As a small to medium-sized business, being easily-found online comes down to having a search engine optimization strategy (SEO) that makes it easier for search engines to crawl, index, and rank your website. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? Well, fortunately, it isn’t.
You can implement several small business SEO tips right now that are guaranteed to put your company front and center with your customers. So, where do you start?
It’s all in the Keywords
Keywords are those online search terms your customers use in search engines. Potential customers use these keywords, and keyword phrases, to locate your business, understand what you’re offering, pinpoint where you’re located, and better understand how your product or service can help them.
Keywords are essential to SEO and form the building blocks of a successful online marketing strategy. Your website, its landing pages, content, social media strategy, and online advertising initiatives are all dependent upon keyword optimization.
Optimize Local SEO
If you need to complement Google Business Profile with some local SEO services from an online marketing agency, just be sure to do your research. Ask for examples of how the agency helped similar businesses. Ensure they provide a tailor-made local SEO strategy and not some run-of-the-mill solution that can be applied to any business. Your chosen agency should help with keyword research, content creation, website optimization, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising while also helping with that all-important SEO competitive analysis.
Clean Up Your Website
It’s common for websites to get stale. It happens to all kinds of small and medium-sized business owners. You wear many hats and most likely find yourself pulled in multiple directions. However, cleaning up your website doesn’t have to be a tiresome, time-consuming affair.
You’ll be able to see individual grades for meta titles, meta descriptions, page quality, link structure, and page structure. However, if you choose to go it alone, adopting the following website optimization strategies will help improve your website’s performance.
Optimize Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions
Meta titles are simply the titles of your landing pages on your website. Meta titles require specific keywords that accurately reflect the content you’re presenting so that they not only capture your audience’s attention but ultimately keep them online until they take action. These HTML codes are a critical aspect of SEO because Google only displays the first 70 characters of your landing page’s title (approximately 580 pixels) in search results.
It certainly makes sense. The more relevant your keywords are within your meta titles, the more likely your click-through rates (CTR) will improve. A meta title that doesn’t correctly define your content will invariably lead to a high bounce rate as potential customers abandon the page altogether.
Fix Broken Links
There are all kinds of reasons why your links may or may not work. Some of your content may link to another page that is no longer available. You may not have a complete or correct URL address within the link. Regardless, it’s essential to take the time to check that each link works properly on each page. This not only includes new content you generate but existing content that you’ve yet to review.
Dust off Poor Performing Landing Pages
This is perhaps the best place to start fixing underperforming landing pages and content. Google Analytics will quickly help you isolate those landing pages with the highest bounce rates. Here are some questions to consider.
Are the links working within the content?
- Check every single link to make sure they work and are relevant to the topic on the page.
Have you accurately described the landing page’s content within your meta descriptions?
- Today’s website and blogging platforms not only allow you to include a detailed meta description, but you’re also able to list the specific keywords you’ve used within your content.
Do the images need to be refreshed?
- Poor quality images without a proper description don’t work. You need to use high-definition, vivid images with simple, to-the-point descriptions.
Does the page’s content need to be upgraded?
- Make sure your content is broken up with short paragraphs, bullet points, lists, and bold font for important headings and sub-headings. Website pages with redundant information, long paragraphs, no images or video, and nothing but the written word don’t work.
- Underperforming landing pages are typically ones that you’ve largely ignored. Take the time to understand why they’re not producing and make an effort to improve them. You can then ask Google to re-crawl your URL and re-index the page once you’ve made all your improvements.
Improve Image and Video Descriptions
Search engines rely more and more upon images and video when indexing websites. Gone are the days when you could just upload an image and leave it at that. You need to apply the same keyword-rich focus when describing the images and videos you include within your content. YouTube provides a description field for each video you upload. Include a concise description of the video, links to individual landing pages, and provide a list of all relevant keywords.
Adopt a Proactive Content Marketing Strategy
A content schedule allows you to organize your content weeks ahead. You’ll have plenty of time to do your keyword research, outline content topics, come up with solid meta titles and meta descriptions, and find those vivid, high-quality images that are so important in SERPs. The key is to provide your audience with a consistent supply of interesting, mind-blowing, engaging content. We offer this for our customers and if you need any tips to building a robust content plan reach out.
YouTube is an excellent platform for showcasing your in-depth market knowledge while allowing you to provide your audience with tips on how to solve common problems. A blog is another great repository for content. Provide your audience with consistent content, and they’ll be incentivized to subscribe to your blog or YouTube channel.
Use Social Media Wisely
Your content is also needed for your chosen social media website. Choose a social media website that specifically addresses your target audience. While Facebook is the dominant platform for everyday consumers, it doesn’t lend itself well to an audience of business professionals. There may be specific online forums or social media websites that cater to your unique audience, so be sure to do your research.
Don’t become overwhelmed with SEO. There are many free SEO tools online that will allow you to measure your performance while itemizing issues to resolve. A great introduction to the importance of keywords is to start with the Google My Business solution. You’ll better understand the type of keywords you need to capture your audience’s attention.
As the world moves further into a digital landscape I recommend reaching out to an SEO professional, even if it is just to ask for tips. Most SEO’s (like myself) will happily offer a free audit of your website!