We’re pretty aware of the fact that SEO might seem a bit intimidating to the newbies. That’s why we’re here! We’ve decided to guide you through the basics of SEO.
SEO stands for search engine optimization.
What does that mean?
Essentially, it’s the magic behind the process of matching the content you put online with the people who are searching for it. If you’re still a bit baffled, think about what happens behind the scenes when you search for the best smartphone of the year.
The results that come first are there because of the SEO magic.
SEO is crucial for your business. In fact, once you try it, you’ll see that SEO has a proven track record of delivering excellent business results. We have some SEO tips and tricks to share with you today. So, buckle up and read on!
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1. Setting Up a Google My Business Account
We recommend setting up this account and uploading all the details about your business. That way, your business will start appearing in local search results for all the queries closely related to your area of operation. In addition to being useful, it’s completely free!
2. Doing a Proper Keyword Research
If you decide to target the same keywords as the big shots in your business, chances are you won’t be able to stand out. Bigger competitors have rather wide online coverage and are probably more established. However, if you do extensive keyword research, you might be able to notice the gaps in the market. A pretty useful tool for this is the Keyword Planner.
3. Building a fast, reliable, cellphone-friendly website
Another great tip is the development of mobile-friendly sites. This is not going to cost a lot (or, at least, it doesn’t have to), and it won’t take too much time to complete. As a matter of fact, optimizing your site for cellphone use and making it fast will definitely make your business stand out from the competition performance-wise. And, on top of that, it’s a confirmation that you’re going the extra mile to reach your customers.
4. Using Google Search Console
Another free tool that you can benefit from is this one. Essentially, it will give you an insight into how your website is performing and ranking on SERPs. In addition to that, it will show any issues and errors on the website that you’ll want to address.
5. Understanding Your Audience
Knowing your online audience is the key to success. Basically, once you learn who your typical online customers are, you will be able to understand how and where to grab their attention. For instance, if your business is targeting a younger demographic, you should focus on your presence on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
6. Knowing Your Competition
Equally important as knowing your audience is knowing your competition. For instance, if search engines are showing a lot of videos and images in their results for the same keywords you want to be visible for, you need to focus on uploading that sort of content instead of focusing solely on text.
7. Making Sure Your Website is Secure
It may come off as not related to SEO, but compromised websites lose their visibility and traffic in no time. So, if you want to prevent that from happening, we recommend being on the lookout for possible threats and issues.
8. Appearing on Google Maps
This one is crucial for those who own a local business with offline customers and a physical location. Being present on Google Maps will surely grow the customer base.
9. Refraining From Spamming the Customers
We’d like to note that if you don’t have a big budget and can’t afford a marketing specialist, it’s a good idea to do it yourself. In fact, who knows your business better than you? Exactly. No one. So, instead of hiring somebody on the cheap to spam your customers, try connecting with them genuinely.
10. Hiring an Agency No. 1 — Don’t Do It
Business owners have so much on their plate that they choose to hire an agency to do their SEO work. And, while this sounds like a pretty awesome deal, it can backfire. In fact, if the agency is telling you a story that’s too good to be true, the chances are they are lying to you. So, in order to maintain your long-term search visibility, we’d recommend ignoring such agencies.
11. Hiring an Agency No. 1 — Do It (Carefully)
We truly believe that even beginners don’t need an agency to help them improve their visibility. However, if you really insist on hiring an agency, make sure to keep an eye on them. In fact, some agencies may use bad methods that might land you on the first page but bring you a lot of long-term damage, too.
12. Staying Informed
In SEO, things change pretty quickly. So, a method that works today might be against Google’s rules tomorrow. That’s why we recommend keeping up with the industry news.
13. Creating Content
Creating valuable content on your website, or even building a blog, would be extremely helpful in ranking for your target terms. Also, having a blog will allow you to present your products and services better.
14. Blogging on a Regular
If you decide to start a blog, you need to stay consistent with it. Our advice is to create original content that you will post regularly in order to build your audience and make them stick around. Don’t get us wrong — this doesn’t mean that you need to post something every single day. As a matter of fact, posting high-quality, interesting content once a week will suffice.
15. Knowing When “Enough is Enough”
When you’re creating content, it’s easy to go crazy with the keywords. Even though you need to target the terms that your audience might be searching for, you need to remember that your content is targeting humans. So, learn to control the content you put online. Make sure it’s valuable, concise and original.
16. Relying 100% on Google
This is definitely something we don’t recommend doing. Of course, complying with the rules of Google to get higher rankings will improve the volume of search traffic, which is extremely valuable. However, Google can easily change the way it ranks sites. So, in order to prevent that from affecting your traffic significantly, we recommend using social media, building email lists and attracting the audience from a wide range of different sources.
17. Giving Your Content Some Time
Creating content that can last longer means being able to attract a larger number of customers, as you’ll have a longer period of time on your hands. So, we recommend creating content that will address your audience’s issues and is somewhat considered evergreen.
18. Having a Clear Hint in the URL
The URL of your business’ website should provide a clear insight into the main topic of your page.
19. Using Internal Links
In order to optimize the site, we recommend using efficient internal linking. Essentially, this will link themes and topics of your website together in a more organized and sensible way.
20. Using the Analytics Data
By viewing your analytics data, you will be able to learn what your audience is searching for. That way, you’ll have an insight into what terms you should target. In addition to that, you’ll also be able to see what language your customers are using. Take this data as something you can learn from and optimize what you offer.
21. Encourage reviews
Reviews will help drive conversions, but from an SEO perspective, they help drive your local SEO visibility too. Therefore, encourage other websites to mention yours or leave a review on their pages.
We’d also recommend encouraging reviews on your own website. In addition to the clear insight into the customer feedback, this will drive additional traffic to your site.
22. Setting up Google Analytics
Here’s another free tool for you to use in order to work the SEO magic. In fact, think of this tool as crucial to learning more about your audience’s behavior, traffic sources and so much more!
23. Learning Who’s Linking to You
You can easily check out the links you’ve received through tools such as Majestic and similar. This is a great opportunity to learn whether you are attracting links from relevant websites. And, if that’s the case, you’ll be able to determine what pages and/or content is attracting the links.
24. Nourishing Title Originality of Every Single Page
Google gives you 55 characters to make the topic of your page concise and clear to the audience and search engines. So, make sure you’re creating unique titles and using them to stand out from the crowd!
25. SEO Magic Doesn’t Happen Overnight
Patience is the key to making it work in the SEO world. All of our tips will help you drive traffic to your website, but you shouldn’t expect to have an outstanding success overnight. In fact, it will certainly take some time until you start seeing results. We encourage you to stay patient and persistent throughout.
26. Trying PPC
Even if you’re on a tight marketing budget, you can use a little PPC. This will speed up the traffic driving through your website.
27. Writing Unique and Original Product Page Copy
In case you’re selling products that other websites are selling too, make sure you write product descriptions that will make your website stand out.
28. Forecasting
Mastering the art of knowing how to be one step ahead of the trends will help you stay one step ahead of everyone. Also, it will keep your readers in the know.
29. Being Fast and First
Making your content current, trendy and fresh will definitely help you drive more traffic to your website. So, stay focused on the developments in the industry and try to keep up!
30. Direct the Readers From Your Home Page to the Most Relevant Subpages
Naturally, your home page will attract more links than any other page on your website. So, make sure that link authority is efficiently directed from your home page to your most important subpages.
