Search Engine Optimization is a fantastic way to draw in traffic. Not only will it allow you to reach people who’d otherwise never hear about your brand, if done correctly, they are also far more likely to convert. That said, if you have no experience in this area then there are some things that you need to learn in order to get ahead in this market. The things you need to do in some ways make your article better while in other ways they don’t hurt the text’s readability.
5 Effective SEO Strategies to Propel Your Business Online
SEO can, in fact, work perfectly well with whatever other strategies you’re employing to get your content in front of audiences. In fact, sometimes the strategies even work complimentary.
1. Get the Right Keywords
Okay, this one is actually a bit of extra work. The first thing you’ve got to do is find words that people regularly search with and find out which ones have not been cornered by other parties. There is a lot of software out there that can help you. You can use Google’s own Google Ads Planner. Alternatively, you can aim for something like Moz’s keyword explorer, which will give you a breakdown how good a phrase or word is.
With Moz’s keyword explorer you get to try out two keyword phrases per day for free. If you want to try out any more, you will have to pay.
2. Optimize Your Content
Once you know what keyword you’re going to use, you’ve got to optimize your post towards that keyword. Fortunately, if you’re using WordPress and your posts are text based, that’s not so hard anymore. All you’ve got to do is install Yoast.
This great tool will then give you a breakdown of how well your text is geared towards certain keywords right there in your window. Don’t have WordPress? Then here are some things to watch out for:
- Headline: Your keyword(s) have to be in the title. That’s not really so strange, as Google assumes you correctly identified what your content is about in your headline.
- Links: Another important place to put your keywords is in the link that your website will use. This quite obviously is another place where Google will assume you’ll use the keywords to specify what your article is about.
- Slug: You know that text that you use to explain what your post is about in search engines? Also throw your keyword in there.
- First paragraph: Put it in your first paragraph as well. Actually, while you’re at it, scatter it through the text. It doesn’t have to be used all the time as that affects readability and is considered ‘keyword stuffing’ and can get you downgraded. But it should appear every so often (at about 1%).
3. Long-tailed Keywords
When you’re just starting out and your website isn’t yet that popular, it’s hard to compete with the top websites for the more popular keywords. So, don’t try to optimize SEO strategy for popular keywords. Instead, aim at longer phrases. There are several advantages to aiming for these.
- The competition won’t be as fierce as your competition won’t yet have figured all of these out. That means that you’ll find it easier to rank higher. And as the first search results page receives the vast majority of the clicks, that’s where you want to be.
- People doing longer searches in Google are past the browsing page and are more likely to know exactly what they want. That means that though there might be less traffic here, they’ll be more likely to convert. And that is more important than traffic.
So, for that reason, make sure you don’t just create content for the important keywords, also make sure that you’ve got landing pages that are designed for the more elaborate phrases that people will be searched for.
4. Support Mobile
More than half the people now access the internet via mobile. You don’t want to lose out on them, do you? That will both hurt your sales and SEO. That’s right, Google cares about whether you’re mobile compatible.
Fortunately, it’s not that hard to figure out whether you work for most devices. Just go into Google Analytics (you’ve got that, yes?) and check out the bounce rate for different devices. If your bounce rate for mobiles is far higher than for desktops, then your website is probably hard to access on a mobile device.
5. Find the Aggregators
A lot of people search for websites directly. Other people, however, prefer to use aggregators. And it is not so hard to understand why. Aggregators aren’t just good at finding websites and putting them into lists, they’re also good at separating the wheat from the chaff.
So, if you’re just starting out, hit up these aggregators and get a good SEO by proxy. All you’ve got to do is find the aggregators in your niche and let them know that you’re out there, you’ve got good content and that you’d love it if they could list you. Don’t be a jerk about it. If they don’t think you’re good for their site, accept what they’re saying graciously and get back to them six months later.
Every one that says yes, however, will mean that you’ll have another stream of traffic coming in and that you’ll rank better on Google as you’ve got a valuable link to your website and links are part of the strategy that Google uses to decide where you rank.
Final Words
The most important thing to remember is that Google does not determine your rank based on how good your website is. How could they? They only use algorithms and those can’t figure out how good your websites is (yet). Instead they rely on proxies. That means how many people link to your content and how illustrious those websites are, how much you get shared on social media, how much people bounce and whether they stick around for a long time before they do.
In other words, focusing on SEO strategy alone doesn’t work. You’ve got to make sure that you’re already drawing a steady audience to your site. Only in that way can you be sure that you’ll get on that first page (or even better that first spot) in the Google algorithm. What’s more, to stay there means constantly working to improve your services and to continue to draw in your audience.
If you can do all that, your site will be search engine optimized.
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