Arcane Marketing wants to make sure that your company is getting the traffic you deserve from the search engines. To do that, we utilize on page website optimization to tell the search engines — and website visitors — exactly what the pages of your site are about. Think of it this way: if search engines like Google and Bing can’t read your web pages and know what they are about, you won’t be found in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) for your desired keywords.

Not surprisingly, on page website optimization begins with keyword research. You have to know what words and phrases people search for in your industry so that you can strategically target those keywords. The simple truth is that if the words and phrases that people are looking for aren’t present on your site, the search engines won’t include your web page in the SERPs for those keywords. What does that mean for you? It means that you may be missing out on highly qualified search engine traffic.

In the early days of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), it was enough to use your target keyword a bunch of times on a page. Unfortunately, that led to shady SEO companies who would follow a practice called “keyword stuffing,” which was essentially the severe overuse of keywords in on page text. In modern SEO, this is considered a “black hat” practice. Instead, your SEO company should strategically use your target keywords in title tags, meta descriptions, page headers, and contextually throughout the on page text in order to make sure that the search engines know what the page is about.

On page website optimization may begin with keyword research and placement, but it certainly doesn’t end there. Here are some other ways that Arcane Marketing can help you with on page website optimization:

• Implementation of Clean, SEO Friendly URLs – Clean URLs — e.g. www.arcanemarketing.com/pay-per-click-management/ — help both search engine bots and users know what a page is about.

• Optimization or Implementation of Responsive Design – An ever increasing amount of web traffic is on mobile devices, so responsive design is very important in modern on page website optimization.

• Use of Header Tags (H1, H2, H3) on Titles and Subheadings – On page content should utilize subheadings to divide it into smaller pieces. This adds visual interest and makes it easier for a website visitor to skim the content. Use of Header Tags on titles and subheadings can also be used to indicate importance to search engine bots.

• Inclusion and Optimization of High Quality Images, Graphics, and/or Videos – The addition of high quality multimedia elements can keep visitors engaged on your website longer, increasing their likelihood of converting. These elements should be individually optimized so that the search engines can understand what they are.

• Strategic Use of Both Internal Links and Outbound Links – Links to other websites and relevant internal content can help your website visitors find the information they want and need. This can boost their trust in you. These links can also helps create and direct link juice to more salesy parts of your website.

Optimization of Web Pages for Improved Site Speed – The simple truth is that fast websites attract and keep more visitors than slow websites. That’s why site speed is part of modern search algorithms.

Back in 1997, the guys who founded Google wanted to create better search results by using backlinks to rank sites in their results. In simple terms, a backlink is any link to your website from an outside site. Shortly after it became apparent that Google’s algorithm worked better than previous search engines, shady SEO companies started trying to scam the system. Instead of working to acquire real backlinks, these “black hat” companies chose to build large numbers of poor quality backlinks to their customers’ websites, a practice commonly known as artificial link building. In 2012, Google started fighting back with the release of their first Penguin update. Since then, the phrase “link building” has gotten a bad reputation. In fact, some SEO companies won’t even use the phrase.

Nevertheless, link building, or link acquisition if you prefer, is still a vital part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Obviously, modern search engines utilize incredibly complex algorithms to rank websites in their search results, and these algorithms are specifically designed to account for a lot of different factors. One of the biggest factors, however, is still the number and quality of backlinks pointing to your site. In modern search engines, these backlinks work like votes for your site, boosting its importance in the search engine results.

Simply put, without good, strong backlinks pointing to your site, Google, Bing and the other search engines are unlikely to rank your site for keywords relating to your industry. In this instance, however, some “votes” are better than others. For example, links from trusted, well established websites weigh heavier than those from unknown sites. Likewise, a link from a website that is closely related to your industry will carry more weight than a link from an unrelated source.

Quality link building, or link acquisition if you prefer, is far more complex and difficult than creating a bunch of low quality links. There are, however, several different techniques that can be used in link acquisition. And the better the link, the more difficult it is to come by. All of Arcane Marketing’s link building practices are designed with the big picture in mind. We don’t try to manipulate ranking factors in any way. Instead, we put in the time and effort required to acquire genuine backlinks for your site. You should understand that this isn’t an instant fix. Rather, it is a process that will result in long term dividends.

