The Internet’s Best SEO Guide For Businesses

January 12, 2023 FinTech and Alternative Finance, Fintech International, Fintech Services, Innovation and Resources, Leadership, Productivity, Competition, Human Capital, Health No comments

Jan 12, 2023

Image: Unsplash/Jason Goodman

Digital marketing is perhaps the most effective way to reach your customers online. However, some forms of digital marketing can be expensive and time-consuming. That's where SEO comes in. Search engine optimization enables businesses to reach their customers online without spending money. Think of SEO as a strategy to rank higher on search engine result pages. This involves structuring your website and optimizing your content. Research shows that your prospects are likely to click on the first few results on SERPs. For that reason, you must develop a foolproof SEO strategy for your small business.

The Internet's Best SEO Guide For Businesses

Focus on Creating Quality Content

Bill Gates once said that content is king. Back then, publishing content would help you rank higher on SERPs regardless of its quality. However, competition for the top positions on search result pages has increased drastically over the years. Publishing content here and there will no longer get you on top of search results. You must also ensure that you post insightful and valuable content to boost your chances of outperforming competitors.

Search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google now prioritize websites with valuable content. Similarly, prospects will likely click on a web page that promises valuable content. In order to create relevant and helpful content for your customers, always follow these content, best practices.

Strive to create content that addresses the interests or problems your target audience is facing
Take your time to conduct thorough customer research
Publish content consistently
Think about user intent
Use infographics
Invest in long-form content
Focus on customer-centric content
Optimize your content for audio searches
Track results

Keywords Matter

Keywords are words or phrases your target audience uses to find what they are searching for online. Search engines strive to provide the best results in search engine result pages. To do that, search engine robots crawl thousands of web pages online. Afterward, the robots index and rank the pages based on many factors, including keywords. Using the right keywords can help get your web pages high on search engine results pages. Having said that, take your time to conduct comprehensive and thorough keyword research to identify phrases and words your target audience is using when looking for valuable content online. Once you identify these keywords, you must use them correctly.

See: Creating a Scale-up Marketing Strategy That Works

The keywords you use should always match the customer's search intent. Moreover, you should never keyword stuff your content. Ideally, you want to target one primary keyword per web page. Additionally, naturally place your target keywords on your major headlines, subheadings, first paragraph, and throughout the page. Also, use less competitive long-tail keywords.

Leverage Local SEO

Local SEO can help you to reach clients on a local level. This is especially important for businesses that focus on specific service areas. Local SEO allows companies to dominate the local market without breaking the bank. Research also shows that more than 46% of all searches are local. That means leveraging local SEO can help bring more traffic to your site, leading to more sales.

Additionally, local SEO has better conversion rates and lower advertising costs. It also leads to continuous business growth and long-lasting rankings. However, you must follow some steps to leverage local SEO, including:

Include your address, contact details, and hours of operation on your website
Create a Google My Business profile to appear in local searches
Include your contact details and address on your Google My Business page
Link your website to your social media pages
Make sure that your contact details and addresses are consistent across all online channels
Encourage your customers to leave reviews
Optimize your website for mobile
Take advantage of local directories

Link Building Still Matters

Link building is a never-ending debate. Some insist it doesn't work, while others believe it's a vital ranking factor. Regardless of your opinion, the truth is that link-building plays an integral role in your site's SEO performance. Studies show that search engines like Yahoo, Google, and Bing still consider a site's reputation when ranking pages.

A site with many links will likely rank higher on SERPs than one with fewer or no links. This is because search engines view high-quality backlinks as a vote of confidence. When you build many high-quality links, search engines will see your site as a source of authoritative content. Besides, links will bring more traffic to your website, leading to more sales. When building links, don't just focus on external links. Internal links can also boost traffic to other web pages on your website and improve your SEO performance.

Increase Your Website's Speed

It's no secret that page speed is among the essential ranking factors. Websites with faster load times tend to rank higher than slower ones. Moreover, customers are likelier to stick around longer if your website has a quick load time. If you think your website is slow, there are a couple of fixes you should try. To start with, compress all your images. You can also do away with unnecessary elements in CSS. It's also highly advisable to stop using JavaScript.

Optimize Your Website for Mobile

Did you know that around 60% of all searches occur on mobile? The number is even higher for some industries like food and beverages. This shows that mobile is among the essential ranking factors. Google and other search engines are more likely to rank your web pages on search results if you have a mobile-friendly website. Fortunately, you can use dozens of free online tools to determine if your website is mobile-friendly.

Monitor Your Site's SEO Performance

SEO is not a one time thing, it is an ever-changing and constantly growing topic. Therefore, you must always keep up with your SEO performance and the latest SEO tips to outrank your competitors. Even if you use all the right keywords and build high-quality links, you still need to monitor ranking algorithms to maintain and improve your SEO performance. Scheduling regular SEO audits is the way to go if you want to ensure your website will continue performing well. SEO audit allows you to monitor your audience, industry, keywords, algorithms, content, and marketplace.

When done correctly, SEO will fuel the growth of your business. So, follow the tips we've discussed above to build a solid SEO strategy and outrank your competitors.

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