your business
    • Optimize your navigation bar categories to reinforces your business
    • Maintain accuracy and consistency over time

 

My Business Signals

This group of signals are found in directories and other sites online that hosts information about your funeral home.

    • Confirm that your funeral home is categorized under the correct core business category
    • Attach keywords that are relevant to your business
    • Make sure your NAP is accurate
    • Ensure that the core information about your business is available

 

Visitor Behavior/Personalization

This category refers to behavior about the end user. Although you can’t change visitor behavior, you can try to optimize your site to target users with specific behavior or preferences.

Continue to Part 3 of the Search Engine Marketing webinar series.

Kim Evenson

Chief Marketing Officer

Kim oversees marketing for Legacy with a strong focus on client success and the delivery of best-in-class relationship management and customer service.

Before joining Legacy.com, she served most recently as CMO of Retrofit and before that as SVP of Marketing for eDiets.com. She spent most of her early marketing career at Kraft Foods, growing from Assistant Brand Manager to Director of Health & Wellness. Her experience also includes roles at Peapod, Starbucks, H.E. Butt Grocery and consulting for fitness retail, new product development and online marketing.

Kim is an expert in online marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and marketing strategy.