The exact process we use to build or acquire links for you site will depend on a number of different factors including your industry and your current backlink profile. Some of the ways we may choose to help you build backlinks include:

• Guest Blogging
• Requesting Links From Related Sites
• Creating Shareable Content Assets Like Infographics
• Local Citations & Maps Listings
• Directory Submissions
• Article Submissions
• Sponsored Links
• Manual Outreach

Regardless of the specific link building tactics we choose to use, we promise that you’ll never have to worry about artificial link building when you work with Arcane Marketing. We’re in business to help your business succeed, that’s why we take the time to acquire real backlinks for your website.

If you own, operate, or help manage a small to medium sized local brick-and-mortar store, clinic, firm, restaurant, or business, you know how important online visibility is. As more and more people access the internet using mobile devices and tablets to search for local services, it is clear that obtaining and maintaining accurate, attractive, and active local online marketing resources like Google My Business and Google Maps is more important than ever. Using industry standard practices and tools, Arcane Marketing can help your local business appear in Google Local Search and Google Maps more often, resulting in increased calls and visits to your business.

We consider ourselves a local small business company ourselves. Located at home in beautiful Idaho Falls, Idaho; local SEO is our game. Currently (in 2017) small businesses make up 80% of our client totals. It’s true, we work for a few large names, but we are sympathetic to small local businesses just trying to gain an edge on the market.

One of the principles in Arcane Marketing was built on is transparency with and accountability to our customers. One of our 4 core values is “Do what you say” and “communication”. That’s because we understand that you want to know what your SEO company is doing for you and what you’re getting for your money. To that end, we ensure that each of the companies we work with receives consistent monthly reports with real, reliable information. Our team of strategists are dedicated to the concept that “Honesty is the ONLY policy,” so you’ll receive factual information about what we’re doing for your company. We simply won’t leave you in the dark wondering how things are going and how you budget is being spent.

This is based on a simple concept: without good reporting, there is no accountability. Therefore, we strive to provide you with detailed reports to make sure that we are accountable to you. How and where your budget is being used. The reports you receive from our team will be tailored to cover the services you hire us to perform and the tactics that we employ on your behalf. That way, we can make sure that you always know what we’re doing for you and what the results of those efforts are.

It’s actually common for a digital marketing agency to use Google Analytics to track the results and changes of our SEO and PPC tactics. Better yet, the digital marketing agency should be utilizing Google Tag Manager (GTM) to implement a lot of different tracking methods on your website. For example, we set up and use custom Google Analytics reports to track your traffic and whether it’s coming from organic search results, social media, or paid advertising. This could be implemented with UTM codes so that we have very specific information. Then, we use that information to see where there is room for us to improve. The information we gather with these tools is available to you as part of our regular reporting efforts.

On a side note: “UTM” stands for “Urchin tracking module.” Urchin Software Corporation was acquired by Google in 2005, and their software laid the initial concept for what we now know as Google Analytics.

Each tool that we use for tracking and reporting helps us to measure data and see and follow trends so that we can understand what’s going on with your online presence. Without this information, it would be as if we were frantically stumbling around a dark room, blindly hoping that something we did will improve the situation. Instead, our tracking and reporting efforts allow us to understand precisely what effect our efforts are having on real things you care about like keyword rankings, website traffic, and conversions. As we track these Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), we can increase our efforts where we see the best results. After all, there’s no point in pursuing a course of action that isn’t garnering the right results.

In short, we want to be accountable to you for what we do with your money. Our reporting helps us do that. When you hire us to do Digitial Marketing for you, you’ve put your trust in us, and we want to make sure that you don’t feel like that trust is misplaced. We’re not like other SEO companies; when you work with Arcane Marketing, you can rest assured that you know exactly what we’re doing on your behalf and how that work is impacting your KPIs.