Building Organic SEO for A/E/C Marketing

Why Is Organic SEO Important for Your Business?

To fully understand organic SEO for A/E/C marketing, it’s helpful to understand the main difference between paid and organic SEO.

First, paid SEO requires paying for advertisements to appear on search engine result pages (SERPs). Examples include Google Ads and Bing Ads, which promote your website using keywords.

Alternatively, according to SEMrush, organic SEO “helps you earn high rankings in search engines without paying for ads,” and in turn, “allows your products and services to be discovered by your ideal customers.” Therefore, organic SEO gradually builds website visibility through high-quality content, backlinks, and user engagement rather than paid advertisements.

So, why should your business focus on organic SEO? The benefits are significant: it is cost-effective with no direct cost for clicks, provides long-term and sustainable traffic, and fosters greater reliability with users compared to paid advertisements. Below are three key steps your A/E/C firm can take to start the earned SEO process.

Step 1: Produce High-Quality Content for A/E/C Marketing

The first step for optimizing organic traffic to your website begins with creating content that naturally attracts visitors and links. While the primary goal of your website is to provide value to users, producing high-quality content should also incorporate SEO best practices.

Using keywords in your titles and copy can easily boost your site’s organic SEO. Your focus keywords should be those that are most frequently searched by your target audience, and the more you incorporate them, the higher up the ranks you will be. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that using too many of these keywords will get your site flagged by Google for taking advantage of the SEO system, so finding the right balance is key.

By incorporating a broader range of keywords, your content can appear in more search queries, ultimately increasing its overall visibility and potential to attract more organic traffic.

Producing valuable and relevant content for your target users that addresses their needs, questions, and interests can earn your website organic SEO traffic. Examples of such content include blog posts, articles, infographics, videos, and more.

Keep your content fresh and up to date. Regularly adding new content while updating existing content can keep your audience engaged and signal to search engines that your site is still active.

Incorporating these tips will contribute to better search engine visibility. Therefore, if you produce high-quality content as part of your A/E/C marketing strategy, you will generate more organic SEO traffic, which will result in greater brand awareness and client engagement.

Step 2: Optimize On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your website and content to improve search engine rankings and organic traffic. It involves enhancing the elements of your webpage that you, as the website owner, can control.

To start, it is crucial to optimize meta tags and descriptions for building more organic SEO traffic. Meta tags, especially the meta title and meta descriptions, appear in SERPs. These should include your primary keywords. Well-crafted meta tags and descriptions that are compelling and relevant can entice users to click on your link, therefore increasing your click-through rates. A higher click-through rate (CTR) sends positive signals to search engines that your page is applicable and engaging. According to research by Backlinko, even simple tweaks to meta tags can increase clicks. For example, “using a question in the title tag increases click through rates by 14%.” Additionally, pages with meta descriptions received “nearly 6% more clicks than those without.”

Use descriptive URLs that include keywords related to the content of the website page. Linking to other relevant pages within your site can help users navigate and discover more of your content as well. This helps search engines understand the topic and context of the page, improving its overall relevance for search queries.

Lastly, focus on optimizing your website’s loading speed. You can do this by compressing images, leveraging browser caching, and minimizing code. Faster-loading pages provide a better user experience and can improve your rankings.

Step 3: Build Natural Backlinks

According to Loganix, “about 94% of the global content today has zero backlinks largely because their publishing sites are not putting any effort into natural link building.” However, that statistic does not have to apply to your A/E/C firm if you work to build natural backlinks.

Overall, natural backlinks notify search engines that your website is credible. Natural backlinks from reputable sources can act as endorsements for your website, signaling search engines to find your content reliable and trustworthy. This then boosts your website’s authority in its niche.

Some ways to build natural backlinks include:

Leveraging relationships

• Stay in touch with business partners and clients to request backlinks.
• Use existing relationships to ask for links from individuals who appreciate your work.

Guest blogging

• Reach out to authoritative websites in your niche and offer to write guest posts. for them. Include a backlink to your website if appropriate.

Writing testimonials

• Provide testimonials for products or services you use so businesses can include a backlink as a thank you.

Engaging in online communities

• Participate in forums, Q&A sites, and niche-specific communities.
• Provide valuable input and include a link to your site when relevant.

Engaging in PR activities

• Participate in interviews, podcasts, and webinars.
• Conduct press releases about significant company updates.

Backlinking from social media

• Share your content on various social media platforms to increase its visibility and chances of being linked by others.

Creating link-worthy resources

• Develop thorough resources, such as guides or insights that others find valuable enough to link to.

Monitoring your competitors

• Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to identify your competitors’ backlink profiles.
• Figure out where their backlinks are coming from and try to get links from those sources.

Search engines use backlinks as a major ranking factor. Therefore, the more you have, the more likely your website will appear in SERPs. Natural backlinks earned through valuable content are more sustainable and will contribute significantly to your organic SEO efforts.

Leverage Organic SEO for A/E/C Marketing

Paying to be at the top of a Google search may not be as impactful for you in the long run. Many users even skip past those top-paid results to get to the real, organic pages. This is why increasing your organic, earned SEO is so important. It gives you better placement and credibility over time as you focus on creating superior content, maximizing your on-page SEO and building backlinks.

While there are millions of reasons why you should include organic SEO in your best practices, these three steps are a great place to start for your A/E/C firm.