The world of SEO might seem like a daunting and complicated one for those who haven’t encountered it in their business before.
Used by millions of companies around the globe, implementing an SEO brings an array of benefits allowing you to build trust with your customers, creating a better user experience (which grows your brand and revenue) and bringing in new opportunities into your business.
If you are just starting out in the field or are looking to invest in it, here are five hacks that you can use to help create a strategy and implement it within your business:
- Look into SEO tools
By doing a quick research, you can see that there are many SEO tools out there that you can utilise. If you want to outsource your SEO needs, there are also an array of companies that you can use. If you are a startup and are looking for a cheap way to gain experience in SEO, you can always use Google’s Keyword Planner.
A clever and free tool, you can use it to search key terms and see how they are ranked. You can then use the most popular key term within your meta descriptions, titles, etc. This will not only allow your website to rank higher and stand out from your competitors but can also showcase what products or services you are offering your potential customers.
2. Ensure that the content you are writing is aimed at the customer
Many people have the idea that you need to fill the title or meta description with keywords. Yes, as mentioned above, a key term can be useful in terms of ranking.
But you shouldn’t spam them. This will have the opposite effect of what you want to achieve – it will convince customers not to click on your website and Google will rank it lower as they believe that people won’t read it.
Before writing your titles, content and meta descriptions you should take a step back and think about what your customers are really looking for. It may be a case of trial and error, but it is important that you understand your customer’s needs. Otherwise, your business simply won’t be successful.
3. Make sure that you share any content that you post on social media
Social media is also a crucial tool that many businesses utilise to promote their products and services. Before you post content on social media, however, it’s essential that (if possible) you can make your website mobile-friendly.
As more people are using their mobiles for online searches instead of their desktops, having a mobile-friendly website is vital. It will make your website user-friendly and will help them to purchase your service or products easier.
You can then post your content on your companies Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram pages. This will help you to humanize your business and will appeal to a wider audience.
Try and post on these social media platforms are frequently as you can – even scheduling posts for them. This will ensure that customers remain interested in what you are selling and they will be more likely to engage with you.
4. Ensure that you internal link
Internal linking is a useful element that you can add within your website content. This has the benefit of continuing the customer journey through your website to relevant products, blog posts etc. It will also inform Google (as well as other search engines) that your website has more to offer on the particular topic.
5. Use Rich Snippets alongside your meta descriptions
Firstly, what is a Rich Snippet? Put simply, a Rich Snippet is a structured data markup that an SEO professional can add to their HTML. this will make sure that Google understands what is contained within a particular web page.
They don’t necessarily count towards rankings, but they are nonetheless important to an SEO campaign. They can allow your web page to stand out from your competitors, make sure that your click-through rate is ever-increasing, and showcase a greater relevance in the content (as they display additional information).
Those are just some of the SEO hacks that a beginner can utilise when they are starting an SEO campaign. These, however, aren’t the only hacks that exist.
So in order to get a further understanding of SEO, it is important that you do thorough research on the topic and how you can introduce it into your business plan. SEO is ever-evolving too, so it is essential that you stay up to date with the latest trends that are out there.
As technology develops, as will SEO trends and tactics. So make sure you know (or are starting to fully understand) your stuff. This will give you an advantage over your competitors and allow your rank on the search engines to increase.
A successful SEO campaign will also allow you to receive more revenue, keep customers interested in what you are selling and will increase the value of the content that you are putting out into the world.
A few things to consider
You do, however, have to understand that it might take a while for your business to become noticed. SEO is a tricky business and it will have to be strategically planned in order to stand out.
You will need to be able to appeal to both your target audience, as well as other audiences in order for your business to be successful, and this is something that can take time when implementing an SEO campaign. Also, your return on investment may take a while to come through.
Yes, SEO is an inexpensive strategy, but you might not see the results of the work that you have put in for a while. You will also have to ensure that you are fully optimising your content, otherwise, Google simply won’t rank your website.