5 Immediate SEO Boosts Tips: Making sure your online searchers can find you should be a top priority for businesses today. Here are several steps you need to take to make this happen.
Every small business owner needs a solid marketing plan. Traditionally, radio ads, billboards, magazines, and telephone directories were the places to stay. However, those days have already passed. Digital marketing is now the number one marketing strategy that companies should focus on in this age of mobile Internet search.
Think about it, what is the first thing you do when you need a new doctor, stylist or restaurant to go? You search on Google. So, you probably have to make sure you give your business every opportunity to present yourself as well.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is not an easy process. It takes a lot of dedication and patience for your business to appear at the top of relevant phrase search results. But when done right, the rewards can be huge.
While it requires a lot of effort and probably the help of your web developers, there are several things you can do on your own to give your business a great foundation to be found in search results.
5 Immediate SEO Boosts Tips
1. Claim your Google My Business listing
Every business needs a Google My Business listing. This is how it looks on Google maps and the small "map package" of companies with star ratings. These are the new yellow pages and it is the first place consumers go when they are looking for a new service.
If you don't know how to get started, Google has an excellent support site that can guide you in the right direction. Go there to start claiming or creating your Google My Business listing.
Google My Business lets you enter information about your business that helps customers find and know more about you before making a purchase. Here is a list of things you absolutely want to make sure you have in your listing:
- Name of the Business
- Speak to
- Phone number
- web site
- Hours (including special holiday hours)
- Description
- photos
2. Get and respond to reviews on Google
This goes hand in hand with your Google My Business listing. Reviews are very important for any small business, especially if they are new to an area or are trying to gain new leads over their competitors. But how can you get customers to leave feedback?
The best way to get customers to leave you feedback, without paying for a reputable management solution, is to simply invite them to do so. Satisfied customers don't usually think about leaving feedback, and insane customers are excited to give their opinion on a public platform. So, when you have a customer who is just excited about how wonderful their business experience is, ask them if they would be willing to give Google a review. The worst thing can happen is that they say no, and now that you have planted that seed, the next time you go online, they could leave you positive.
The next step with reviews after receiving them is to answer them. When you set up a Google My Business listing, you have access to sign in, which allows you to respond to all reviews you receive. It is important to respond to all reviews, both negative and positive. Give positive reviews a brief thank you answer while taking your time with negative reviews. For negative reviews, be sure to respond politely and professionally, although you may not believe what you just read.
One thing to keep in mind, too, is that it's not bad to get bad reviews. This helps you look human and not as if you were spamming a 5 star rating with player reviews.
3. Create more directory listings online
It has a Google My Business listing, but there are other websites on which you can create listings for free. These listings, commonly called SEO dating, give your business more credibility as Google views your verified business information from multiple sources. The more of these listings you have, the better.
It is important to keep in mind that when creating these listings, make sure that at least the business name, address and telephone number (also called NAP) are exactly the same in all of them. Any inconsistency can hurt you more than it helps you. This means that if you have the "LLC" at the end of your business name on Google, you need to make sure it is in all of your online listings.
Here are some of the largest online directory listings that should definitely appear:
- Bing
- Damn
- firm
- Citysearch
- ExpressUpdate
- MapQuest
4. Set up signals on the page
There are several signals on the page that Google looks for to help provide users with the correct information in the search results. Depending on the content management system (CMS) on which your website is built, you may or may not need the help of your web developer. If you have a simplified CMS, you can usually go to their website and find a field on each page for those items.
- Page title
- Meta-description
- headed
- body content
- Alternative image text
- URL
In each of these areas on any page of your website, you can add relevant phrases to help Google see what the page is about.
For example, if you are a landscape designer and have a landscape design page, you could include this phrase in each of these areas to help give your web site a good foundation to be found in. search results. Just make sure all the locations in your searchable phrases look and feel very natural. Unwanted keyword placements aren't good for Google or their customers' experience.
5. BlogThis!
Google loves to see new and fresh content on its website. Find someone in your company who can commit to producing blog content on your website once or twice. Apart from the good signals that writing new content is being sent to Google, some other benefits of blogging include providing valuable information to customers, producing shareable content for their social media channels, and providing more opportunities for others. Websites link to your content.
Here are some great ideas you can use to produce content for your blog:
- Useful articles with DIY tips relevant to your business
- Videos of 'how to do
- Infographic
- The involvement of your company in the community
- Upcoming Events
Even if you do these five simple tips, you will be ahead of most of your competition. But SEO doesn't stop there. It takes a lot more and a digital marketing specialist can help you get where you want to be.