If you have a website for your small business, then you’ve likely heard about the importance of good Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is simply a series of strategies that help your website rank higher on search engine listings when a web user conducts a search with keywords related to your industry. It is one of the best ways to get organic traffic to your website and can help boost brand recognition, leads and sales.
Search engines have become more sophisticated over the years and their algorithms continue to make it easier for users to find the information they’re searching for. As a result, it has become more challenging to determine just how to achieve and maintain a high ranking. While there are some strategies that seem to work well, search engines like Google have been notoriously ambiguous about the exact tactics that will boost your rankings as well as how much weight certain SEO strategies hold.
Because of this, it is nearly impossible to guarantee that any single SEO practice will improve the chance of your company being found online. However, by following SEO best practices and current trends, we have been able to help our clients improve their rankings and get more exposure for their company or brand.
But you don’t need to be a digital marketing expert to boost your website’s visibility. We’ve compiled some simple steps that any small business owner can take to improve their website’s SEO.
- Use free online tools to understand how you rank now. There are a number of platforms with free services and trials that will tell you how your website is ranking in search engines now and what kind of organic site traffic you are getting. Without knowing where you currently stand, it will be difficult to know what to change. These platforms can even compare your website to competitors and tell you what keywords they are using, which can be extremely useful.
- Expand your content. Generally, web pages with more content have better SEO scores. Current recommendations estimate that pages with 300-1,000+ words rank higher. If this seems like a lot of content for one web page, it is. Many businesses who want a minimal design on their homepage balk at the idea of adding 300+ words. However, there are ways to increase the content on your website, such as creating a blog or a Q+A section. When writing this content, make sure to include your main keywords in the headings and first paragraph of each page.
- Focus on content quality. Having a lot of keywords on your website isn’t enough to improve your SEO. In fact, having too many keywords is known as “keyword stuffing” and may even penalize your site. When writing content, make sure it is high quality and relevant to your audience. This will also engage your website visitors and prevent them from quickly “bouncing” away, which may hurt your rankings. Your content should include as many keywords as possible while still feeling natural, readable and relevant.
- Increase the number of backlinks to your website. When other websites link to yours, it shows the search engines that your site contains credible information. You can start generating backlinks to your website through strategies such as writing guest blog posts or collaborating with other businesses in your industry or related fields.
- Tags and titles. This one might be a little trickier to implement depending on what website platform you are using and how familiar you are with it. In addition to the main content on your website, there is also hidden and supplemental content that will affect your SEO score. The title tags, meta tags, image titles and descriptions all affect how search engines read and index your site. If you are unsure about how to update these and which keywords to use, reach out to us at ATX The Brand.
There are a number of other factors that can affect your search engine rankings. Even something as seemingly trivial as your page load time can have an impact. For more information about SEO strategies that can help boost your business website’s rankings, contact our team and we would be happy to share more about our SEO services.
