5 SEO Tips & Tricks
5 SEO Tips And Tricks For Small Businesses
As consumer’s attention continues to shift towards their smart devices so should your marketing strategy. Living in the age of information, almost anything can be found with a simple Google search. Search engine optimization (SEO) is becoming the optimal way for a business to be found by consumers. While it proves to be an effective way to market businesses, we aren’t all SEO wizards or computer coders. Terms like cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) and cost per click (CPC) can leave you worrying; “Am I doing this right, or am I just wasting my time?”
ProductiveHub has got you covered! We are happy to report that businesses have been using SEO strategy to their advantage for over a decade now! Q1 of 2020 is right around the corner and we have tips and tricks that will help you improve, or create from scratch, your business's SEO strategy.
Importance Of Having An SEO Strategy For Your Small Business
Just like a T.V. commercial or catchy radio jingle, SEO is meant to do one thing: Introduce potential consumers to your business and turn them into your customers. It works a little like this:
Let’s say you have a business where you sell handmade candles on your online store. Your candles are truly one of a kind and you want to sell as many of them as you possibly can. Potential consumers who are looking to buy candles will go to Google.com and search for them, “best smelling candles”. That's when you want Google to show your store before any other online candle store, that way anyone shopping for candles online will see your website first.
The stronger your SEO strategy is, the more potential customers will be able to search for and find your business. A strong SEO strategy increases your brand awareness, introduces your business to new customers, and most importantly, can increase your total sales.
Like most things in business, it's easier said than done. So here are a few tips and tricks that will help your website climb up the rankings on Google’s search results.
Register your business on “Google My Business”
The first tip is to claim your business on Google. If your business is already listed on Google, or if you have yet to do so, go claim your business on “Google My Business”. By doing this you can list all of the information a potential customer will need about you like your website, phone number, hours, your products, and the address for your physical store as well.
It will also allow you to manage your reviews. You can respond to single reviews and even have Google take down bad ones if they meet certain criteria.
This will not only make it as easy as possible for customers to get any information they might need and make a purchase, but it will also help boost your ranking. Google prefers to show business listings that are easiest to interact with and provide the most information.
Do Your Research
One of the most important things you can do to help your SEO ranking is to do your research on what commonly used terms and words (keywords) are most used in your industry. Once you know what keywords are most common you need to implement them onto every page on your website.
Google ranks search results based on how relevant the results are to what is being searched. So if someone is searching for scented candles, Google will rank your website higher if a lot of relevant terms like wick, candle, wax, etc.. are found on your website.
Keywords are important but knowing HOW to place them on your website is just as important as the words themselves. Google is smart, really smart. So putting the word “candle” in bold letters 1,000 times on your website homepage will not increase your ranking. You must strategically place your keywords into blogs, headlines, and images.
Create A Blog
Piggybacking off our last tip, when you are strategically placing your keywords into your website you should do so in a way that is relevant to your business. Blogs are great content for ANY business. After all, you are on our blog right now...
“Someone is interested in everything”. That's especially true on the internet. A blog offers a way to share fun and thoughtful messages related to your business's niche.
Let's take our hypothetical candle business for instance (ProductiveHub would like 25% of any candle company that is founded after reading this article). Blog articles like “Top 5 candle scents” or “7 candle gift ideas for the holidays” are perfect forms of content to not only incorporate more keywords to increase your overall ranking but also a fantastic way to reach people who love your product/service ie: candles.
Optimize Your Images
It is definitely a tedious process that may take a while but it will prove worth it when your ranking increases. Simply making the effort to save your images with a description as opposed to the auto-generated IMG0000 format can make all the difference. Google actually uses the file name to get clues about what an image actually is.
When uploading an image to your website take the time to properly name it. Lemon-scented-candle.JPG will help you rank better than IMG0001.JPG.
In addition to file names, make sure to include alt tags that are descriptive when you upload your images. Alt tags are just backend code that will help Google rank and index your files, much like how Google uses the file name.
One more tip about images; try to keep the image size as small as possible.
Get Backlinks
Our last tip is also our most important tip. Backlinks can help improve your search ranking more than other organic strategies and tips. So what's a backlink?
A backlink is simply just a hyperlink from another website to a page on your website.
Let’s say a fashion blogger writes a blog article about “Must have home decorations for fall” and one of the “must-haves” just so happens to be one of your handmade candles and she includes a link to your product page...that's a backlink.
Backlinks help because when Google is ranking other websites and they come across yours again, your website is seen as more relevant. Backlinks will also send more traffic to your website from other websites and that will factor into your search ranking as well.
The more backlinks to your website the better. Think of them almost as endorsements from other websites.
Conclusion
SEO strategy can be a little technical and time consuming but can pay off big time. We hope these tips will help your business grow online and vastly improve your search rankings.
Stay up to date with our blog for more tips and case studies on how we have helped numerous clients achieve their SEO and other technical needs. Visit our services page to learn a little more!
P.S. ProductiveHub will be on the lookout for candle companies jumping up Google’s rankings!
