As an online marketing professional, the two most important things you can do are to increase traffic and conversions, which lead to increased sales.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a key aspect of digital marketing strategy. Here are five essential ways on how to improve SEO for small businesses to help you boost your rankings on search engines like Google and dominate your competition.
- Find the Right Keywords for Your Website
Keyword research is essential for SEO. Knowing the right keywords for your website will help you get ranked by search engines and bring in targeted traffic. If you want an easy way to find low-competition keywords, use AnswerThePublic. This free tool will give you a list of questions people are asking related to your keywords. Use this information to create content that provides answers. For example, if you own a restaurant near the beach, search “restaurant near the beach.” AnswerThePublic will give you questions like “what restaurants in [enter city] have ocean views” and “which restaurants near the beach have free parking?” Write content around these questions and people searching them will find your site in search results.
- Get on Google My Business
Google My Business is a free tool that allows you to promote your business profile and business website on Google Search and Maps. With your Google My Business account, you can see and connect with your customers, post updates to your Business Profile, and see how customers are interacting with your business on Google.
In addition, local listings are displayed at the top of search results when someone searches for a related keyword in their area. It also shows up as a map listing in the sidebar on desktop searches (and at the top of mobile searches).
- Start Blogging
Blogging is a fast and cost-effective way to drive traffic from search engines straight to your website. You can create blog posts around keywords that people are searching for, which helps you rank higher in search results.
- Optimize Your Site for Mobile
If you want to rank highly on search engines, you need a mobile-friendly site.
Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see if your website is mobile-friendly. If not, it will give you tips on how to resolve any issues.
- Optimize Your Content for Search Engines
To optimize your content for search engines, use keywords that are popular in searches and phrases people often use in their searches. This will help your site rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). But don’t overdo it! Google’s algorithm will penalize you if it detects too many keywords — this is called “keyword stuffing.”
- Use Keywords Strategically
Keywords are one of the most important aspects of SEO marketing, so make sure you use them strategically throughout your website copy. Keywords should always be relevant and specific. They should also be placed in high-priority areas such as page titles and headings.
When adding keywords to your site, avoid overusing them because this could cause your content to look spammy, which will hurt your rankings. Instead, make sure you use keywords at a rate of 1-2% in all of your content.
- Optimize Your Site Speed
Site speed is a key factor that search engines like Google consider when ranking websites on their results pages. If your site loads slowly, there’s a good chance that it won’t rank very well in search results.
- On-Page SEO in 2022
Now I’m going to show you how to optimize your website content. This is one of the most important SEO factors in 2019, and it’s something you can control easily.
The first thing you need to know is that Google’s algorithm is complex and ever-changing. This means that the rules are often ill-defined.
Beyond that, Google’s algorithm can detect different “markers” or “clues” that will help it understand what your page is about, and how it should rank it. These markers can be placed in invisible places on a website (like the ALT text of an image for example), or they can even be placed in the visible page content.
Let me explain:
When it comes to search engine rankings, most people focus on external factors (like backlinks). But if you want higher Google rankings, you don’t need backlinks. You should focus on internal factors instead, like your site’s user experience, page speed, and content quality.
Backlinks are still SUPER important. But the way Google works has changed dramatically over the past few years.
- Use Long-tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are longer phrases (usually four words or more) that people tend to use when they’re closer to making a purchase decision. For example, instead of saying “plumbing supplies,” someone in the decision stage might say “pvc plumbing supplies.” These longer phrases may not get as much traffic as the shorter ones, but their conversion rate will be higher.
- Optimize Your Meta Tags
Even though meta tags can’t affect your rankings directly, they can still have a huge impact on click-through rates (CTR). If the content on your website doesn’t match the search query being shown in the search results, then visitors probably won’t click through to your site. By creating meta titles and descriptions that are relevant to what people are searching for, you can increase the number of visitors.