A solid SEO campaign can do wonders for the small business that is looking to emerge from the pack and set itself apart from the competition.
So, how would you rate your company’s SEO on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being really poor and 10 being really exceptional? I have a feeling that many businesses would give themselves anywhere from a 5 to 8 if they were honest about it.
For many businesses, their SEO marketing efforts could be much improved; one of the major problems is that they fail to record and study the metrics from such efforts, leaving them unclear of what is and is not working.
In the event your company is looking to better its SEO marketing efforts, keep a few things in mind:
- Titles do matter – The major search engines look for relevant and catchy titles, so is this an area you would consider yourself strong or weak in? Do your titles more often than not correlate with your site’s content? If the answer is no, this gaffe needs to be fixed sooner rather than later;
- Keywords are key – As someone who utilizes keywords each and every day as a blog writer, the right keywords can go a long way in bringing traffic to your site. Keep in mind that you do not want to stuff your content with keywords; you want to have a proportional amount of keywords that flow smoothly throughout your copy. It is also important that you analyze the keywords you are using on a regular basis so as to see which ones are resonating with consumers and which are not;
- Updated content – Having mentioned both headlines and keywords neither are of any value if you do not have sustainable content with which to work with. Have you gone to a company page and seen the same copy for a week, two weeks, three weeks or longer? If the answer is yes, I am betting that you did not regularly return to the site. The bottom line is search engines are not particularly fond of those sites that have uninteresting and rather non-unique content gracing the pages. In the event you do not have the time to be placing new content on your site regularly, at least make the effort to update it and/or add-on to it so the search engines will revisit from time to time and not find the same old product. Most importantly, avoid having duplicate content on your site which can lead to search engine penalties;
- Earn and don’t pay for backlinks – It is not uncommon for sites to want backlinks, but don’t offer to pay for them. Strong content will get you backlinks, while paying for them is essentially throwing money out the window over the long-term. Even worse, buying backlinks can lead to a black listing;
- Straightforward navigation – You don’t want visitors coming to your site feeling like they are being led through a maze when it comes to navigation. Make sure you put together clear text links throughout your site, something both search engines and visitors will appreciate and more likely return to;
- Make sure your site map is precise – As you review and/or proceed to build out your site, it is important that you have a sitemap so each and every page on your site can be found by the search engines. Along with solid keyword-rich descriptions of each page, also make sure they are connected;
- Measure your efforts – Lastly, be sure to have a web analytics program in place so that you can measure your site’s progress. A good web analytics program will inform you as to how individuals are interacting with your site, along with telling you the volume of traffic coming your way via search engines.
Whether your company’s site has an in-house SEO person or team or you choose to go outside the business for contract help, never underestimate the importance of SEO to your site’s success.
With a dedicated SEO effort in place, your site and your business for that matter stands to be the beneficiary.
Hey Dave,
Nice tips, Measuring your SEO efforts actually let you know improvement or decline over the period. It’s really essential part which ensure you to take correct step to stay ahead all the time.
Aasma,
Thank you for reading. I wonder how many businesses really stay on top of such information?
but one should do natural seo practice…..it should not create difficulty for the users
Most bloggers forget about readers and focus only on search engines … avoid this practice.
I agree with your fourth points …..that we should not pay for links ….those links are not reliable
your above shared tips are really amazing ….they are very small small things that the blogger should take care of .
i hope the tips you shared above will work on my site
Try these tips and share your experience …. it will definitely help other bloggers.
Finally happy that I am following these..
But still I am lacking somewhere because I am not getting enough traffic that I supposed to get !!! Any other tip would be appreciated.
SEO for website very difficult. Beside the content of blog, SEO also depend on exactly keyword.
Ngan,
Very true on the keyword importance. Too many bloggers fail to properly utilize keywords that search engines will pick up. The keywords need to correlate with the blog content so it does not appear like you are randomly stuffing the blog full of keywords.
This is a great reminder — keywords and SEO are only half the battle. Thanks for the article! I think providing regular fresh content is difficult, and does take up much time. It is better to update regularly with a small amount of content than to update with large chunks every now and then. It’s also more appealing to visitors, as they can access news and new information in bite-size chunks, requiring less commitment from them.
They always say SEO is dead with the rise of social media. I think otherwise. It may not gonna be big just like before but it sure will be a big part of the entire online marketing for websites in the future. – Jules
I’ve been talking to a friend about how we should start beefing up our content strategy and now I’m here reading this. Great reminder just what are some of the simple things we often neglect when we’re writing content. Great post! – Jules
It is important to work hard at your SEO. I definitely recommend having at least a Facebook and a Twitter (maybe even having a Pinterest). This way you can engage fans with however they connect with the world. With Facebook you can even track your fan interaction.
yes,setting up social media to give us great post ideas,with Twitter, we’ll only see tweets from thosepeople—it’s a perfectly curated suite of informationon for topic. I consider LinkedIn as an awesome professional network that can really help me find those who are experts in my line of work. I can follow those who really know stuff about being an SEO reseller, and those who are updated with the latest updates in the world of search.
This is a very good article for beginners who get carried away. Must read for all.
Great info here Dave. The Internet is ever evolving so we all need to keep up to speed with changes in terms of SEO. I always take heed of this type of advice.
The best way to show that you are genuinely interested in their business is to do some basic research about them and ask questions specific to their services and target market.
Hi Dave ,
when it comes to Straightforward navigation – It’s not only important to guide the users down an easy and natural funnel / design. But one also needs to remember the importance of the link juice shared when having too much navigation in the main menu. This is very important – as to the link structure of a website plays a big role on the User experience and the User interface. Great tips you’ve manage to list in the post – thought they seem basic – the value they can add to a website if and when done right can be phenomenal.