Running a small business is no easy feat. With endless lists of responsibilities and duties, it can be easy to let some things fall to the wayside. Unfortunately, it is all too common for SEO to fall under the “I’ll eventually get to it” category. This can be a huge detriment to a small business. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) lets your online content work to increase traffic to your pages. It’s an important facet to the online success of your business. Here are some simple ways you can get started.
Work on Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the process of optimizing the structure of your website pages so that the crawlers can properly “read” and index your site. Even if your content is amazing, problems with technical SEO will hinder your website’s ability to rank highly in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Even if you don’t have that technical background, give these simple SEO tactics a try.
Create a sitemap and submit it to Google. Depending on what platform you used to build your site, there are plugins and extensions you can use to create a sitemap. Once you do, you can submit your sitemap to Google via Google Search Console, a free service Google offers to help you manage your presence in Google Search Results. The same can be done with Bing via their Webmaster Tools.
Update/Remove old pages that don’t perform. If your website has a lot of pages that don’t get traffic, your rankings will be negatively affected. If you don’t have a need for that specific page, it may be best to remove the page, even if temporarily. If the page is important, look at why visitors are not visiting that page. Is it not easy to get to? Is it taking a long time to load?
Another easy way for you to work on your SEO is to fix broken and old links. The SERP robots will downgrade your content if you consistently send your reader to outdated or broken links on your website.
Do Your (Keyword) Research
Keyword research is very important to many facets of your marketing plan. It doesn’t just help with your website rankings, but overall content and advertising strategies. Local search results often rely on quality, relevant, industry-specific keywords to draw traffic and local presence. The importance of keyword research stretches to all SEO however, not just local.
It’s important to know keywords are not static but are constantly changing due to shifts in trends, changes in social standards or practices, events, and even pop culture relevance. This means your keyword and phrases are constantly evolving. By doing keyword research regularly, you can understand keyword trends and be able to develop strategies in predicting what will come next.
Focus on Local SEO
Did you know nearly one-third of all mobile searches are location-based queries, for example, “brunch near me.” And even if the “near me” is not added, Google’s algorithm now automatically prioritizes local options if you just search “brunch. The most important part of local SEO is setting up a Google My Business Profile. These are free and easy to maintain. It is also where your business would manage their Google Reviews. The other critical feature of Google My Business is the question and answer section. You can proactively answer questions that you think might come up so that potential customers have as frictionless an experience as possible.
With these easy steps, you’ll be on your way to getting your website in better rankings. Whether it’s with a website audit, or keyword research, contact us if you’re looking to step up your SEO game.