Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential for any business. Ongoing studies continue to confirm that the vast majority (around 80%+) of people browses only the first couple of pages when choosing which company may suit their purposes. If your company falls outside of that ‘Goldilocks’ zone, then chances are that you are going to be missing out on a huge amount of prospective business. People resort to search engines above any other form of recommendation, making decisions ranging from their morning coffee stop through to financial and property services based upon those rankings. Boosting your SEO is quite simply essential – and the good news is that any company can do so provided they understand how the process works.
How to use SEO to boost your business profile
So how does optimization work? A good place to start is by considering what professional tailored services can offer. Take a look at the Hook Agency – Minneapolis SEO experts to see a regional example of how important it is to bind together all aspects of your company profile online. Their site serves to explain how essential building a positive, engaging and constant presence is to boost your brand, climbing search engine results, and attracting both new and repeat customers.
SEO experts will look to attract people to your site as a source of information/news/opinion as well as a place to conduct business. If the first is done well, the second is going to happen. Doing this positively is more complex than it sounds, and here are some of the key considerations to be aware of.
Optimizing your website content
Keywords are the crux that all successful SEO strategies are built upon. Search engines will look for matches to whatever the customer types – so it is essential that your site contains these, but in a way that avoids ‘overstuffing’ (which can usually prove to be counterproductive). It is important to find a good balance that uses appropriately connected keywords throughout in a logical and reader-friendly manner.
Check out your rivals
Chances are that similar businesses to your own will have a number of backlinks from other sites that help promote them. Finding out where their traffic comes from is as easy as installing a piece of free software. Once this has been established, set about looking for ways to capitalize better on those leads. Remember that competitors can – and will – do the same to you, which is why it is essential to always be engaged towards any traffic that lands on your own site.
Look at your website quality & speeds
It is a simple fact that people will make their minds up about your website in a couple of seconds. Whether they choose to stay or move on is entirely dependent on the quality of your site. It must be responsive, offer plenty of information, testimonials/reviews and ideally a regularly published blog (to be later linked via social media). Make sure that your site loads fast. It should not be cluttered with data-intensive videos on the homepage. Try and keep multimedia content in a separate section. A good quality SEO agency will help with all aspects of website optimization, and generally speaking the cleaner and faster the better.
Understand the importance of tail words
These ought to be used throughout your website (and again in a very subtle way). Google will look at phrases such as “chartered account in Sydney”, “premium London hotel”, “professional New York stylist” when responding to queries and the more of these – or phrases very similar – to your company’s business the better.
Engage in social media
Reputation management works hand in hand with SEO for helping boost your online business profile and attract more leads. Some of the largest organizations in the world – even those which some people would consider ‘faceless corporations’ – engage with their customers via Twitter and Facebook. As may be expected these are often managed by genuine experts in their field, and as such their content tends to be amusing (often attracting millions of people with a little actual interest in the business itself). Social media will serve to boost the number of visitors to your site and help foster an online image/reputation when used suitably.
Use blogs & guest contributors
No matter what nature of business you are in, nothing works better to attract new customers than making your site industry relevant. It can really pay to invest in professionals to source, create and manage this for you, should you not have the time or inclination yourself. Hosting experts and benefit quality articles will be used on social media to promote your company sales site. Nothing attracts customers more than the prospect of working with a company that is ‘on message’ and up to date with trends in their industry. Take a look at some of the largest DIY stores for an example of this. Each will have an encyclopedia of articles to help people intending on undertaking their own projects. Such value-added content is simply invaluable!
Make use of online directories
Nobody is going to just guess your company websites URL out of thin air. It must be promoted and referenced in order to gain traction – and outdated as they may feel online directories like InCityLife offer the best way of achieving this. Many will offer paid for promotion, and that is up to you (plenty of people are actually put off by this). One of the easiest places to start is with Google Maps itself – make sure that your company is specifically listed by premises and all contact data, opening hours, etc. are up to date. Remember that these can be used for reviews also – so make sure that your customer engagement is on point!
Avoid the classic mistakes
Effective SEO involves providing a valuable and interesting resource that converts into sales. There are many ways of trying to ‘fix’ or ‘workaround’ Google, but they are wise to this and as such will frequently change their search engine algorithms. Even worse, they do blacklist companies that try to manipulate the system – so consider that a warning! Keyword stuffing may work in the short term, but there is no point in gaining hits/visits who will not buy anything or ever be likely to return in the future. Avoid link spinning or user visit ‘services’ to artificially boost your traffic. Never duplicate content stolen from elsewhere or use spinning software (Google is particularly on point when it comes to penalizing those who invalidate copyright).
It can be daunting getting effective SEO up and running, but the real challenge is keeping up your game over the long term. Incorporating your online presence is nowadays quite literally the most important aspect of marketing and advertising. If it is not working, then it is imperative that you take remedial action right away because you can be sure that your competitors are going to be capitalizing as much as possible. It is no longer good enough to just have/offer the best service in the business. You need to make sure that this fact is broadcast in a way that will attract and retain customers – and SEO is the key to achieving this.