Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is used to rank websites on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. SEO involves strategies both on your website and off it. Without SEO, it can be tough for small businesses to rank on that coveted first page. It’s important to implement the right SEO strategies for your business if you want to rank high on SERPs. Keep scrolling through to the article to read about 5 top SEO strategies that you can implement today to improve your online visibility and traffic at little cost.
5 top SEO strategies for your business
- Keyword research and targeting
- Local search engine optimization
- Mobile optimization
- Link building
- Content creation
1. Keyword research and targeting
Keyword research and targeting help businesses understand what their potential customers are looking for and optimize their websites to appear in the best search results for their market. Most small businesses that invest in SEO use keyword research and targeting. Identifying relevant keywords and including them into your website copy is an easy way to help your website rank in Google.
Searching for relevant keywords help you narrow down your keyword search. Take help of free tools such as Google Ads to learn which keywords hold a high volume of searches and low to medium levels of competition. Once you’ve finalized the list of targeting keywords, start incorporating them into various key places on your websites like Title tags, URLs, Image alt text, and Meta descriptions. Implementing basic keyword research for relevant search terms establishes a foundation for a long-term SEO strategy.
2. Local search engine optimization
Do you know that more than half of small businesses that use SEO use local search engine optimization to target results pages by location? Google offers clear guidelines for ranking in local search results. Small businesses can make their local rankings better with Google My Business, Google’s business listing service. Google My Business profiles display the company’s location, address, phone number, website, and reviews in one convenient location within the SERP. Therefore, ranking higher in local search results will help your business reach people closest to them.
3. Mobile optimization
Make your business mobile-friendly because the majority of your potential customers prefer searching on mobile rather than on any other device. To help business, Google began mobile-first indexing in July 2019, where Google’s search engine “crawlers” used to review website code to determine SEO value. Now, these bots review pages as they appear on mobile devices first. There’s no doubt that mobile searches hold more than half of Google search traffic. When small businesses have mobile-friendly websites, they provide a better user experience for most people browsing mobile devices. Therefore, mobile optimization is one of the most effective website design and SEO strategies.
4. Link building
Successful SEO linkbuilding strategies need a significant investment in time and personnel effort. However, only 24% of small businesses invest time in building high-quality backlinks for their website. Search engines consider links back to a website an authorization of that website’s content. This mean, the more links you have, the more search engines can evaluate your website. Some common link-building practices include guest blogging or guest posting, broken internal linkbuilding from businesses that link to competitors, answering questions on Help a Reporter, and conducting outreach to journalists to earn coverage.
5. Content Creation
When we talk about content, it is more than just the home page content of your website. SEO professionals always recommend creating high-quality, useful content to improve your SEO. Supreme quality and relevant content creation depend on a company’s industry and audience. When planning content for your business, go through the SERPs for the keywords you are targeting. The types of content that appear in the results pages show what type of content your audience is searching for.
If you are looking for relevant content topics then you should leverage your website blogs to answer audience questions and provide solutions to their queries. This will help you build authority and trust among your audience and Google.
If you’re struggling to find the motivation script new content, then try expanding an existing page or blog on your website. Existing content already has the authority and/or an established readership. Rather than writing content from scratch, it can be much simpler to boost an existing page in the search results by refreshing it with updated information and extra content.
Takeaway – 5 top SEO strategies
Since SEO is an ever-evolving marketing process, you need to adapt to the changes in order to rank your business higher on search engines. Make sure to do some research and spend time on the fundamentals of content creation and copywriting, and stay updated with the current trends and the impact of things like backlinks, site speed and schema on your business.
