When you’re craving a juicy burger, then need to find a dry cleaner shortly thereafter, where’s the first place you go to find what you’re looking for? If you’re one of nearly 1.2 billion people in the world, you use Google.
As the world’s highest-visited search engine, Google connects consumers and users to the products and services they demand most. And, 70% of the time, the most selected products and services are on the first page of search results. So, as a business owner or marketer, how can you ensure you’re one of the lucky few to make it to page one? It’s not luck at all. It’s search engine optimization (SEO).
Whether you’re running a local restaurant or dry cleaning service, a well-developed SEO campaign can increase your website traffic and your brick-and-mortar foot traffic. For franchise organizations looking to increase their candidate lead flow or generate more business for their individual franchisees, a successful SEO campaign is a crucial piece of the marketing puzzle.
Executing a successful optimization campaign is easier said than done. Yet with a little patience and a few expert tips, you too can implement an effective SEO campaign. Use these tips to see what you can do to increase your traffic, online and onsite.
Prioritize a local presence.
When it comes to generating in-store activity for all locations of your business, you first have to prioritize a local presence. In-location awareness is easy enough to accomplish — engage with your customers, develop monthly promotions, partner with a local charity, sponsor a youth organization or sports team, etc. Creating a strong online presence, on the other hand, requires a little more tactical work.
Optimizing your online presence for mobile users is the first step in setting the foundation. It’s 2018 — if your website isn’t mobile responsive, you’re failing to capitalize on a huge demographic of the population. According to Google, more searches are happening on smartphones than computers. Add to that the continued growth of “near me” search terms (i.e., “burger restaurant near me”) and your website better stack up against surrounding competitors.
Outside of the technical web design elements required for mobile responsiveness, it’s also critical to ensure that all of your business information, such as address, phone number and website are consistent across all of your online profiles. This consistency should carry over to search engine directories, social media sites and consumer review sites. Optimizing your local SEO listings and search results can help get your restaurant’s name and location distributed across as many platforms as possible.
Constantly update and optimize content.
Don’t be naive and think that simply optimizing business listings and establishing a mobile responsive website is enough to increase your search rankings alone. No, a high-quality SEO campaign must include consistent content creation and on-site optimization. In particular, when creating content, you have to keep two very specific and very different audiences in mind — your customers and Google.
Start by creating a blog, posting weekly for at least the first six months of its existence. Ideally, it’s best to continue posting weekly, but in today’s hectic business environment, it can be difficult to maintain that rigorous schedule. At the very least, you should post twice a month. Fresh content is a great way to keep your audience engaged.
Whether in-house or agency-based, not only should your content creator maintain consistency, he or she should also have the expertise to optimize your blog and website for keyword search rankings. Those keywords are exactly what Google wants to see. Now, those without SEO experience may think it’s as simple as keyword loading, i.e., plugging in select keywords randomly without developing desirable and relevant content. But, Google is much smarter than that. In order to gain Google’s attention, you must strategically marry keyword optimization and reader experience. Organizations that can do that effectively will see the best results.
Secure backlinks and increase authority.
Another huge component of developing online authority and increasing traffic is earning mentions and, more importantly, backlinks on third-party websites. This can be accomplished through a few different tactics.
One of the most effective methods is by earning secured media coverage through public relations. Think about it like this — when you create a brand new website, your traffic numbers are low to nonexistent because people — and search engines — don’t know how to find you. Now imagine that your name is featured and linked on a website like Forbes, which reaches nearly 200 million website viewers a month. If you can attract even a fraction of that traffic to your new website, you’re talking about double, sometimes even triple the visitors.
Of course, earning those types of mentions and backlinks may take years, so as you work to establish your business presence on and offline, start small and work your way up. Start with business-specific organizations — Chamber of Commerce, business directories, Yelp — then work on connecting with local news organizations. From there, build your PR campaigns out like a web, expanding a little further each step — from local to regional to national news outlets.
But remember, in order to establish these types of relationships you have to provide something of value to each organization. Offer original bylined content, or exclusive access to “secret recipes” or special announcements while always keeping your audience’s interests at the root of your shared information.
As the attention surrounding your business grows, so will your traffic. Remember, the powerhouse businesses of the world didn’t start out that way — it takes years to develop a reputation in your local markets, just as it takes years to develop your authority on the world wide web. So be patient. To paraphrase the famous line from Field of Dreams, “ If you optimize it, they will come.”