SEO for your small business
We all start a business with the aim of making profit from the product or service that we offer to our prospective customers. However, creating a successful business and making profits is not about having the right capital or providing the right service. It goes beyond that. It’s about identifying your target market, offering the right product or service, packaging your product or service in the right way and ensuring that your website is easily found when people make a search for the products or services you are offering. With over 93% of people using search engines when seeking information on various products and services, you definitely cannot give SEO a wide berth.
Ensuring that your site appears on the first page of Google should be your ultimate goal. Forget about having a great product or service. If your website does not appear on top of search engines and get the much needed traffic and exposure, every effort you have made to make your website a success is an exercise in futility. Investing in SEO be it on page SEO or off page SEO is a brilliant way of turning your businesses fortunes around. SEO basically helps websites to rank high on search engines and is an element that small businesses cannot ignore especially with the fact that Google processes approximately 3.5 billion searches every single day.
So what are the effective local SEO strategies that your small business can execute to enjoy visibility and high profits?
Ensure that your website is optimized for the search engines
By optimization, I don’t mean that you should focus on one aspect of search engine optimization. On the contrary, focus on every aspect of SEO. The mistake most small businesses make is focus on one aspect of SEO such as off page SEO while neglecting on page SEO. This will definitely work to your disadvantage. You need to work on the technical aspect of your business website. Ensure that the Meta tag descriptions are done correctly, keywords correctly utilized, Work on natural link building, the speed of your site and any other technical aspect of on page SEO. When that is done, work on an effective off page SEO strategy. Do you have an effective social media marketing strategy? How do you engage with your local clients on the social media? A comprehensive approach to search engine optimization will definitely help your business grow in leaps and bounds.
Create good and high quality content
I cannot stress much on the importance of this for your small business. Google has repeatedly said that creating high quality and good content is one of the reason a website ranks high. In fact, it’s the reason why they roll out the Google panda update every now and then to give exposure to high authority sites while pulling down sites with weak and poor content. Your content needs to be incisive, engaging, interesting, rich information and shareable. Simply put, the quality of the content you generate has a great bearing on your SEO campaign and by extension the success of your business.
Make your site mobile friendly or rather mobile compatible
Gone were the days when people browsed mainly through their PCs. The proliferation of Smartphones and the over-reliance on mobile phones to interact using social media and instant messaging apps have changed the SEO ball game altogether. Considering that approximately 60 percent of browsing are normally done through mobile phones, there is no reason why you should not invest in ensuring that your business website is mobile compatible. After all, Google opines that mobile searches are more likely to turn into purchasing customers.
Select the appropriate keywords
Good SEO requires that you come up with the right kinds of keywords that your potential customers are bound to type on their search bars. Let’s not kid ourselves. Without using the right keywords, the chances of your site being found are almost nil. Research the keywords or catch phrases that your customers are bound to type when looking for the product you are selling. With the right keywords, you are bound to attract the right traffic to your website and by so doing increase sales.
Monitor your results
Don’t be contented and sit back and relax after employing the above strategies. Like we already know, the world of SEO is constantly changing. You need to monitor results and occasionally come up with better ways of making your site better through improved content and a combination of on page and off page SEO. Track how effective your strategies are and make changes as and when you deem fit.
In light of the above, there is no reason as to why your business shouldn’t achieve a competitive advantage if you get your local SEO strategy right!
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