Improve your ranking with help of these small business SEO techniques and strategies. Drive traffic and enjoy your success!
A Guide to Using SEO Effectively for Your Small Business
Companies providing SEO services today get really popular because of the increased online competition. Businesses are fighting for each potential customer and get as much traffic as possible. Whether you’re a successful online writing agency, such as ukessaynow.com, or an owner of a small online store selling watches, you need to take care of your online presence and search engine optimization in order to survive the competition.
Of course, if you want to get the most effective results, hiring a professional service or at least a freelancer with experience in SEO is a better idea. However, we all know that being a small business owner usually means being limited in budget. That’s why we’ve come up with a few simple but working tips you can start following yourself before or instead of addressing a professional.
Google and Research
The word “Google” is now known not only as a name of the leading search engine on the Web but also as a synonym for the verb “to search”. It’s obviously a good idea to start dealing with SEO by researching what is in trend and who your competitors are in Google. However, don’t make a mistake by limiting yourself only with this search engine. Research Yahoo and Bing too or you risk missing some growth opportunities. Also, when doing your research, take into account where your target audience comes from. In Russia and Asia, there are other search engines you might even have never heard of.
Take care of your presence everywhere
If your target market is the USA, there are dozens of ways to get a local prominence and make people search for your business online.
- Social media
People search things not only in Google or Yahoo but also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networking platforms. They have become an important component of all effective SEO strategies. So, if you want to stay up-to-date and build your reputation correctly, get an account on all those popular social media websites. However, don’t overdo here. You need to analyze where your target audience spends more time and focus on promoting on those platforms. For example, if Myspace is not where your customers are, you shouldn’t be there either.
It’s not the end when you’re done with registration. The key to your success in social media is being active. No one cares about your Facebook account unless you start publishing interesting and useful content. This may include product releases, event advertisements, articles on general topics related to your niche, customer reviews or stories, news about your business and the industry in general, etc.
Now, simply posting is still not enough. Your customers will soon get bored and unfollow you. A perfect solution is to stay in touch with them. Your followers will definitely enjoy the possibility to get in contact with you, so keep a live conversation going, reply to all comments, and involve people in discussions.
- Yelp
Yelp listings are being indexed by all major search engine companies. If you want people to know about you, you need to get into the listings. The profile of your business will contain all the details about it, contacts, photos, customer reviews. It’s not enough just to sign up. You need to take care of your profile just like you take care of your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
First of all, it means your Yelp profile must look visually attractive so that people wouldn’t leave the page without giving some positive feedback for you. In case you didn’t get it yet, your Yelp ratings depend entirely on the reviews of your customers. So, make sure you have done everything to get a positive review.
One excellent way to motivate your customers to leave positive feedback is to offer them a discount or give them something for free while they are at your place. You can go a traditional way and use paper flyers for that, or you can get modern and send messages and push notifications via your mobile app.
- Quora
Quora is a place where people seek answers to their questions. It’s a search engine for people who need expert opinions, meaning it can become a perfect place for you to engage with your target audience and promote your products or services. But to earn credibility, you need to show that you truly are an expert in your niche, not simply write promotional posts.
Your SEO strategy for Quora may look like this:
– Search for questions within the area of your expertise.
– Plan your answer and think it over a couple of times to make sure you will offer value to the reader.
– Give valuable information and answer the question itself. Remember that Quora is not designed for “wordy” and “salesy” content.
– Add a bit of promotional style and link to the content on your website or social media profile that gives a more detailed answer to the question or offers a solution to the problem stated in the question.
- YouTube
The one platform you must surely have an account on is YouTube. They say seeing is believing, so getting visual with your audience is crucial for building trust. If you sell some products, there are dozens of things you can show to your customers, e.g. visual buying guides, product presentations, promo videos, tutorials on how to use your products, and much more. Put yourself into the shoes of your customer and ask yourself: would you rather read a tutorial or watch a video instead? It’s pretty obvious.
One thing you should remember for good is that people don’t like being sold to. Yet, they like being educated and feeling appreciated. Therefore, be careful with posting videos that sell and focus on informative video content. Here are just a few more short YouTube recommendations:
– Don’t make long and boring videos.
– Take time to write good titles and descriptions.
– Use tags, annotations, and links in your videos.
Your YouTube channel will gain popularity if you create a reputation of someone who knows the industry they work in and provide the audience with relevant content.
A few Words to Conclude
Following these steps, you will optimize your online presence and enhance your visibility. If you’ve decided to do your SEO on your own, research as much as you can and educate yourself about it. There are many useful tools you can use online that will help you all the way. Good luck!
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