You need to have a credible online marketing strategy if your ambitions to grow the business is going to have a chance of becoming a reality and SEO is also an integral aspect of getting you noticed across the web.
Making full use of available digital marketing services can help to unlock the growth you are seeking and having a strategy that is fully aligned with current trends should boost your chances of success when you are trying to attract new customers and generate higher sales figures.
It starts with an audit
Before you can implement some new changes to your marketing strategy it pays to understand why SEO is so pivotal to your success and it is also very relevant to conduct a root and branch review of what you do now, so that you can identify what changes need to be made to improve your visibility and response rates.
When you bear in mind the fundamental fact that an estimated 75% of internet users don’t bother to scroll past the first page of search results it should provide you with the right impetus to get your SEO strategy spot on.
An SEO audit of your website will help reveal what issues are preventing you from generating enough traffic and sales to allow you to met your sales targets.
You will find that there are SEO companies who offer this service if you don’t know how to do the audit yourself, but there are some basics that you can check for yourself.
These include making sure that all of the web pages have SEO descriptions and meta titles, whether each page has been properly optimized for SEO keywords, and, crucially, whether your URL structure has been correctly optimized for search engine efficiency.
Fix your problems
Once you have completed a thorough SEO audit you will almost certainly have identified a number of key issues that need fixing.
Make a list of all these problems, which are likely to be things such as having page titles that are too short and using subheadings that are either too short or too long for SEO optimization.
What you will often find is that it is a combination of lots of seemingly trivial and minor page setup errors that need fixing but when you put them all together they can add up to a more substantial problem overall, which is that your pages rankings and authority are being diminished by these issues.
Get on board with big data
A highly relevant current topic is big data and with so much information being shared about all of us it is hardly surprising that we are seeing far more highly targeted adverts, thanks to the likes of social media giants like Facebook and not forgetting Google either.
You should keep in mind that a search engine like Google is not just providing a results service but it is learning from every search made and making use of that data in a load of different and lucrative ways.
You can apply that same logic to your SEO strategy and take the same big data approach to all of the nuggets of information that come your way in terms of the keywords used in a search to find you.
This valuable insight into what customers are searching for and what they want shouldn’t be wasted.
A good way of harnessing this data would be to review your most popular pages via Google Analytics and check out things such as which posts get the most shares.
Using a social media platform like Quora can also help you get valuable feedback which you can then use to hone your SEO strategy accordingly.
Make use of AI
If you haven’t already heard about Google’s inaugural machine learning algorithm this is a development that you need to get up to speed with as “RankBrain” has the potential to change the face of SEO going forward.
The basic premise of what RankBrain is all about is that Google is effectively transferring its valuable web search results to AI machines and it seems to be offering you the reward of a higher search engine ranking if you deliver the right results for Google.
Getting to know what those ranking factors are will help you to optimize your site for RankBrain, which could prove to be a decisive move.
Find those elusive long tail keywords
Reddit is widely regarded by marketing professionals as a valuable resource for keyword mining and that is especially true when it comes to long tail keywords.
It is well worth carrying out regular research on Reddit as you will most likely uncover some untapped keywords that you could use to your advantage by driving more traffic to your site when you use them.
When you do your searches keep a close eye on which threads and subreddits come up, if the same topics are appearing regularly, there is a good prospect of the same search terms being used in Google as well.
Recycle old blog posts
Another good SEO habit to get into is updating and upgrading your old blog posts
Republishing them should help give your SEO traffic a timely boost.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
It is worth remembering that old adage and applying it in an SEO context.
When you spot some impressive killer title and description tags being used in Adwords it is likely that others will have the same thoughts and that probably means these ads are enjoying plenty of click action.
Play around with these impressive titles to create something similar for yourself.
This could be a great shortcut to getting more clicks.
Check out the competition
Staying on the same line of thinking, it is also worth checking what exact keywords your competitors already rank for.
Treading in the footsteps of someone who has already had some success in cracking the keyword puzzle is really an example of reverse engineering, and we all know that goes on too.
It’s good to share
Finally, it really pays dividends to adopt the strategy of optimizing your content in order to achieve a high level of shareability.
Shares are the oxygen that breathes life into your Google ranking so work on creating quality content that people will want to share.
Quality content and shareability are the cornerstones of any decent SEO strategy.
If you adopt the SEO strategies mentioned here there is a good chance that you could achieve a worthwhile uplift in your SEO success and that can only be good news for your bottom line.