How organic placement is determined on search engines has changed significantly in the past two years. Google states that it evaluates over 200 different factors to determine website placement on their search engine including links, the age of the domain name, some types of social media activity, and quality of content.
A service firm can no longer optimize a website based only on a set of keyword phrases and expect placement to be the same for every reader. Now, search engine results are personalized; meaning that what one customer sees is not the same as what another sees, and can even be different from what you, the website owner, sees online.
This makes traditional search engine optimization, as it has been known obsolete. Personalized search results are impacted by the search history that you yourself make every time you do a search on Google.com, Bing.com, or Yahoo.com. Results are impacted by what you search for and what you click in to review.
Additionally, personalized search results are now being skewed even further by your social media interaction; such as your activity and friend network on social sites and Google+. And, even the authority of sites that link to your site. Add to that the emphasis that Google.com has placed on pushing local business listings, using Google+ Local, ahead of regular organic search listings and the art of improving search placement has become very, very complicated.
Today, a business must focus on organic and paid placement to garner leads and sales. There are still smart things that can be done to help to boost your website’s placement but gaming the system to grab top spots is a dead strategy and some actions can even permanently damage your search authority.
If you are looking for smart, ethical services to help improve your visibility, I invite you to visit our website for more information.