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As a small or medium-sized business, there’s much to learn when maximizing opportunities to grow your online presence.
SEO can be tricky to navigate, but a basic understanding of it has become essential for all business owners who want to see their brand become a household name.
Here are 10 SEO tips that small to medium-sized business owners can try before hiring an SEO agency or consultant to provide additional support.
1. Understand your target market and competitors
People’s habits and behavior can differ online from those in the offline world. It’s essential to spend time doing online research to get a better sense of your potential competitors’ most prominent websites.
Search online for your products and services and benchmark their social media presence and activity. How do they market themselves online? Do they offer regular discounts? Free postage? Do they provide new content regularly, such as a blog?
2. Master keyword research
The keyword research process provides an understanding of the key phrases and search terms your customers will likely use online. It can also help you see how often these keywords are searched for, which, in turn, offers insight into the online demand for those products or services.
Free keyword research tools, such as Google’s Keyword Planner, are valuable to business owners of any size. They can help them understand how their website should be structured to answer those search queries.
For example, each high- and medium-priority keyword from your research should have a corresponding page on your site with long-tail keywords used in blog posts and FAQs.
3. Start blogging or producing regular content
Google loves fresh content, and your customers will, too. Publishing your content regularly is a great way to bring in more traffic and help you rank higher.
The content doesn’t necessarily need to be text-based; it could be images of recent projects or video bulletins. The best idea is to try a few different types of content tailored to the content consumption habits of your target audience and see which performs better.
4. Build your social media network
Having a robust social media presence is expected by businesses and is an essential trust factor for first-time buyers.
The population of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter continues to grow, making it a valuable tool for businesses to take advantage of. You don’t need to master every platform; instead, focus on the ones your target audience is more likely to use and do well.
Social media enables you to connect with your customers in a way that benefits both of you. It opens up another line of communication. Understanding and nurturing these online relationships can help your SEO in the long run.
5. Optimise every image on your website
Images can increase the size of your website, leading to slower loading times and negatively impacting SEO. You should always resize each image you intend to use before uploading it to your database and assign an ‘alt-tag’ which tells Google what the image is about.
Google places a relatively high value on alt texts to determine what is in the image and the topic of the surrounding text. Aside from SEO purposes, blind and visually impaired people rely on alt tags to tell them what the image is, so it’s beneficial to get into the habit of completing that field in your website’s backup.
6. DIY public relations
Public relations can play a crucial role in off-page SEO, so you should consider ways to promote your brand outside your website. Establish and tell a compelling story about your brand to get local media attention, and consider giving something back to your local community to maximize publicity.
You can pitch to journalists, bloggers, and social media influencers to grow your following and gain valuable backlinks to your site, which will help with SEO.
7. Understand Google Analytics
Having a basic understanding of Google Analytics will help you appreciate the concept of traffic and its sources. Looking at reports each Google Analytics tab covers — Audience, Acquisition, Behaviour, Conversions, and Real-Time will provide valuable information to help grow your business.
The importance of analytics in marketing is akin to financial reports in accounting—you can’t afford to ignore the data available to measure your marketing activity regularly.
8. Optimize for local SEO
Millions of customers use search engines daily to find the best local businesses and services in their area. If you’re primarily targeting a local audience, utilizing local SEO tactics can help increase your chances of being found.
The main difference between organic and local search is that local search has a geographical component. If a person searches for an industry and a location, the search engine will display results with a local intent. Find out how to optimize your site for local SEO here.
9. Keep your website secure
Security is a top priority when it comes to your online presence. A secure website improves trust and is the minimum you can offer your visitors. Setting up a secure HTTPS login is necessary if you host sensitive data. This is particularly important if your site requires form submissions to be completed or enables card transactions.
Enforcing HTTPS on your site guarantees that no information passed between the server and your customer can be intercepted or stolen. Customers look for this factor when choosing to whom to pass their sensitive data.
10. Find time to read SEO guides
Familiarise yourself with SEO by reading as many guides as you can. A great starting point is online tips and tools to help you master the basics. SEO is an ever-changing concept, so it’s vital to keep up to date with best practices.
After implementing these ten steps, you may want to reach the next level by hiring an expert. That’s where we come in. At WP Tech Support, we can help you stay visible to search engines and improve your website’s overall performance. Look at our monthly payment plans to choose the level of support that best suits your business requirements.