Not only are SEO experts considered essential today, but they are likely to remain a critical part of the online infrastructure for many years to come. SEO businesses are therefore more secure than most. However, if you want your SEO business to be successful, then you need to start it off on the right foot. Here’s how.
Get Ranked on Google
If you want other people to take your SEO business seriously, then you need to be able to demonstrate your skills to them. One of the simplest ways of showing that you know what you are doing is to get your own website to rank as high as you can on Google.
You should be aiming to get your website to the number one result for as many search terms as possible. You don’t need to be in pole position for every single search term; however, you should be able to demonstrate to prospective clients that you are able to capture the low hanging fruit. For example, if you will be launching your SEO business in Arlington Virginia, you should be aiming to place near the top for search terms like “SEO business Arlington.”
Some keywords are much easier to target than others. Don’t be afraid of sticking to the easiest targets in the beginning; you can always reach for the stars later.
In any case, you need to be able to demonstrate to your clients that you have a good understanding of what makes for effective SEO.
- Engaging content: The single most effective tactic for raising your SEO score is to produce consistently worthwhile and engaging content. If you are regularly uploading high-quality content to your website, you will encourage more organic shares and ensure that your content hovers near to the top of search engine results pages.
Not only should your content be engaging, but it should also be produced with an awareness of who your target audience is. That means that you need to carefully consider the length of any content that you post as well as the media that it contains. Some audiences are only looking for text-based articles, whereas others will demand a more multimedia approach.
- Include keywords in URLs: One of the most commonly overlooked techniques for improving SEO is ensuring that your URL structure and website architecture is optimized for search engines. Wherever possible, you should aim to include your primary keywords within the URL for your content.
- Optimize individual pages: It is important to remember that Google grades individual web pages, not entire websites. You should, therefore, consider your SEO on a page by page basis, focusing on optimizing individual pages and targeting just a few keywords at a time.
Study for a Business Degree
If you want to start an SEO business, it can be hard to know what sort of academic degree to pursue.
While there are SEO training courses out there, you would be hard-pressed to find a bona fide SEO degree. However, anyone who is considering starting their own business, regardless of the field that they want to work in, can benefit from a bachelor of business administration. This is a business administration degree that prepares students for managing their own business; it teaches skills that will be useful to business people across the board.
Make Sure You Know Your Stuff
If you want to be taken seriously as an SEO business, you need to be able to demonstrate to potential clients that you know what you are talking about. Here are just some of the essential skills that any SEO business leader needs to have:
- Keyword analysis
- Strategies for building user interaction
- Experience with social media marketing
- Writing SEO-friendly tags and meta descriptions
- HTML programming skills
- Producing quality content
If you know what you are doing, starting an SEO business can prove to be a very fruitful endeavor indeed. However, even if you are the most talented SEO expert in the world, you will still have to contend with all the usual hurdles that trip up most SEO professionals. Search engine optimization is a perfectly fine foundation for a business. However, if you want to make it in a highly competitive industry like this one, then you are going to need to know what you are doing. Make sure that you start your SEO business off on the right foot, or you will have failed before you have begun.