Many businesses these days depend on their internet presence as a key part of their marketing strategy. But your online presence is only as good as people’s ability to find you. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the key to making that happen!
SEO can be a challenge because Google and other search engines are constantly changing their algorithms. As a result, what worked to get you more web views yesterday might not work tomorrow. But there are a few things you can do that consistently help!
Quality Content is King
There was a time when you needed to push as much content as possible onto your site to get a good SEO response. While it is still important to provide ongoing content so search engines know you’re still active, it is now much more important to provide quality, not quantity. Giving your target audience material they’ll enjoy will keep them coming back for more! More than that, quality content will keep people’s eyes on your page—Google measures how long readers stay on individual pages and if they click off quickly, it hurts your SEO. Providing high quality content will keep people reading past the first sentence, which helps push you up the search results list.
Get the Most Out of Your ImagesAs the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Try to incorporate visual elements into every page you put out there. Stock photos from websites like Pixabay will work in a pinch. But if you can provide pictures that are unique to your site and help illustrate your text, that’s much better. You don’t have to limit yourself to pictures either. Infographics, illustrative icons and other visual elements all have the same effect of breaking up all the text. Finally, make sure you have included a proper filename for the image (eg, “Business-Coach-Office.jpg” instead of “DSC0345.jpg”) and make sure you have added Alt tags as well when dropping in the details of the image—these help draw the attention of search engines!
Keywords and Search Terms Direct Traffic Your Way
Every page you create needs at least one keyword, which also needs to be found once or twice in the text of the page. The keyword also MUST be in the title! When people are looking at the results of their search, they want to see the keyword they searched for in your content or it won’t be relevant to them. Get those keywords front and centre to grab your audience! At least as important—probably even more important—are search terms. If someone does a Google search looking for “Ways to boost SEO,” the top hit will probably be the one that has that set of words in that order. So you need to think about the different ways your target audience might search for your content and try to capture as many of those variations as possible. A few minutes spent targeting your search terms and their variations could pay off with a ton of new views!
Links Connect You to the World Wide Web
The reason it’s called the World Wide Web is that everything is connected. More links on your site help the Web do exactly what it was meant to do! Add internal links to your other content where applicable, like our links below to our contact page and our weekly email subscription. And add links to other sites around the internet that support your content. As noted on WebpageFX.com, “search engines want users to find the information they are looking for, and when you include links to helpful content, you are doing them a great service.” But the most important links of all are the ones you don’t directly control: inbound links. When someone else links to your site, it gives your content a big boost. As Lane Anderson of London Road Media noted to TMH Business Coaching recently, “Guest blogging or referrals or just having great content worth sharing helps build inbound links.”
Videos: Images That Move!
Videos that support your content can also strengthen your SEO. As often as not, they help by keeping readers on your site for longer and, as mentioned above, increased page visit time has value for search engines. Facebook Live videos are a great tool for boosting your web presence. Here’s a recent TMH Business Coaching post on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/tmhbusinesscoaching/videos/2114374518832087/
With Facebook videos, you can also keep an eye on the stats generated: how many views did you get? How many likes? How many comments? Outbound links to good videos, just like other links, can also help! Here’s a video for you on SEO optimization:
Quality Blogging Can Boost Visibility and Credibility
Blogs like this one can help you provide that quality content mentioned earlier! Focussed, detailed blogs can really boost your site’s SEO quickly by attracting more views to your site. Remember, blogs MUST contain quality information. As noted above, they also need to be well written—if people leave your page after a few seconds because you’ve done a poor job, this will hurt your SEO. Make sure your introduction is clear, concise, and contains your keyword—long, ponderous openings will bore readers and chase them away!
Google Reviews: Proof That You’re Great
If your customers are happy with your work, encourage them to write a Google review. Lots of five-star reviews from previous clients helps build your reputation and pushes you up the SEO ranks. But make sure these are LEGITIMATE reviews—if your audience finds out you have fake reviews online, it will hurt you more than a few good reviews can help.
Social Media Activity Draws More Views
Regular posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media will help draw an audience. More views equals better SEO! So make sure you’re contributing to the social media conversation! But again, make sure it’s high quality content that encourages people to spend time on your site. As Lane Anderson noted to us, “Social traffic to a site is notoriously bad for high bounce rates, and that will hurt SEO.” Engage your audience on social media, but try to do so in a way that keeps them interested in your content!
Update Your Website to Keep It Fresh
Some of this is adding new content. But you also need to go back and look at what you’ve done in the past and make improvements as needed! If you have an old page that is no longer relevant, GET RID OF IT! If you find mistakes, FIX THEM!
Organic SEO Is More Valuable Than Paid Ads
Thinking about hiring an SEO expert to take advantage of Google Ads that will show up at the very top of every related search? You may want to reconsider. According to ZeroLimitWeb.com, most people skip the paid ad at the top of the page and instead choose one of the top three organic results more than 66 percent of the time. The ad gets clicked less than 15 percent of the time. Paid ads can give you a boost while you build your organic SEO, but it has limits in terms of what it can do for you. So if you can invest the time and effort into getting the most of your SEO without paying for the ads, you’ll have better results for less cost.
Get the Most Out of Your Images
Following these tips will boost your SEO and they’re all things you can do without spending any of your marketing budget. To get to the very top of the list, you may need to bring in an SEO expert. But before you do that, see what you can do to improve your results on your own!
