A Simple SEO Checklist For Small Business Success

A central part of any up-to-date digital marketing strategy should concern search engine results. Search engine optimization is essentially the practice utilizing methods and techniques to increase rankings and thus, organic website traffic.

For the majority of small business, available funds are limited, meaning marketing often takes a back seat. However, this is a big mistake, as marketing is essential to increasing traffic, sales and ultimately, growing your business. This is where SEO is invaluable, as it can be carried out on a relatively low budget and often provides a high return on investment.

However, with new search engine updates and algorithm alterations added all the time, SEO is an ongoing process that demands businesses must continually adapt their strategies, similar to customer segmentation. Despite constant changes, there are a number of SEO tips that continue to prove effective. Here are the best SEO approaches for small businesses.

Research Keywords

Arguably the most important part of SEO: keywords. Without using the right keywords, or longer long-tail phrases, people searching for your site will not be able to find it, as it will not appear in search engine results. When researching keywords, think about the terms your potential visitors and customers would enter, and try to think outside of one-word generic keywords. For example, if you own a car dealership, SEO experts like WMG would use industry knowledge to provide more specific automotive terms.

Tag, Tag and Tag

This is a simple practice that takes only a short amount of time but is often overlooked, resulting in low search engine rank. For each page of your website, create carefully thought out titles, add meta tags and descriptions, and use alt tags on images. By doing so, you are optimizing your website and formatting so that it can indexed by spiders, allowing crawlers to accurately read and rank your business. You can become a successful DIY website builder by following this effective tactic.

Use The Power Of Social Media

Social media is certainly not the first thing that people think of when they think of SEO. However, you can leverage social media accounts to help spread the word about your website. This will increase traffic organically, which is much more important to search engine rankings than typing the same keywords a bunch of times. Set up profiles on all the top social media platforms. Then, start spreading the word about your website. You will not have to worry about finding out how to get more Facebook likes until a little further down the road. This is an atypical SEO tip that will definitely get results.

Online and Offline

Many businesses consider online digital marketing as a completely separate strategy to offline and more traditional forms. However, viewing them as two halves of a whole could benefit your business. If you have a physical store or location, add your website and social media to posters, flyers signs and business cards, to let generational customers know about your site and boost traffic. This also works the other way around, as you can offer online visitors store-only discounts, to increase footfall.

Be Mobile Friendly

One of the most recent updates – which may cause trouble for businesses who are not prepared – sees the priority of mobile and desktop shift. Search engines now assess websites for their compatibility and for the first time, mobile usage is evaluated above desktop. However, having a website that is mobile compatible is not enough. To boost rank position, you must build a site that is capable of loading and performing quickly.

Use Analytic Tools

There is little point in putting in time and effort required for SEO if you are then unable to track and review your progress. While you may be able to see that your site is appearing higher in searches, this does not tell you how well effective your SEO is as a whole. This is where analytical tools are invaluable to measure demand generation. Analytical tools can tell you where your visitors are coming from, how long they stay on your site and also highlight which pages receive the most traffic.

Meta Descriptions

Furthermore, use meta descriptions to drive your small business to succeed. You do not need to hire a SEO expert to use this technique. This simple SEO strategy is easy to implement yet highly effective. Businesses with meta descriptions that include good keywords and persuasive diction convince consumers to click on their pages. If you want to increase your reach, use this simple SEO tactic to your advantage.

Contrary to popular belief, business owners do not need to hire professionals who have taken online coding classes to boost their websites. Using these tips will help to up your SEO game and could increase organic traffic and visitors. This can be more effective than even the best guerilla marketing tactics. Just make sure to keep on top of new features and updates, so your SEO is always at its most effective.

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