If you have decided to put your business online, or start an online business, or are revamping a website that already ranks well, you need to have extensive knowledge of SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which means making changes to a website so that search engines find it useful for users.
It’s important to be displayed on the first page of the search results for a good number of people to find your page online. This is how you can increase your online sales. SEO strategies help achieve this goal. If you’re new to the concept of SEO, the tips provided below will help you optimize your website without bringing up complicated, technical terms.
Understand your target audience
Your business significantly depends on your target audience. So, it’s important to know what they are looking for. Google strives to provide people with the most useful information when they search for something. This means, you have to know what terms, related to your industry, people search for and what are the most searched topics.
When you know your target audience and what they look for, it becomes easier to come up with strategies to provide them with what they want and keep them satisfied. This also significantly matters if you’re selling products since more people visiting your website means increased chances of online sales.
Analyze your competitors
Now that you know what your target audience looks for, you have to see what are the top results for their queries, and understand your competitors. Once you do that, analyze your competitors’ websites and see how they provide information. This should give you a fair idea about what your website lacks so you can work on it.
Furthermore, when you analyze a few websites in your niche, you can note down what you think each website lacks. After that, you can work hard to come up with content that provides your target audience with a unique as well as a more complete solution.
Basic SEO
It might seem intimidating to take up the responsibility of optimizing your website all by yourself. Whether you decide to optimize your website or get someone else to do it, knowing the basics will help you identify problems and troubleshoot when needed. Sure, it looks like a lot to comprehend, but once you read the below-mentioned points carefully, you shouldn’t find it so complicated.
Keyword research
Keywords are a set of words that a user would type into the search bar of a search engine. For instance, if you want to look for recipes for kale, you would most probably type ‘kale recipes’. For every industry or niche, there would be a set of keywords that are searched more than others. So, the first step you need to take is conducting keyword research to find out what keywords you can rank for and be displayed for on the first page.
Don’t select keywords that are most searched and have too much competition. This will require much hard work. Instead, for starters, look for low competition and high search rate keywords in your field. Use tools, like Google Keyword Planner to look for the most suitable keywords. These tools help find keywords that signify a gap in the market that you can fill in and rank for.
Mobile friendly website
These days, most people use their smartphones to access different websites. So, Google has made mobile-friendliness a major ranking factor. This correlates with the bounce rate. Bounce rate means a user entering your website and quickly exiting. This happens when the user is not happy with the provided information found on the website.
Likewise, if your website is not mobile-friendly, users have to wait for a while for the page to load, and then turn the horizontal mode on. Instead of putting up with this, users will exit your website and visit some other website, which can be a loss for you. This is why you should make sure your website is optimized for mobile users.
Other factors
Besides these two factors, you should also focus on other basic factors to make sure your site is optimized for Google searches. Here are some points to keep in mind when optimizing your website.
- The title of your articles should be between 60 to 70 characters. Include the focus keyword at the beginning of the title and use words like best, amazing, top, etc. in the title.
- The meta description should have the focus keyword in it. Don’t ever leave the space for meta description empty.
- The focus keyword should not be overstuffed. However, including it in the first 100 words of your article helps. Use a variety of LSI keywords.
- Optimize images by adding the focus keyword in the ALT TEXT box.
- Make sure the URL is short and makes sense. Add the focus keyword in the URL as well.
- It’s recommended that content be over 1000 words, since Google prefers long form content.
Blog posting for linking
If you want to increase the authority of your website, you should consider posting blogs on websites with more authority. All you have to do is send an email to the webmaster asking if he would allow you to write a guest post. Websites that accept guest posts usually let you add 2 links to your website, which helps in building links and ranking your website better. Make sure you post blogs on websites that are relevant to your niche and have good domain authority.
Local SEO
Local SEO helps you increase your visibility when a person makes a location specific search. This means, when people find you in the search results, you have more chances of customers visiting your store. Here are some ways of optimizing your website for better local searches.
Google My Business
To create a Google My Business account, you need to sign up. You’re also required to provide the address of your store. When you do that, a verification code is sent to your store via mail. When you receive the code and enter it, you then have a Google My Business account. On Google My Business you can provide all the details about your business and choose a specific category. This will help you show up in the local search results, like ‘Turkish restaurant near me’.
Google Maps
Claiming your business by providing your address on Google Maps is also quite important these days. If you have an offline business, people will try to find a way to you through Google Maps. If your address is not available on Google Maps, you can lose many potential customers.
Other local websites
Getting your website listed on various other local websites also helps more people reach you. For instance, if you run a restaurant, getting listed on Zomato is a good idea.
Google Search Console
If you want a tool that helps you analyze the performance of your website for free, you should know about Google Search Console. Google Search Console provides information about well-ranked keywords that are relevant for you and addresses many other issues.
These are some of the SEO tips that small businesses can start following in order to rank better in Google’s Search Results Pages. If you still find these tips tricky, it isn’t a bad idea to hire an SEO agency. In fact, these tips will even help you better understand what the SEO agency does for your website.
