Have you ever asked yourself why SEO is important for your business? One of the most important aspects of any business is making sure that it is visible to potential customers.
This is where SEO comes in, as it can help your site rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), which can, in turn, lead to more website visitors.
SEO is, therefore, an essential part of any digital marketing strategy, and should be a priority for any business looking to grow online.
In fact, according to a study from Search Engine Land 51% of a website’s traffic comes from organic search.
How SEO Works
SEO is the process of improving your website’s visibility in the search engines so that it can be seen by your ideal clients when they carry out a Google search.
In other words, the goal of SEO is to improve the visibility of a website so that it appears higher up in search engine results pages (SERPs).
This can be achieved by optimizing your website content, improving your website structure, creating an internal linking structure, and building links to your site from other high-quality websites.
Benefits of SEO for small business
Here are some of the main benefits of SEO:
1. Increased website traffic:
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2. Improved brand visibility:
3. Increased ROI:
4. Greater customer engagement:
5. Reduced marketing costs:
Does your business need SEO?
All of these benefits make SEO a vital part of any small business marketing strategy.
So if you’re not currently using SEO, or if you’re not seeing the results then you need to create the best SEO strategy you can for your small business.
What Should Be In Your SEO Strategy?
Knowing this and then putting together a 6 – 12 month SEO strategy will ensure you keep your website on track for the top of the SERPs
What should you include in your SEO strategy?
1. Research the right keywords
Keywords are one of the most important factors when it comes to SEO. You need to research the right keywords for your business and then use these keywords throughout your website, including in the title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and body copy.
Keywords with search strings of three words or more tend to be easier to rank for and convert better than those with 2 or fewer.
A wordstream poll found that 50% of searches contained 4 words or more in their search string.
You can find ideas for your keywords through sites such as answer the public, using google trends or SEO tools such as Keywords everywhere, Ahrefs or SEMrush.
2. Optimise your website content
This means using the correct keyword density, formatting your content correctly, and adding images and videos where possible.
Using internal links and external links to relevant sources, make sure your images are optimised and use mixed media where possible.
Don’t forget to make sure that all links on the page are working and aren’t redirecting to a 404 error page.
3. Add fresh content regularly
I recommend to our clients that they aim to blog at least a couple of times a month, maybe even a couple of times a week.
Creating content clusters based on your keyword research will help you quickly form a blogging schedule and plan for your website.
Remember to create content not just for the search engines but write posts that will turn your readers into customers.
Include calls to action, internal links, external links, image optimisation, and even mixed media in your blog posts to give them the biggest chance of success.
4. Increase website loading speed
For every 0.5 seconds, it takes for your website pages to load you reduce your conversion rates.
Now, more than ever webpage speed is vital for your SEO success.
5. Improve website structure
That your website is easy for your web visitors to navigate their way throughout. You have to make sure that it’s easy for them to not only reach all the important pages on your site but that it’s easy for them to take action on your site.
With the rollout of Google’s Core Web Vital update, this is more important than ever before.
6. Build links from other high-quality websites
There are many ways you can do this including using HARO, being a guest on podcasts, contributing to articles, etc.
Plan Your SEO Tasks Carefully
Fitting these tasks into a monthly SEO plan will boost your site in no time.
Start in month 1 with prep work: A full SEO audit, keyword research, creating a content schedule. Giving the results of the audit a priority rating from vital/ASAP down to nice to have but not urgent.
Then you can plan out the months after that with content creation, on-page SEO tasks, technical SEO, and link building / digital PR tasks.
Don’t forget to include tracking in Google analytics and search console as part of your Strategy.
SEO Housekeeping
Other things to consider are your domain name, website platform, hosting company.
When it comes to your domain name, you can choose SEO-friendly domain names but it’s not a vital part of your SEO.
Likewise, some SEO platforms are more SEO friendly than others, my preferred choice is WordPress but that doesn’t mean you can’t use WIX, Shopify, Squarespace, etc.
When it comes to hosting for WordPress websites my favourite go-to is site ground as they have a lot of great SEO tools and their servers are fast which is a benefit for site speed. On top of that their customer service team is great.
Get In Touch
Hopefully, that post has helped you see why SEO is important for your business, and more than that I hope it’s given you a good idea of where to get started!
I’d love it if you could pin the post, or share the love on your social media accounts and I would love to hear from you in the comments section below!
Or if you would like to work with me on your own SEO strategy and SEO campaign then please just get in touch
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