No matter what your business niche is, there’s no escaping the fact that an effective online presence is now absolutely essential in practically every industry. Even if you still rely on offline marketing, word of mouth and repeat business to generate the majority of your sales or transactions, having a well presented, SEO friendly website and social media presence is one of the best ways to maximise your business potential. SEO isn’t as complicated as it sounds and simply stands for search engine optimisation. What this means is simple terms, is how easy it is for web users to find your site when they’re searching for key terms. This article explains some of the simple things you can do to improve your SEO strategy.
Work out what your customers are searching for.
This step is one of the most important when it comes to SEO. You will need to find out which keywords your existing and potential customers are typically searching for so that you can incorporate them into some of your content. For example, if you are a plumber who works in the Miami area, phrases such as “bathroom repairs, Miami.” may be helpful. Try and think about how your customers might approach a web search when they are looking for goods or services. Consider combinations of phrases and words that may lead them to your site and then try to include these organically in the text you use.
Speed everything up
It’s well known that internet users are not patient. If a website takes longer than a couple of seconds to load, the average person is likely to lose interest and move on. That means a lost potential sale. Ensure you’re using the correct hosting package and that you test your website regularly to make sure it loads in a reasonable time. Though a second or so of delay is fine, any more than this will be a considerable problem for you in the long term as it will drive away traffic. If you have built your website yourself, check on things like animations, videos and images. If they aren’t serving a purpose and seem to be using a lot of bandwidth, it makes sense to get rid of them or consider off page hosting options.
Research the Competition
Though your business is unique, the chances are there are other people who work in your industry or market. This means you can take inspiration from well designed, effective websites and identify problems or practices you would like to avoid those that aren’t as well put together. Though copyright infringement and deliberate copying of material are understandably illegal, carefully reading around blog articles, landing page copy and descriptions of products and services provided will give you a good idea of the keywords and phrases that are generally used in your industry. Look out for things like feedback forms, online shops and contact us forms, too. Features like this can make a huge difference in the way your potential customers interact with you.
Create Content with Genuine Value
In the early days of SEO, many website owners would use the unethical practice of keyword stuffing to try and generate more traffic. This practice is now well known and all of the major search engines will penalise sites with poor quality, badly written or nonsensical content. Instead of trying to cram as many keywords as you can in to blog articles or other text on your site, try to write content that will genuinely engage your potential customers. If writing isn’t your strong point, consider hiring a professional content writer to do this for you. Blog posts and articles about your industry can be a great way to establish a professional presence, take care of SEO and also attract new customers. They key is to make an effort to create something unique, engaging, useful or entertaining. Blog posts that celebrate your achievements can be a fantastic start as they let your customers know that you love what you do and also gives them an insight into the kind of people you are. Articles about industry issues can also be great as they demonstrate your knowledge and expertise but can also serve as a great information resource. Essentially, if Google and the other search engines identify your site as one that is full of relevant, engaging content, it is more likely to appear in the first few pages of results.
Update your site as often as possible
The importance of this step can’t be overstated. In simple terms, sites with outdated content that doesn’t change for months or even years on end will inevitably slip down the rankings until they become difficult to find. Though posting content for its own sake will look unprofessional, making regular blog posts, updating videos, galleries and areas like shopping carts will automatically help to boost your SEO performance. If a site is seen as active and regularly updated, it is far more likely to be found by the search engines complex algorithms. There are some great ways to do this without spending too much time and things like an integrated twitter feed or a link to an industry news source can provide daily updates for your users. Aside from the actual content on your site, updating things like plugins and themes is also important. Outdated plugins cause sites to stop working to make sure that you have all the latest versions. Some platforms such as WordPress allow you to set up automatic updates, so you don’t have to worry about doing this manually, but this isn’t always the case. Whether you’re updating your written content, galleries or videos, another key factor to consider is when you do this. Try to schedule updates at a time when you get the most traffic, that way your users are more likely to see your content than if you post it sporadically or at an unspecified time.
