If your business has a website, you will have no doubt worked hard to make sure that it looks great. Having your brand out there on the internet for customers to see and shop, is vital for any company in this day and age.
But your website is nothing without visitors, and getting people to come to your site is an entirely different battle altogether.
The internet is a vast place. It is home to some two billion websites, and the number is continuously growing. When an internet user searches using Google or Bing, they’re on a journey. They may now know where they will end up, but they know what they want to achieve when they get there. Their search term could yield them several million results at least, and your website may be one of those results.
But when someone is faced with millions of hits, they won’t look at them all. It’d be surprising if they even looked at the second page of results. The first small handful of sites that get returned on the search results page will be the only ones with a real chance of getting visited. Those are some minuscule odds of picking up a visitor from a single search term.
But yet many companies thrive online, and there are so many success stories. Using search engine optimization, it is possible to push your company’s website higher up in the results page.
To do this, you need to show Google that your website offers the right answer to your potential visitor’s search terms. Your website needs to appear to have an authority to the algorithms that Google uses. When the success of a search is based on the relevancy of the websites on offer, getting as much of the right information on your site as possible is paramount.
Develop A Search Engine Optimization Strategy For Your Business
Having an SEO strategy is vital for any business who wants to drive trade through their website. Having someone in-house who is primarily focused on maintaining this aspect of your business might be necessary. Alternatively hiring SEO services from an external agency with the expertise could be an option that suits your needs.
There are three main areas in which SEO can focus on. On-page optimization looks at improving the quality and relevance of your content and your website in general. Off-page SEO looks at driving your website through external factors such as social media and using links to your site from elsewhere on the internet. Local SEO can be useful if your business also exists offline, and you want your customers to find your physical location. This can mean making sure you are listed on directories and can be found on Google Maps.
Getting The Right Keywords
Google’s algorithms hunt for keywords that match the search terms. If you’re providing content that is rich in all terms that are relevant to your business, then you’ll do well. Keeping on top of including these keywords within your site is a vital ongoing task.
Use Google Analytics to track the types of things that people are searching on to find you. Use this information to determine the search terms that you should be using for your keyword search.
You can pay for AdWords, which will allow your website to turn up at the top of results for specific words searched. These will be sponsored links at the very top of the search.
A Smooth Operator
Having a website that opens very quickly is essential. Your visitors don’t want to hang around for a page to load. If your site does not charge for them, there are always plenty more that they can visit instead. Get your website tuned up. People would rather get to the information or products that they need quickly than watch a flashy presentation. Wasting people’s time with gimmicks will not win you any favors.
Similarly, your site needs to be set up so that it can load on smartphones and tablets. Mobile browsing accounts for more internet searches than desktops, so having a fully functioning site that can be viewed on a smaller screen is crucial.
The internet of things is the most recent area of rapid growth, with many homes using personal assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa. Having your site optimized for devices such as this to be able to read them is something you may also wish to look into.
Off-Page SEO
Your website has a domain authority score. This is given to it by Moz.com, and it can change according to the way that the site links to other websites. This looks at inbound links, and outbound.
Your domain authority says how influential your site is, and gives an indication of where it might sit in a Google search. The score is between zero and one hundred and can be raised through linking your website with those of a higher domain.
Affiliate marketing is a technique that allows others to promote your website on their blogs. For every click-through that generates a sale, they will earn a commission from you. Often, affiliate bloggers will have quite a large following, meaning your site has the potential to find a wider reach.
Using blogger outreach programs, a specialist company can take your website and have it linked in a guest post on an influential bloggers website. Often the agencies supply the content, so the influencer does not need to do anything. They get additional content, and you get your site promoted to a more significant readership. But importantly, Google will view the association between your site and the influencers, and it’s almost as though they are vouching for you. Your website will appear to be more legitimate.
Your company cannot afford to ignore the power of search engine optimization. The internet is an ever-evolving place, and as people’s browsing habits change, so do algorithms. Keeping up with the developments in this area will make the difference between being in the top results, and being lost in the millions of other results.
