SEO is one of the most talked-about digital marketing techniques in the modern age. As a brief description, it's the art of improving your website's search engine performance. Good SEO means you rank highly in relevant searches and see more clicks. It sounds simple, but it's anything but that!
For big businesses, SEO is simple - they can hire a full-time SEO Agency to handle all of it. As a small business owner, your resources are much smaller than others. Additionally, you may lack the knowledge of SEO and how to apply it to your marketing strategy. So, how can small businesses get to grips with SEO? Here are some pointers to follow:
Start with keywords
Keywords are the backbone of every SEO strategy. Essentially, they represent the words and phrases that are most closely linked to your business. These are the things people will type into Google when they want to find a company like yours. Part of your SEO strategy will revolve around adding keywords to your website, page titles, headings, and so on. Therefore, you must target the correct ones! Target the wrong keywords, and you will appear in the wrong results, bringing in the wrong audience. So, the best way to start your SEO campaign is with some keyword research.
Focus on the user experience
Loads of factors come together to decide how a website ranks in search engines. However, you can boil a lot of them down to the user experience of your website. For small business owners, this is the perfect thing to focus on. You don't have to worry about overly technical things, just create a website that appeals to the user. Some examples of great user experience are fast loading pages, excellent website navigation, fantastic content, etc. All of these things merge together to create a website that naturally performs well in search engines. You keep users engaged, which helps with things like the bounce rate - a key ranking factor.
Consider working with an SEO agency
While you may lack the funds to put together a full-time marketing team, you could afford an SEO agency. If you outsource this job to them, they will help run a strategy that's easy for you to follow. Loads of SEO agencies exist across the country, so be sure to do your research before choosing one. I recently saw an article that reviewed 438 SEO companies across the US, and it's worth checking out reviews like this to settle on the best options. From here, you will learn a lot more about SEO, allowing you to potentially handle things without an agency afterwards. At the very least, you will see a good return on your investment thanks to more web traffic and more leads.
There you have it; how can small businesses get to grips with SEO? It's a strange concept as SEO is both simple and complex. The idea behind it is simple; you improve your search ranking and get more web traffic. However, the nuances run deep and it is very complicated. Hopefully, these tips set you off on a path to get started.