In today’s hyperconnected world and highly competitive business environment, it’s crucial for a business to be able to reach its target audience online with its core message, products and services or latest promotions.
This is where search engine optimization comes (SEO) in. If done right, and in combination with other marketing and technical strategies, SEO can help your business get good rankings and land on the front page of Google search. And with the front page of Google receiving 95% of all web traffic, while other pages receive 5% or even less, you really need your organization to rank as high as possible.
To help, 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the best ways to enhance SEO and why it’s essential to take action as soon as possible to improve your online presence.
Founders provide advice on improving your brand’s SEO efforts.All photos courtesy of individual members.
1. Create A Diverse Content Marketing Strategy
Google uses many factors when ranking websites so there’s no one trick that’s going to keep your site in the No. 1 position. You need to focus on creating original content that’s relevant to your readers. It also helps to have social media content linking to your website. Whether you’re creating blog posts, videos, social media posts, or anything else, look for topics and keywords that are currently trending. –Shawn Porat, Judgment Marketplace
2. Develop Authoritative Content
Create content relevant to your market that is better than the existing content for a particular set of keywords. That often means writing long-form authoritative content, content that can compete with professional publications for depth and accuracy. Everything else — performance, on-page optimization, technical optimization, social media promotion — should build on that core asset. –Justin Blanchard, ServerMania Inc
3. Be Consistent With Your Content Posting
One of the best ways I have found is to add consistent quality content to your blog. Think about what people are searching for and do some basic keyword research and provide a quality blog about the topic delivering value. This will help you in multiple ways, including generating additional free traffic to your business, plus delivering value to your readers. – Chad Keller, Growth Stackers
4. Invest In An SEO Tool
These days, competing with other organizations’ SEO rankings can be a challenge, and almost impossible without the help of SEO software. My firm invests in a number of tools that make our jobs a lot easier, and cuts down our keyword research and optimization time. Some of our favorites are Moz, HubSpot’s keywords tool and Yoast. –Lindsay Mullen, Prosper Strategies
5. Audit Your Competition
A website’s search engine rankings change based on three things. First, it’s the site’s own optimization. The second, and often more overlooked component, is the site’s positioning relative to its competition. Finally, ranking depends on the searcher’s intent. If you can find ways to optimize your website against your competition to make your site more relevant to the evolving mind of the searcher, you’ll inevitably move up in the ranks. –Logan Lenz, PartsMarket
6. Create A PR Strategy For Backlinks
To increase the domain authority of your site you need to build strong backlinks. You can do this by guest posting on relevant blogs and sign up for free PR sites like Help A Reporter Out, which sends you daily emails of relevant publications. –Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
7. Create Long-Form Content
The first page of Google for any given search term is comprised of long-form content pieces with an average of 1,800 words. The best way to tangibly and quickly improve your SEO and marketing strategy is through comprehensive long-form content implementation, including but not limited to FAQ and headers within targeted keyword themes. Make sure the keywords you use are well researched. –Matthew Capala, Alphametic
8. Optimize Pages For Your Niche
For most business websites, particularly for e-commerce shopping sites, one of the most tangible methods for improving your SEO strategy is to do extensive keyword research on your site and your competitors’ sites. In this assessment process, it is critical to be realistic. Make sure that you have pages with good content and meta tags relevant to those ideal search terms. For key terms your site does not rank for, build incredible pages with great content and optimized meta tags as well. –Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors
9. Add Long-Tail Keywords
Adding long-tail keywords to your most popular pages will let Google know that you are more relevant for your main keyword and allow potential clients to find your site more often. Another form of this is called latent semantic indexing (LSI). You can find LSI keywords at the bottom of the page when you search on Google. Make sure you use these in a sentence that provides value, do not just list them on your site. –Brandon Stapper, Nonstop Signs
10. Combine Content And Influencer Marketing
Quality backlinks tangibly improve SEO rankings. Original research is one of the best ways to get links. However not all businesses have the bandwidth. In such cases, involving influencers in your content creation the next best option. Find influencers using tools such as Tapinfluence or Upfluence. Build genuine relationships with them and involve them in the content creation process. –Liam Martin, TimeDoctor.com
11. Create Pillar Articles With Table Of Contents
When you write a lot of content, sometimes Google gets confused as to what to prioritize. That’s why pillar articles are important. These are very detailed articles that show how to do something. To take it one step further and become a Google favorite, create a table of contents in the beginning of the article that links to the different sections of the post. –Jared Atchison, WPForms
12. Focus On Real, Readable Content
It goes without saying that you should always make sure that your keywords are proper and appropriate given the current Google guidelines. After finding the correct density, focus on clear and concise writing. Do not get too caught up in the technical requirements since, depending on your product, the readability of your writing may be what actually converts the sale — not just a keyword-optimized page. –Ryan Bradley, Koester & Bradley, LLP
13. Understand Your Market
Businesses often think of SEO as a standard set of techniques, when in reality, your SEO efforts differ widely by market. In 2018, Google doesn’t just serve three ads and ten organic results: they serve answer boxes, local results, carousel cards, and more. Optimizing for each type of result looks different, so you need to customize your efforts depending on how your potential customers search. –Tim Chaves, ZipBooks Accounting Software
14. Fully Flesh Out Titles And Meta Descriptions
I make sure to maximize the character limits for all tags and meta descriptions. I’ll do this by adding qualifiers to the titles of articles such as “important” or “shocking,” as well as adding the current year for updated articles. It also helps to add numbers to both the title and meta description. With a robust title like this and a meta description to match, I can easily reach the second or third listing on the first page of a Google search. –Bryce Welker, Crush The LSAT
15. Focus On User Experience
Many traditional SEO factors such as links and keywords are still important. But Google is, more and more, emphasizing user experience. This includes page loading speed, appealing design, being mobile friendly and having an intuitive menu. You really can’t lose by focusing on UX because it makes your visitors happy and is also good for SEO. –Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting